[Gwagensteve]

I'm sure many of you are aware that I've been building full floating, Vitara based rear axles for Sierras for some time.

I started this thread viewtopic.php?f=14&t=38240 back in 2013, but I'd been experimenting with the idea for some time by that point, and I was aware that Spidertrax offered full float axles for Sierras for a while years before.

I've personally built quite a few, and we have a bunch of them in Victorian club, where they are generally trouble free.

However, since 2013, the landscape has shifted a little.

We're driving harder terrain, and we're driving more aggressively. We're also building cars that generate more traction. (there's a number of radius arm and link cars build or being built, and these don't have the "fuse" of axle wrap to save axles.

My junk can break rear 26 spline floater axles pretty easily, regardless of material or quality of design. (and we've seen a range) and we've had a couple of others go in the club, generally, when the car is jammed and the whole sidewall of the tyre is on the ground.

I am aware of a few people (on here) with different ideas about how to get more rear axle strength into a Suzuki package, and this thread is to serve as a discussion area for our ideas.

First though, a sidebar.

Quote:

Why not put hilux/patrol/landcruiser/whatever big heavy car axles under it and call it good?

Here's a few reasons.
I've wheeled plenty with axle swapped suzukis. I've driven a couple and watched them on the same obstacles as suzuki axled cars. They're generally at a disadvantage. This is due to weight, ground clearance, and width.

There's issues with clearing a large pumpkin on the driver's side front without adding excessive height. If we're having to trade off height, weight, and capability to avoid axle breakage, that's not a win in my book.

The key to Sierra capability is keeping the car light. An axle set designed for a car with a 3000kg+ GVM isn't consistent with keeping the car light. The huge increase in unsprung weight also makes the tail wag the dog at speed or if the car starts to hop or bounce.

Another key to Sierra capability is keeping the car narrow, between the inside of the tyres. This is where the sierra advantage of line choice and staying out of everyone else's holes comes to the fore. Wide sierras are less capable than narrow sierras.

The combination of solid pinion spacer/doubletough CV's is completely reliable even with a 35" tyre. I don't need to change the front. It's just fine.

I'd also like to, ideally, keep my light "slip on" rotors and 5 lug wheels. I have a lot of money in my tyre/wheel combination (most of us do) and don't want to throw it away because I need 6 lugs.

So this isn't a solution for everyone, but it's a solution for many of the people who were interested enough in a 26 spline floater, so the same reasons outlined above.

Porter8.Luke has already done some work on this, and as I've been chatting with him about it, I'll reflect his findings.

THIS IS NOT COMPREHENSIVE and it's not a how-to. It's a discussion. There's obviously more details I haven't included, and all the info might not be 100% accurate.

Step 1: The centre.

Two observations.

A Hilux third member (diff housing) will fit in a Vitara axle housing with a redrilled bolt pattern and a 3mm spacer. *this 3mm thing comes up a bit)

Pro: Hilux diff centres are plentiful, strong, have lots of locker options and ratios.
Con: Hilux ratios only match a couple of Suzuki ratios, and they're not the common ones. Yes, there is a 4.1, 4.3 and 4.88. but the deepest common ratio is 5.29, not 5.12, and the mid 4.X ratio is 4.5 not 4.65. these differences are too great to get away with if we're trying to match an existing front axle

A Hilux full spool could be machined to take a Vitara ring gear and fit in a Vitara third member. It's around 3mm bigger in a couple of key dimensions. The carrier bearings are almost identical bore to Vitara. This probably means annealing a spool before working it and then having it re-heat treated.

That's two ways of getting to 30 spline.

Tanshi - you had a hummer H3 side gear option for a Vitara airlocker to increase spline- was that the 28 spline side gear from the GM 8" axle? What was your plan for the spindles?

Now to the hard bit- the spindle.

a 30 spline axle WILL NOT fit through a sierra/vitara spindle. No way.

A few people have looked at different options.

Ford/Dana 44 is one.

Pros: It's available from wreckers, It has a 5 on 5.5 stud pattern.
Cons: bulk and weight. the factory ford splines are incompatible with Toyota (I'll deal with this later) . The freewheeling hubs are really long, so with narrow or minimal offset rims, the hub snout could become vulnerable. The factory rotors mount behind the hub (not slip on). I don't think there's a readily available spindle adapter to weld on.


Hilux is another option.

Pros: It's available from wreckers. splines will match the diff, (30 spline) drive flanges and general assembly is very similar to Sierra, just bigger. There's plenty of parts/upgrades etc. You could even bolt a Sierra drive flange on and run 26 spline axles (lol!) There are adapter plates to weld to 3" axlehousings off the shelf, such as those made by front range fab

https://frontrangeoffroadfab.com/full-f ... sing-ends/



Cons: weight, bulk, heavy brakes, way too much caliper for the rear. 6 lug hubs /brakes would need to be redrilled to 5 lug, which is a bit fiddly and compromised, as the holes get pretty close.

