It's not worth the time/effort to shorten a Waggy 44. If your worried about the width, just run spacers on the rear to widen the rear to match the front. Your only looking at aprox. 1" on each side, doubt you'll even notice the difference.

You can't convert the Waggy 44 to 5x4.5 bolt pattern. You can convert it to 5x5.5 bolt pattern though. Just use ford/chevy/older cj outers and you'll be fine. Alloy USA has new D44 shafts for the XJ/MJ that are drilled with both the 5x4.5 and 5x5.5 bolt pattern. Thats the easiest way to convert the rear to match.

I've made this argument time and time again and typically everyone tells me to shut up. But i'll make it again anyways. Dollar for dollar I think your better building a D30 than you are to swap in a Waggy D44. I think that you'll get much farther as far as strength goes with a D30 for the money you sink into it than the simple cost of swapping in a D44. This will vary greatly on what type of wheeling you do, as well as what size tires you want to run. But everyone talks like the Waggy D44 is the end all answer to all the issues with "going big". Actually the amount of money to get the D44 under there PROPERLY and deal with the bolt pattern issue is NOT cheap. You'll have well over $1000 when it's said and done. For $1000 I can build a pretty bullet-proof D30. Just run the #'s prior to deciding. I actually had a Waggy D44 I was planning on swapping in and actually got it for a REALLY good price. Long story short, I no longer own it as I'm just building the D30 for less money.

As far as lift goes, what size tires do you want to run? I will also probally burn some bridges on this one, but I'm very adimate about keeping the COG (center of gravity) low. On my XJ I run 35's on 5" of lift, on the MJ I run 35's on 6.5" of lift. I'd really like to lower the MJ a bit to be honest with you but going SOA and the amount of flex out of the rear that I currently have has kept me from doing so. At 6.5" of lift I have room to clear 36's or even 37's without going any higher. KEY IS BUMPSTOPPING CORRECTLY. This is something that 9 out of 10 people overlook. It's KEY to a properly setup suspension. I'll argue to the grave that uptravel is not everything in a suspension system. We run solid axle's, once one side hits the bumpstop it FORCES the other side down; thus making your rig more "flexy". I've tested on our RTI ramp with bumpstops and changing the uptravel a simple 2" less has made the RTI score more. Everyone wants to talk about uptravel, but I'll be the one to tell you it's jack squat when it comes to suspension travel and how "flexy" your rig is.

Just remember that 6.5" of lift and beyond is not cheap to do properly. Longarms are a MUST at this height, and it requires a lot more things to be addressed if you want to run a good suspension system that works well together.

You probally won't ever see me runing more than 6.5" of lift on the XJ/MJ ever in my lifetime. I just think beyond that is to much, and to much stress on the uni-body that our Jeep's have. I've wheeled with guys with more lift than that and the Jeep is just way to tippsy for my liking. I can even name a few who's lowered their Jeep back down and said that they enjoy wheeling more now that they can tackle more stuff. Just remember, the higher you lift DOES NOT MEAN that your Jeep is more cabable offroad.

Ok enough ranting....