How are your Dana 35s doing and what size tires?

Pcleaners2

Pcleaners2

TJ Enthusiast
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Pacifica, CA, United States
starting this thread to see how bad these dana 35s really are.
i know they do suck but wanna see how they hold up with cetain tire sizes
this is mainly for tire sizes 33" and under bc we all know its bad knews for 35" tires

i guess the answers will be mostly either :
1)doing just fine
2) toast
 
'99 SE, 31" tires, 4.10 gears. I have a feeling it's a race between upgraded axles / gears / Trutracs and an unplanned disassembly. Oh, about 120,000 miles on the clock.
 
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No issues after 9 years and 25,000 since we have owned it.

Daughters daily driver and mild offroading the first 7 years with 33's, 3.07's, stock shafts and open differential.

Last couple of years as our weekend toy. Moderate offroading and desert exploration on 33's with 4.10 gears, Yukon chromoly shafts and Detroit Truetrac.
 
dla said:
No issues after 9 years and 25,000 since we have owned it.

Daughters daily driver and mild offroading the first 7 years with 33's, 3.07's, stock shafts and open differential.

Last couple of years as our weekend toy. Moderate offroading and desert exploration on 33's with 4.10 gears, Yukon chromoly shafts and Detroit Truetrac.
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i meant to say used correctly as the overdrive gear
 
I've been all over the place in AZ, with 33's and an auto trans and a completely stock Dana 35. I don't do serious rock crawling, but I've never broken anything in it. I've owned the Jeep for nearly 11 years, and about 40k miles of use.

Dana 35's get a bad rap for sure. Many just parrot what they hear on the internet. Don't get me wrong, they aren't really strong, but they are no where near as weak as claimed.
 
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Pcleaners2 said:
your 4.10 gears with 31s is perfect right? im thinking of 4.10 instead of my 3.73 cuz 5th is slightly useless even in overdrive
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Not really. When I do the axle builds I'm going 5.13's. My four angry squirrels need the gearing for the tight, steep terrain around here. Also, anytime I take off, it's give it a little gas and slip the clutch a little. There's just nothing at idle or just off idle with the 2.5. I'm grabbing low range way more than I should be off road.

Your six would be a different story.
 
StG58 said:
Not really. When I do the axle builds I'm going 5.13's. My four angry squirrels need the gearing for the tight, steep terrain around here. Also, anytime I take off, it's give it a little gas and slip the clutch a little. There's just nothing at idle or just off idle with the 2.5. I'm grabbing low range way more than I should be off road.

Your six would be a different story.
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oops thought it was 4.0 my bad
 
97 all stock 205k miles with 30” ko2s. PO used as hunting Jeep. I just drive around town. So far so good.
 
33x12.5 Toyo Open Countries with the stock 3.07's, it is a dog around town and sucks on the highway. Zero issues though and I do wheel it pretty hard. I have 4.88's on order (they were supposed to be here today but the business is closed due to a fire right beside them,,,,,,,,DOH!)
 
Currently 3.07s with 33s x 10.5s. When I got the Jeep the PO (6 years ago) was running 33x12.5s and he said he just had to do a complete rebuild of the rear axle. No idea what happened though. Recently I replaced a rear pinion seal and the flange, which was slightly worn and I would guess that was the original flange which has seen around 265,000 miles.

It's definitely open though which is pretty good, but I'd rather have just a little bit more traction at times. In the next year or 2 I will be regearing to a blistering 3.55 ratio and ARB lockers front and rear and will do a revolution super 35 kit in the rear and chromoly 27 spline (OEM) in the front. Not sure if it's a must, but I'd rather get home wondering about it than having to walk out knowing it didn't quite hold up. I do drive easy though and I practically never have the traction to break things like a lot of the rock guys have.
 
Ran 35s with 3.55 gears and didnt have an issue, though I never went off road with that combo short of a dirt trail. Dont get the wheels hopping and you will be fine, the axle shafts are the weak point.
 
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33's with 4.10 gears on my SE. PO only commuted for 213k. I've wheeled it hard once and will be doing so again in a few weeks. So far so good.
 
89grand said:
I've been all over the place in AZ, with 33's and an auto trans and a completely stock Dana 35. I don't do serious rock crawling, but I've never broken anything in it. I've owned the Jeep for nearly 11 years, and about 40k miles of use.

Dana 35's get a bad rap for sure. Many just parrot what they hear on the internet. Don't get me wrong, they aren't really strong, but they are no where near as weak as claimed.
Click to expand...

Just like anything else... they will break when you do things they weren't designed to do. Eg.. running 35's locked.

Never heard of a Dana 35 breaking on 31's. If so, I would suspect driver stupidity over a failed design.


...

Mine are fine.. stock Dana 35 on 31's. 14 years and going.

Lots of steep hill climbs and descents... rock gardens.. and off camber crawls.
 
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I ran my stock Dana 35 for a few years with 33x12.5 mt tires. Never locked it, never hopped it off road. Back up and try a different line.
It never broke or gave me any problems. I knew I wanted gears, lockers, and 35's. I swapped it out when I found a suitable replacement.
 
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