The jeepfan.com 2004 TJ Unlimited has a factory Dana 44 rear axle and a Dana 30 front axle. For the kind of off road action this Jeep will see these axles will serve the Jeep perfectly. All TJ Unlimited models included a Dana 44 rear and most were equipped with a Trac-Lock posi traction differential. These work surprisingly well but performance worsens over time with wear to the clutch packs and running the Jeep over rocks will quickly expose the lack of traction when a wheel is in the air.
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A locker for both axles was needed and the ARB Air Locker was the first choice. The beauty of manual operated lockers is that street driving is unaffected and operating the rear or both is totally under the control of the driver. The ARB Air Locker is a proven system with years of use under its belt.
Installing the lockers we picked up from Quadratec was part of a larger project for our TJU which included a new lift from Teraflex and 4.56 G2 gears. Be sure to check out those features.
If you are going to re-gear the Jeep doing it with the lockers will save some installation costs and time. The 4.56 gears were a good fit to the TJU and the new 33″ BFG Tires.
Installation of lockers requires the differential carrier to be properly set up within the axle housing. This requires special tools and skills. Often installation is best done at a reputable shop. We used OK Auto in Stewartsville, NJ to install the ARBs and G2 gears into both the Dana 44 and 30.
Locker installation can be performed with the axles in the Jeep but since a new suspension was going in too we decided to just pull the axles get the stuff installed, clean everything up and put it all back together.
We aren’t going to cover the full procedure of removal and installation of the axles, just some of the interesting parts.
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After the axles were removed they were cleaned up with some Simple Green and a good scrubbing followed by some fresh paint. They were loaded up into the JK and off to OK Auto they went.
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We didn’t stick around for the whole installation but Jeremy was kind enough to snap a few pics as he went.
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With the skilled installation completed the axles were ready to be picked up and the installation into the Jeep was next up.
