Dana 44 Conversions
Tuesday, October 10, 2006 (21:54:25)

Posted by 51hornet

Folks, I am reposting here a nice writeup by Mark Hudson on the upgrading of the Dana 44 rear ends for Hudsons. Its really great info for the Hudson community and I wanted it easily accessible. Here it is: I wanted to resurrect this thread to bring some more information to light regarding the Dana 44 rear end. As you may know, the Fairborn Axle conversion to update to flanged axles is available even now. However, budgets being tight for yours truly, I wanted to do something a bit more sequential in terms of spending my money and eventually getting to the same place. The Fairborn Kit is $495.00. The original tapered axles are 19 spline to work with your existing carrier, or they can have axles made that have the newer 30 spline end. I called the folks at Reider Racing, as Park suggested. The reason was to hunt down the different carriers that are still made for 19 spline axles. Something interesting came up in the discussion. The original limited slip carrier as used by both Studebaker and the original 427 Shelby Cobra (Dana 44 equipped), is still available new. And guess what, its 19 spline. And, its the preferred piece for restorers of the previous mentioned vehicles as it is able to be certified as original. Reported by Reider also to be the best limited slip/positraction carrier out there for street driven vehicles.

Link to the Carrier in question:

http://www.reiderracing.com/danapowrlok.htm

Its an original Dana Powr-Lock. Cost is $400.00 This means, you can replicate the Jack Clifford hop up of using a Studebaker Twin-Track (Its actually the Dana Powr-Lok) with the rear ratio of your choice, which is also Dana original gears @ $159.00. By using a 19 spline carrier, you can get up and going with your original tapered axles and be able to switch to the Fairborn flanged axles of 19 spline later. Or, all at once. You will also have to buy a new pinion yoke for the finer pinion splines produced currently. Dana Power-Lock = $400.00 Dana Ring Gear and Pinion = $159.00 Dana 44 Overhaul kit = $100.00 New pinion yoke = $30.00 For $689.00, you have a posi-traction Dana 44 rear end of the ratio of your choosing. That you can also update with flanged axles for and additional $495.00. If the flanged axles are a bit much, you can run your original tapered/hubbed axles. If it was good enough for Carroll Shelby - I think it will hold about as much as anybody here is going to unleash upon it. and the good thing is, nobody will be able to tell anything about it - Its all Hudson from the outside with no fuss in the swapping. Mark Hudson