I see 1/2 ton, coil sprung dana 44hp's all the time. Can these be converted to a leaf sprung, 3/4 ton, 8-lug?

 

You can put on the knuckle out and make it 8 lug, but the later 70's D44's from the 150/bronco's had a cast section in the tube where the radius arm c's were. The mid 70's D44's had a solid tube from the center chunk out to the inner knuckle. That would be the axle to look for if you wanted to go that route. The bigger question would be why would you want to do that? The reason to go 8 lug is to match up to a 1 ton rear, so simply converting a 1/2 ton axle to a 3/4 ton setup gains you nothing in strength, just the matching lug pattern for a much stronger rear end.

 

^^^ truf

why the hassle of swapping coils to leaf? The coil spring/radius arm setup is better in almost every way over leaf springs. Infact, I cant think of one good reason to swap from coils to leafs.