Sunder, What caused the problems with the aluminum housing was the assembly method chosen by Dana. The diff aluminum center section was assembled with the gears and carrier to the proper preload, THEN, they pressed in the axle tubes which completely f'd up the carrier preload.

I used to repair these diffs with as little as 10k miles with destroyed carrier bearings. The factory fix was to disassemble, inspect and replace any parts damaged, usually only the carrier bearings, clean the housing and axle tube completely, then, when reseting the preload, only add .001" shims over zero clearance. Basically only one thousands inch preload, instead of the normal .010"

After about 2000 year model WJ's, the Dana factory started to assemble the tubes to the housing, then build the center section. Not much of a problem after that! They almost lost the Jeep axle account over all the problems!

I haven't actually tried it but a Dana 44 iron diff from a late TJ may be a near bolt in swap with the '93 -'98 ZJ!