[mud_muncher]

Ok, I have our annually hard core club trip in 1 mths time and i wont do this trip with standard cv's. Even though my old CV's were "upgraded" I still broke them (1 cv and 1 front axle).

I have been waiting to see if Joeblows Cvs would be ready but it looks like they are delayed so I need to look at alternatives. I am running 34" swampers with twin lockers and an M16a. I dont mind spending around the 1g mark, but for this price I would like them to be 95% bullet proof ( alomost similar to double toughs). I know that there is a few brands in europe aka DGtunning but how actually reliable are these? Any input or ideas will be great! (btw, no time to fit hilux difs ect ect)

[monley]

Trail jimny make cromo cv/axles, but they are very $$$...

"jimny bit's" starting making "HD" axle/cv's, but i never heard any thing more about them.

http://www.jimnybits.co.uk/shop/hd-upra ... log_6.html

A few of the guys in the UK run after market cv/axles (most twin locked 31/33's), but i'm not sure where they get them from.

Maybe join up there and start a thread...

[Bugsta]

I have Trialjimny axles with CV's from Suzisport. I believe they are basically heavy duty Sierra CV's sourced from the states.

I have still broken one CV but under extreme conditions.

The TJ axles are 26 spline at the diff so you will need side gears from a rear or get yours resplined as I did. Not sure what other axles have the same setup.

[31zook]

Will Sierra cromo's fit a jimny front end with rear side gears? Mine is 99model, I heard something about WT/NT jimny's....

[ajsr]

http://dgtuning.kgbinternet.com/dgtuning/OpenProdukt.do

brifields for jimny? I ran them on my seirra with 34's for a long time

[monley]

ajsr wrote:

http://dgtuning.kgbinternet.com/dgtuning/OpenProdukt.do

brifields for jimny? I ran them on my seirra with 34's for a long time

You have to have deep pockets if your going to get anything from D&G

[wolf_rt]

In my GQ Patrol i used to run heat-treated (de-tempered) CV's that had a extra ring welded on the outer... They were very good for the money...
I haven't heard of any suzi people doing the same, but i cant see why it wouldn't work?

[Bugsta]

The TJ set I got came with birfield rings. I made the mistake of removing them on the advice that they 'weren't necessary' and immediately broke one.

In short, I am very pleased with the axles but the CV's are just not good enough. When dealing after the purchase he came back with invalid responses and did not directly answer my queries. I gave up in the end.

[christover1]

These guys could help. They made up my stub axle conversion for drivers side axle/.cv.
http://www.driveline.com.au/contact-us

Driveline Services Australia

4/15 Burgess Road

Bayswater, Vic 3153

Ph: +61 3 9761 6663

Fax: +61 3 9761 6664

Email: melbourne@driveline.com.au

[monley]

How much strength would be gained in heat treating a stock set of cv's/axles?

[Fatzook]

monley wrote:

How much strength would be gained in heat treating a stock set of cv's/axles?

Maybe 10-20%. It depends largely on the way they do it.

[31zook]

Not much I would guess...

I'm pretty sure a 1.3 with a birfield will fit in there. $25 for near chromo strength, but on stock Jim axles...

[SierraDan]

You should send them to Mick Garner.
Heat treated and a birfield ring welded on. Shouldn't cost too much and worth a shot.

Do you want to pull one of my chromos out and have a look one day?

[gregc]

Has anyone considered putting sierra knuckles on a jimny housing? Or even starting with a wt sierra front and widening it?

Surely the best outcome is to end up with off the shelf axels from trail tough with a custom axel shaft on one side.

The trail tough cvs are both basically unbreakable, and readily available / sensibly priced.

[monley]

Fatzook wrote:

monley wrote:

How much strength would be gained in heat treating a stock set of cv's/axles?

Maybe 10-20%. It depends largely on the way they do it.

Thanks Pete. What hardness would they need to be? The old man has the heat treaters in at work ATM, so i can get them done now if i know what hardness they need to be.

[Gwagensteve]

monley wrote:

How much strength would be gained in heat treating a stock set of cv's/axles?

WTF?

Axles and CV's are already heat treated. Heat treating them again is going to do approximately nothing, and implies that Suzuki don't know how to heat treat an axle in the first place, which is nonsense. The stock CV's/axles are already heat treated as effectively as they can be for the material chosen.

A) They would have to be annealed before heat treatment. Re heat treatment would be required if you were, say, welding a ring on to the CV bell. You will need to completey disassemble the axle/CV to perform this, as the bell, axle, cage and balls are all different materials, so will behave differently. The only reason to re-heat treat an already heat-treated part like an axle is in order to weld, machine or modify it.

B) 10-20% improvement is stuff all (even if it's achieved, and I am very sceptical of this - no offence Fatzook) and won't be proved by any sort of science for your application - it will only be a guess. Are you willing to destructively test a CV to prove the effectiveness of re heat treating? Are you going to anneal and re-heat-treat an already worn CV?