A bit of research turned up another option. It's maybe pricey, but might work.

F450 unit bearings, Low range drive flanges.

It took me a while to land on this as a solution.

A few sources supply Ford F450 unit bearings (which are normally 35 spline, 8X170mm wheel stud pattern) to 5 on 5.5. Trail gear used to offer these, but they seem to only offer 6 lug now. Theirs were about USD$265 and likely a Chinese copy. Branik offer a Timken alternative.

http://branikmotorsports.com/99-04-supe ... 35-spline/



And here's the bearing pocket which gets welded to the axle. Obviously, the caliper mounting brackets are redundant.



However, the catch here is that those burly F450 bearings only come with drive pucks for 35 and 40 spline. (and likewise, free wheeling hubs for 35 spline) We can't get a 35 spline axle into a Hilux or Suzuki centre, because we're limited by the carrier bearing ID. There is always the possibility of having a custom drive puck made for 30 spline toyota, but I think I've come across another option.

Trail-Gear offer the longfield studless hub for toyota, which replaces the Aisin style hub that we're familiar with from our suzukis to a ford style hub which is internally splined, like the F450 unit bearing. It contains a ford style drive puck that's splined for 30 spline toyota.



I think that's the last link in the chain.


A word on axles.

In all of these cases, a custom axle would need to be made, much like our existing 26 spline full float axles.

The ford D44 axles are 30 spline and are very close in diameter as toyota, but the splines have a different pressure angle - the angle of the teeth of the spline. Whilst its possible to have an axle splined differently at each end, the small change in diameter and spline cut makes my OCD hurt and creates scope for design and manufacturing compromise. I'd much rather have the axle splined the same at both ends.

[BlueSuzy]

Hilux?

[Gwagensteve]

I don’t semifloat.

[BlueSuzy]

Cruiser axle then? 30Spline, Heavy full float hubs, convert to discs.

I've thought of Full floating with this setup, Haven't needed it yet on stock Bundera semifloat 30splines. Will pull them out for a spline check/inspection next few months.

[tanshi]

I had cj7 hubs and spindles for mine.

I was going to use dana44 30 spline if i could find them

[Gwagensteve]

That’s the problem with Jeep- actually I was just reading a thread about this on Pirate. 30 spline for Jeep hubs is difficult. Ford is easy, but then you have the massive FWH that’s flush with the edge of a 7” rim.

[alien]

Apparently Mitsubishi run the same stud pattern (not sure on center bore?) but there could be something in their range that fits??

[fordem]

Which Mitsubishi and the same stud pattern as what? The two in my drive way both run 16 rims with a 5 x 114.3

[tanshi]

There is a Mitsu raider in the US that ran 5 x 5.5

there a chev spindles that will fit ford hubs or something like that.

[tanshi]

In all honesty, for the amount of work and expense i'll just be grafting hilux pumpkins into 40 series tubes and have a smaller diff centre with offset pumpkin and full float axles

[Gwagensteve]

Cool, that is a solution, but I don’t really like the weight of the Toyota housings, and there’s still a bunch of custom even in that setup, but it’s workable if you have the room to run a similar setup in the front, don’t mind swapping on 6 lug wheels, or don’t mind mismatched PCD. (Or redrill the rear hubs and rotors.)

A Mitsubishi Raider was a rebadged dodge Dakota. Driveline was all North American. Mitsubishi did licence build cj3b’s for the Japanese and Asian market for many years and they used Dana style axles with 5 on 5.5 PCD. (There’s in fact some other strange Dana legacy stuff in Mitsubishi’s- like the transfer case bolt pattern.)

[tanshi]

How much do you think the proposed diff will weigh, with 30 spline axles, hubs, hilux diff, etc?

my rear 80 series diff in the buggy with rx8 caliper conversion weighs 102 kg 34kg of that is diff centre. So i'd expect 40 series width with hilux diff to be around 85kg

my front is heavier. its an 80 front diff with the bigger rear diff grafted in. its 137kg. knock that down to probably 122kg if you go down to lux width and down to hilux centre. then down size from the super heavy 4pot calipers to something more reasonable. i think you could happily get down to around 115.

not sure howmuch lighter you will get than that

[Gwagensteve]

I’ll try and work some weights out based on what I have and can find out.

[tanshi]

if it helps, my front 80/60 series housing weighs 56 kilos
the rear weighs 37 kilos

[rpmwrx]

I'll just leave this here...

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2784&start=270

Refer to page 10... Something like this Gwagen, obviously on a smaller scale. Your junk deserves a custom rear end, It would certainly keep the weight down and maximise rear diff clearance with the hex housing shape.

[Gwagensteve]

Those are impressive for sure, and make sense if you're starting with a combination that doesn't exist. However, these housings are much heavier than a Vitara rear housing which are thin wall, and I shave my housings to have <3mm of clearance under the ring gear, so there's little gain in clearance.

