and to me, a well built rig is a well built rig, be it a jeep, toyota, suzuki or chevy or ford or whatever. my uncle has a '70 CJ5 that i'd absolutely kill for. it's nearly mint condition, kind of always been his summer cruiser.
whoever can trash a 20r and 22r, you have my respect. i've tried to kill these and i've never been able to succeed. i ran my 20R with a little over a quart of oil in the pan before for weeks at a time, i've revved all of my engines over 7000RPM numerous times and the only thing i've ever blown were carb gaskets
and oooh, the big bad dana 44. my 8" is every bit as strong, lighter and cheaper to work on than your 44. you can keep it. how about that dana 30 front end?