D44 detroit - broken axle shaft won't come out

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AwesomeJ10
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D44 detroit - broken axle shaft won't come out

Post by AwesomeJ10 »

My buddy broke his DS rear axle shaft in a 2003 TJ D44. It has 4.56 gears and a detroit.

We have a long piece of rebar trying to pound the shaft from the passenger side, out the driverside. But the piece of axle shaft won't dislodge from the carrier (which is still installed).

Ideas on how to get it out?
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Stuka
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Re: D44 detroit - broken axle shaft won't come out

Post by Stuka »

Ahh, those are a pain. Stupid necked down TJ shafts.

You wont be able to push from the passenger side to the driver side with a detroit (Assuming its a soft locker varient, not the old style from the 80's and 90's). While there is no cross shaft, there is a clutch assembly on each side that only have a very small hole in the center.

One thing I have seen work is a rare eath magnet on the end of a pole. It will stick to the tube too, so can be a pain. But will also stick to the shaft. But if the shaft is bound up on the splines, this wont work. One time witha D60 we had to pull the carrier caps and were able to move the carrier around a bit to get it knocked loose enough to pull it out with the axle housing tilted so it was in an incline (jacked up one side to let the other side droop).

teardown below:

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2017 JKU Rubicon
Pevious Jeeps: 1981 J10, 1975 Cherokee, 2008 JK, 2005 KJ, 1989 XJ

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Re: D44 detroit - broken axle shaft won't come out

Post by AwesomeJ10 »

I'll try and get some pics up, but we got the detroit out. The shaft destroyed the inside of the detroit, so it needs replaced.

So here is my question:

Is a 2003 TJ D44 (non rubicon) rear axle the same as, say an FSJ D44? I noticed that the TJ D44 has the carrier bearing shims are on the outside of the carrier bearings as opposed to FSJ D44 the shims are on the inside between the carrier and the bearing. I didn't know they were like that...

So are they interchangeable?
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Stuka
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Re: D44 detroit - broken axle shaft won't come out

Post by Stuka »

There are differences. I think it was in 2003 that the rear D44 changed. As for TJ's, the rubicon and non-rubicon D44 are the same except for the carrier. When the JK came out, the rubicon D44 has larger 32 spline shafts, X/Sport/Sahara got the standard 1.31 30 spline shafts. JK axle is also a "new-gen" D44 which has a 8.9" ring gear and MUCH larger pinion.

The TJ axle still has an 8.5" ring gear. And the rear carrier is interchangeable with older low pinion D44's. Also, older carriers have to have the ring gear bolt holes drilled out to fit the ring gear of the '03+ D44. But the axle housing are different to facilitate the outer shims. Although its not a large difference. I suppose an older housing could be modified to use the outer shims.

And its not uncommon for an automatic locker to be destroyed by the shock load of a shaft breaking.

EDIT: I should mention that I once setup an older D44 R&P and ended up not having the carrier be tight enough after putting the bearings on. So I placed a shim on the outside of the bearing. Drove it that way for many years with no issues.
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Pevious Jeeps: 1981 J10, 1975 Cherokee, 2008 JK, 2005 KJ, 1989 XJ

jamesdart
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Re: D44 detroit - broken axle shaft won't come out

Post by jamesdart »

I put trnyukon zip locker in my wag, I used tj gears. The zip locker came only with outer shims and the carrier shims from the install kits didn't fit the zip locker, I had no choice but to do the outer shims. It worked great all last year.
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