Replace Dana 30/44 Pinion Yokes
This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a while, and just finally got around to it. I’m not a huge fan of the strap style yokes, and wanted something a little stronger. I’ve heard of people drilling out their existing yokes and using the u-bolts in place of the straps, but I’m a little skeptical of that process, because those yokes were not intended to be used with u-bolts. That’s why I headed to the junkyard and managed to find two Spicer pinion yokes off of Dana 44’s that were the u-bolt style. These yokes were intended to use the u-bolts and it shows when you compare the two side by side.
For those of you wondering why I got two Dana 44 pinion yokes, it’s because the Dana 30 shares the exact same yoke as the 44, so they are interchangeable. Before we get started, I just wanted to point out that the Dana 30 and 44 do not use crush sleeves. If you have a different axle that uses crush sleeves, there is a completely different process on chainging put the yokes that I will not get into here. This how-to is shown with my Dana 30, but the Dana 44 process is exactly the same. It took me less than 30 minutes to do each axle. Here’s a picture of one of the yokes
First you have your old strap yoke.
Next remove the straps.
Once the straps are removed, drop the driveshaft out of the way, but be careful not to let the caps fall off and lose all the needle bearings. Now we have access to the pinion nut.
Now comes probably the most difficult part, if you don’t have an impact wrench…..and that is removing the pinion nut. I have an impact gun that I used to easily remove the pinion nut. Once the nut is off, you can also remove the washer.
Now you should be able to easily pull off the old pinion yoke.
Once the old yoke is removed, just replace it with the new yoke. I had to put a block of wood up against the front of the new yoke and take it all the way on with a hammer. Then you can reinstall the washer and pinion nut again, and torque to spec.
Now all you have left to do is reinstall the driveshaft using the new u-bolt kit that yu need to get from your local auto parts store.
I took both my old strap style pinion yokes and threw them into the storage box in my Jeep as trail spares, just in case I manage to break one of my new yokes on the trail.
