[email protected]248.877.0590
There are only three types of JK Dana 44 front axles: bent ones, ones that will be bent and those under Jeeps that will never go off road. No one likes throwing away money. And that’s exactly what you fear when considering whether to upgrade your stock axle or replace it with a new aftermarket housing. We talked to Mel Wade at Off Road Evolution to supplement our own good and bad experiences with these front axles and help you make the right decision for your JK. Mel sells complete Dynatrac ProRock44 axles as well as axle sleeves and gusset kits for stock axle housings. There are couple of factors that drive him to suggest one solution over the other to best match his customers’ needs.
I’m at 36,000 feet as I punch out these words on my computer. This isn’t the way I wanted to be writing this article. The plan was to break out the defibrillator paddles and revive my ’46 CJ-2A for a triumphant return to Moab. It’s been 12 years since the Jeep or I have attended the annual event, and we were both ready to do it again. But, as often is the case, the list of things to do on my Jeep grew at a rate that outpaced the amount of time left before 2014 Easter Jeep Safari kicked off. So I closed the garage door – even if my Flatfender compadre couldn’t make its return to Moab, I still could.
There’s no buzzkill like a Jeep that overheats when you’re out on the trail, soaking in the beauty of nature and trying to mount the next obstacle. Or when you’re on the afternoon commute in traffic, for that matter. There is simply no good time for overheating. And for 99 percent of the Jeeps on the road, there’s no reason for it either. If you approach your cooling system with the same systematic approach as you do selecting gear ratios and tire size, it’s pretty easy to keep your engine cool.
They come together in suspension kits. They go hand-in-hand. But do you know what springs and shocks really do, and what characteristics for each that you’re looking for? Usually these aren’t things you care about unless you’re doing a custom suspension and ordering springs and shocks separately, or there isn’t an off-the-shelf lift kit for what you’re doing. But even for common vehicles, understanding the job of each of these suspension components can help you diagnose suspensions issues or optimize a suspension for your vehicle and how you use it. Read more on fourwheeler.com.
Bent front axles in JKs are just about as common as JKs themselves. If you add 35s and ‘wheel your late-model Wrangler hard, we’ll guarantee your axle has more shape than Megan Fox. Even mere 33s and daily driving can eventually tweak the Dana 30 and 44 under these vehicles.
Naturally, you can buy a bullet-proof complete axle assembly to bolt in place, but that’s overkill for many JKs. If you have stocker that you’re building into a decent off-road machine, however, you can add some beef to the axle under your Jeep without taking out a bank loan.
Last year, 88,000 JKs were recalled for potential automatic transmission overheating. You might think that the fix was to install a transmission cooler or some other mechanical upgrade to better control the transmission temperature. Nope. When you roll into your dealership for the recall, they install a trans temp idiot light, and they instruct you to pull over and park your Jeep if that light ever comes on. Right.
For right around $50, we came up with a solution that we feel a whole lot better about: adding a Flex-a-lite transmission cooler.
The age-old issue of a vehicle sitting idle way longer than intended. This article shows the steps you should go through to clean the rat’s next out of the air cleaner and revive an engine. Particular care is taken to minimize damage to the engine components and maximize the likelihood of it actually running.
We’ve seen all the advertisements and heard all of the pitches. How these aftermarket programmers can add 25 horsepower instantly, increase fuel economy and make you better looking. So, we decided to pull together all of the programmers and power modules available for a nearly-new Jeep Wrangler and test the things that you’re probably wondering about if you are the inking of about buying one of these.