Another *sort of* option has presented itself, although its not light - The boys in the club have been getting hold of F150 4X4 front high pinion D44's for peanuts. The hubs etc are all 30 spline, they're 5 on 5.5, and wide enough that I think it's possible to remove the steering knuckles and still match Sierra rear width as a full float rear.

However, there seems to be some doubt that a high pinion D44 is strong enough for the rear of a Jeep even on 33's. The Vitara rear R&P is currently reliable at our weight, gearing and traction level, so it would be a shame to gain stronger axles and loose gearset strength. And they're obviously heavy.

[Gwagensteve]

A bit more research and foruming has raised the idea of converting the D44 to D50 gears the "Jana 54" - this strengthens the R&P 40%.

http://www.jantz4x4.com//jantz.php?p=detail&pro=jana_54

This might be the ticket.

Yes, the housing will be heavy and there will be loss of ground clearance. On the flip side, the heavier tubes should resist bending and the High Pinion will help with driveline angles and keep the bottom uni off the ground.

Steve.

[vet 180]

Steve you have obviously avoided the spidertrax options. Out of interest what are your reasons?


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[Gwagensteve]

Cost. Properly price up a complete spider 9- they’re achingly expensive. 9” architecture also consumes a lot of power and puts the pinion really low so it’s down in the dirt.

[vet 180]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Cost. Properly price up a complete spider 9- they’re achingly expensive. 9” architecture also consumes a lot of power and puts the pinion really low so it’s down in the dirt.

Thought it might be the reason. It all adds up


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[Gwagensteve]

It’s also a cost vs need thing. If I was breaking 35 spline then the increased cost of a 40 spline spider 9 is probably not significant, but to jump from a very cheap 26 spline setup that’s only *just* too weak is a step too far I think.

It’s also not a “lifetime” axle for me. I have other plans that this axle isn’t compatible with so I don’t want to overspend on it.

[alien]

What's the cost benefit of just stocking up on 26 splines until you implement your 'lifetime' option?

[Gwagensteve]

Poor TBH.
Also, the inconvenience of breaking them and pulling them out. Because the my tend to fail when the whole tyre sidewall is on a bank, the hub isn’t all that accessible, so I have to drag/drive the car out of where it is to swap the axle.

I’m leaning back towards hilux recentre and redrilled hilux hubs. I can manage pretty much all this myself with a few laser cut parts which I can CAD myself. With a $170 spool and a pair of axles I really have to buy anyway I’m pretty set.

I’m not entirely happy with the ratio mismatch front to rear, so I’ll consider 4.3 or 4.88 for the front, which I currently have spent no money on.

[303zuke]

You probably already know this, but Toyota 80 Series and 105 Series front diffs are same size/spline/locker availability as Hilux diff centres, but are high pinion giving about 4 inches more driveshaft clearance. Factory ratios are 4.11, but aftermarket gears are avail in 4.56, 4.88 and 5.29.

A high pinion diff is nominally weaker in a rear axle than a low pinion, but a Toyo 8" high pinion will still be significantly stronger than a Sierra or Vit rear.

[Gwagensteve]

I actually doubt that they’d be stronger than a vitara rear 303. Whilst people have experimented with high pinion fronts in the rear of hiluxes, they don’t last, and trail gear, for example, are specific they are front use only.

A hilux R&P is only slightly larger than vitara. Running that on the coast side of the gear would make it weaker than Vitara rear I reckon.

[ZUZUKI]

Back to the original post.......and I have zero knowledge if these options have been previously considered and rejected, and zero knowledge of the details, but:
Other vehicles that use a Suzuki stud pattern include:
Daihatsu F10-F20 / Rocky / Feroza - these were typically heavier than a Sierra, with bigger engines, but about the same width, so might have had a beefier axle set of some use?
Lada Niva
Asia Rocsta? maybe

Aftermarket support will be next to nothing (lockers?) for all of these, but may be there is some ratio compatibility?
Info could be hard to find, the axles themselves probably harder to find.
Anywho......just a thought.
Rgs, Michael

[Gwagensteve]

I haven't researched any of those in detail, mostly because rear axles they're all semi float. What I hadn't considered is if the front spindle from something like a Sportage or Feroza has a big enough bore to pass a 30 spline axle, and/or might accept a toyota drive flange. Interesting, hadn't thought of that. *runs off to research*

[Gwagensteve]

hmm. Sportage is 26 spline outer, Feroza is 24.

Can't really see either of them taking a 30 spline axle.

[Gwagensteve]

Sportage doesn't have a removable spindle.

[BlueSuzy]

Just some hilux codes/ratios/tech with escort brakes.
https://rsmotorsport.com.au/files/Ident ... _Hilux.pdf

105' front drive flanges will mostly likely be 30spline which are same 6 stud as the normal generic aisan hubs

Landrover front/rear hub? Have seen that they bolton. Look big enough for a 30spline but heavy though