C) Heat treatment for lower surface hardness can result in a slightly higher yield but also higher wear - "race" ring and pinions are an example of this. Heat treating a CV stock Bell for lower surface hardness is pointless as it will wear VERY quickly. Note that a number of Cr-Mo replacement CV's for toyota applications aren't rated for use in constant 4WD 80 series due to the high wear rates. "race" ring and pinions last only hundreds of Km on the road as they are so soft.

D) Heat treatment will shrink the material slightly. Re-machining might be required as, for example, the balls won't be re-heat treated so they won't have shrunk but the inner and bell will. (And even if they were, they will shrink at a different rate as they are a different material)

*rant on*

There is so much smoke, mirrors and pseudo science about metallurgy for 4WD's. This stuff isn't black magic, humankind has been making stuff from metal (and heat treating it) for hundreds of years. Heat treatment and material selection is well understood by the industry. Normally, 5 minutes of googling will debunk most of the nonsense rumours that float around about the magic things that can be done with mundane steels. A 22 spline axle is too small for the front of a suzuki. Material selection and/or special processes won't change that, they will just result in a more expensive broken part.

Don't even get me started on cryogenic treatment. It's almost impossible to find any real data to prove the worth of cryogenic treatment that's not advertising by the charlatans that peddle it, but apparently it makes normal stuff 5866748567% stronger and more ductile and last longer and unbreakable and guns shoot straighter and it cures cancer.... or something.

It's also ironic that whenever "race" is mentioned in relation to a part or service it's automatically assumed to be the best thing ever. Race teams try all sorts of things for competitive advantage and there's no guarantee that some or all of them will apply to a road/offroad application. Tracy Jordan has a small pair of vice grips clamped to a tab on the rock bug. It's not there for any functional reason, it's part lucky charm and part joke, but I'm surprised I haven't seen it on a road car yet- after all, it's clearly there for some "race" purpose.

Another excellent example - spidertrax fabricated knuckles and unit bearings are state-of-the-art for competition rock crawling/race cars, but last no time at all in a road/trail car application, because they aren't intended to.

Every time some claim appears for a process, service or part that looks awesome, do some research into the science behind it.

Ahh, that feels better Sorry everyone.

*rant off*

Steve.

[monley]

Gwagensteve wrote:

monley wrote:

How much strength would be gained in heat treating a stock set of cv's/axles?

WTF?

Axles and CV's are already heat treated. Heat treating them again is going to do approximately nothing, and implies that Suzuki don't know how to heat treat an axle in the first place, which is nonsense. The stock CV's/axles are already heat treated as effectively as they can be for the material chosen.

Ahh, that feels better Sorry everyone.



Steve.

I asked a question, and got a answer.

The only reason i asked, is because a mate of mine broke a cv in his 75 series. He wanted to upgrade to cromo's, but couldn't find any on the market. The next best optoin was a set of stock, heat treated cv's and axle's. They come with a 1 warranty, so i thought they had would have to be a fair bit stronger than stock cv's and axle's, otherwise the company that make's them would forever be replacing them and losing money right?

Anyway, back to the drawing board. Wonder how Joe's HD upgrade's are coming along...

[Gwagensteve]

Interestingly, I've done a bit of a search and couldn't find any reference to a stock CV that was heat treated again or [/]differently[/i] to factory to claim higher strength, only to CV's that were modified (buy welding a ring on) then heat treated. I think somewhere along the way the message is getting garbled - it's not the heat treatment that's adding anything, it's the added ring. Heat treatment is required after the addition of the ring, just as annealing is required before welding to the CV.

I'm happy to be proved wrong, but that's how it looks to me.

Welding on to a heat treated part, and/or not heat treating after welding will result in a weaker item.

Steve.

[Highway-Star]

OK guys, allot of this sounds like where a few of us LJ owners were a year or 2 ago... So I'll give you a bit of an over view of where we have been and what we have done; and of course where we are now.


First of all LJ's and JImny's share more in common with each other (CV and front diff wise) than the Sierra that came in between them. As I understand it, LJ, 1L Sierras, and Jimnys all have more or less the same size CV Bell (LJ's just have course splines on them), and the same 19 spline shaft (22 spline into the diff). On a slightly un-related note the Jimny's front diff centre and LJ diff centres are of similar size, just that the Jimny is high pinion.


OK so 3 LJ's here really had an impact on the development of what we did. When I started wheeling with 3cyl and Mick Garner in their 2 strokes they were both running more or less 2 stoke motors, stock gearing, twin locked on 30" Federal Couragias and LJ shafts with 1L Sierra CV's (with rings around them and then heat treated). Breakages were not common, but I did see them both destroy a couple of CV's or axles over about an 12 to 18 month period. At one point 3cyl replaced a broken one with a stock 1L CV and axle, and drove on it for a while also, it eventually broke (I believe that was the end of that car then); but its hard to say if one with a ring would not have (the wheel was locked up in a mess of tree roots).

