[Jesse]

hey everyone, i'm new to the whole zook and 4x4 scene, but have been learning heaps through reading through all your build threads.
and along the way realised i can fit a rear arb locker in the sj80 but no front one, i see some of you do the WT housing swap, but i have been wondering if the same could be done with toyota axles for the front and rear?

this is the front one im thinking of.. http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.ph ... parts.html

and this is the rear i am thinking of.. http://www.lowrangeoffroad.com/index.ph ... g-kit.html

i know it would be a rather large job but i am just wondering if it is possible? and what the main problems/hard to do parts would be?
any help would be greatly appreciated

[Fatzook]

Anything is possible, but if you have never taken on a job of this magnitude before, it may be best to involve someone who has, or just give it a miss.

Suspension geometry is kind of important.

[Jesse]

yeah i'm definitely not upto it, going to get one of my dads mates to give it a shot will be fairly long time away though haha

[Fatzook]

Jesse wrote:

going to get one of my dads mates to give it a shot

this doesn't sound promising at all

[ZookiDave]

I got lux diffs in my coily, deffinatly possible. But i bought it that way.

[Gwagensteve]

Jesse, I think it's a good opportunity to careful for through your options and figure out what you want to achieve.

Fitting those axles is going to be a very, very expensive job. Buying new, clean housings to work with is cool, but those axles are going to owe you a few thousand dollars once complete and ready to roll under your car, bearing in mind they still need gears, carriers, lockers, axles, knuckles, steering arms, spindles, bearings, hubs, rotors, callipers, and brake lines, and seals, along with new wheels.

Let's say you source all that stuff. Then you have to roll them under the car. Now you need to consider what suspension design you intend to run. The standard Coil sierra radius arms are very weak and quite short. It would be a good opportunity to convert the a three link (front) and maybe a double-triangulated 4 link rear, after all, you're already deep into custom fabrication because all the axle brackets will have to be fabricated from scratch.

You're going to have big clearance issues between the steering arms, panhard rod, chassis and sump. You can run the car taller to avoid some of these issues, but once you get on the "making it taller to fit stuff" wagon it's hard to get off and it's hard to avoid ending up with a trailer queen. You could also try a high-pinion front diff and bundera steering arms to keep the tie rod behind the diff, if you can find them. You'll need a custom tie rod and drag link though I think.

You'll want to ditch the horrible, horrible strut design on the front whilst you are at it. you could look at a separate coil/shock setup with bracketry lifted from a jimny or fabricate from scratch.

At the end of all this process, what size tyre are you planning on running? You are loosing ground clearance and adding width and weight compared to a suzuki diff, and that will tend to mean you loose some of the things that makes a suzuki work well. The car can't take the same lines it used to and the engine has to work harder to push the heavy diffs.

To compensate for the bigger diffs, you'll need bigger tyres to get the clearance back. Considering your car should be quite reliable on 31's in your terrain, I think you'd need at least 33's, maybe 35's to match what you had, which adds complexity and cost to the build.

Personally, I'd have an air locker machined to suit a coiler (apparently this isn't all that hard) or swap in a Jimny front axle assembly and rear diff ratio. It will be much less work than hilux diffs.

If you are already running 33" tyres and are suffering breakage issues, you should have specified, but regardless, swapping to hilux axles is a big job and might not really net much gain in your application from a custom locker in your front diff.

Steve.

[Gwagensteve]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Jesse, I think it's a good opportunity to carefully work through your options and figure out what you want to achieve.

Fitting those axles is going to be a very, very expensive job. Buying new, clean housings to work with is cool, but those axles are going to owe you a few thousand dollars once complete and ready to roll under your car, bearing in mind they still need gears, carriers, lockers, axles, knuckles, steering arms, spindles, bearings, hubs, rotors, callipers, and brake lines, and seals, along with new wheels.

Let's say you source all that stuff. Then you have to roll them under the car. Now you need to consider what suspension design you intend to run. The standard Coil sierra radius arms are very weak and quite short. It would be a good opportunity to convert the a three link (front) and maybe a double-triangulated 4 link rear, after all, you're already deep into custom fabrication because all the axle brackets will have to be fabricated from scratch.

You're going to have big clearance issues between the steering arms, panhard rod, chassis and sump. You can run the car taller to avoid some of these issues, but once you get on the "making it taller to fit stuff" wagon it's hard to get off and it's hard to avoid ending up with a trailer queen. You could also try a high-pinion front diff and bundera steering arms to keep the tie rod behind the diff, if you can find them. You'll need a custom tie rod and drag link though I think.

You'll want to ditch the horrible, horrible strut design on the front whilst you are at it. you could look at a separate coil/shock setup with bracketry lifted from a jimny or fabricate from scratch.

At the end of all this process, what size tyre are you planning on running? You are loosing ground clearance and adding width and weight compared to a suzuki diff, and that will tend to mean you loose some of the things that makes a suzuki work well. The car can't take the same lines it used to and the engine has to work harder to push the heavy diffs.

To compensate for the bigger diffs, you'll need bigger tyres to get the clearance back. Considering your car should be quite reliable on 31's in your terrain, I think you'd need at least 33's, maybe 35's to match what you had, which adds complexity and cost to the build.

Personally, I'd have an air locker machined to suit a coiler (apparently this isn't all that hard) or swap in a Jimny front axle assembly and rear diff ratio. It will be much less work than hilux diffs.

If you are already running 33" tyres and are suffering breakage issues, you should have specified, but regardless, swapping to hilux axles is a big job and might not really net much gain in your application from a custom locker in your front diff.

Steve.

[Jesse]

thanks heaps for the info steve, yeah as i started looking into it more and more and started adding up how much labour and parts was going to cost i soon decided not to, having the front air locker machined to suit sounds like a very good option! would you happen to know who i would be best to go to for a job like this?