Then there was my LJ. I ran stock LJ CV's for a while, and then switched to 1L CV's in the vain hope that them being newer they would last longer... they didn't.... (note, I never ran rings on any of my CV's). With a 1L motor, 55:1 crawl, and 31" tyres, I ended up demolishing about 10 to 12 CV's in about 12 months. It was dumb, it was annoying, expensive and did I mention it gave me the shits? To this day the task of rebuilding front hubs gives me nightmares!

Anyway 3cyl and Mick's solution ver2.0 (ie 1.0 being the rings and treatment) was custom chromo inner shafts and stock 1.3 Sierra CV's. I don't believe either of them ever broke a CV.... but I know at least 2 of the shafts were wrung off... I had some suspicions about the heat treatment done to the shafts, but the 26 spline chromo ones have been fine.....

Ver3.0 came about after some persuasion from Tanshi and Myself (I had collected almost ever 1L CV is SEQ by this point), was chromo Sierra CV's and custom 26/25 spline inner shafts. We did a bulk order of Chromo CV's (about 16 or something from memory), and they worked out $50 each. 2 batches of new shafts were made, one batch chromo, 1 batch Hy-tuff. Tanshi and I opted for Hy-tuff; the 3 other guys involved opted for Chromo.

These setups have been used and abused a hell of a lot for well over 12 months now (in 5 different cars, some with 33" tyres, some twin locked, some with Sierra transfers and 6.5 gears). I have had mine out numerous times, and they are as perfect as the day they wen't in. My car should be the hardest on CV's (going by its track record), mainly because I aggresively left foot brake my car. Basically because I refuse to use diff locks unless utterly necessary I will pump my brake pedal to act as a super primitive form of traction control. I have had the car jolt very violently due to my pumping of the brakes, I have often stalled it even at high-ish rpm, I have driven the car up hills with a wheel in the air and all 4 springs wrapping due to the left foot braking (my car munches through front leaf springs at an alarming rate), but the car has got there, and the front axles and CV's are still mint.


So........... what I am saying, is don't waste your time with pissy little shafts, and little CV's. If you guys are going to put some effort into this, do a good job of it, and go straight to something like a chromo Sierra CV (I don't know what would be involved, if anything, in fitting these to a Jimny hub, but I'm sure some one could figure it). Also note, 26 spline side gears for the Jimny front diff should be easy, stock open diffs, just use SIerra 26 spline gears, or ones from the back of your Jimnys, air lockers also have this solution). And don't be put off by doing some R&D, yeah it's a bit more work than being boring and driving another Sierra with bolt in options... but it can be done!!!


OH and this!
Stock LJ shaft and 1L CV vs Custom shaft and chromo CV

Might not look a huge amount bigger, but it does the job!

Motivational picture for people with stock CV's!

[SierraDan]

I think that's the better option. Off the shelf chromos and a custom axle.

BTW jimny CV's are gay haha.

[gregc]

if the side gear swap works on the front end of the jimny, then the only question is whether or not the double tough cv will fit into the jimny front end components.

if yes, then it's double toughs, side gears, custom inner axels (on both sides?).

if no, then its double toughs, side gears, wt sierra knuckles, custom inner axels. Probably need to get the housing straightened after the cut and weld too.

neither would be particularly cheap, but look at the beating the double toughs take under sierras and it immediately looks worthwhile.

[Gwagensteve]

I could be wrong with this stuff, but here's my understanding of the issues:

Jimny's run narrower spindles than sierra, so the stub axle would be too long. If the Jimny spindle pattern is the same as vitara, it's different to sierra so the longer spindle/bearing isn't a bolt on.

I thought there was less room inside the jimmy knuckle than sierra, but I haven't ever personally tried to confirm this.

Swapping to sierra knuckles puts the brake calliper at 12 O'clock. This may cause a clearance issue with the coil on full articulation(?)
Swapping to sierra knuckles puts the tie rod in front of the axle, where it may interfere with the panhard rod. It may also interfere with the radius arm brackets, radius arms, and any other amount of junk under there. Also, the location of the tie rod relative to the drag link may induce bump steer if it is out of phase with the panhard.

I 100% agree that messing around with stock sizes CV's/ 22 spline axles is pointless, and that DT's are plenty strong enough for any tyre you could feasibly run in a Jimny, but golly, it looks like a lot of stuffing around.

[jonno_racing]

with the amount of intrest now and in the future (jimnys are only getting cheeper) has any one spoken to the people who make the rock assult wt ones? see if they will do a custom run of jimny sized units.

[Blakey]

http://www.zanfi.it/modules.php?name=ca ... ath=63_121

[Highway-Star]

Gwagensteve wrote:

I could be wrong with this stuff, but here's my understanding of the issues:

Jimny's run narrower spindles than sierra, so the stub axle would be too long. If the Jimny spindle pattern is the same as vitara, it's different to sierra so the longer spindle/bearing isn't a bolt on.

I thought there was less room inside the jimmy knuckle than sierra, but I haven't ever personally tried to confirm this.

Swapping to sierra knuckles puts the brake calliper at 12 O'clock. This may cause a clearance issue with the coil on full articulation(?)
Swapping to sierra knuckles puts the tie rod in front of the axle, where it may interfere with the panhard rod. It may also interfere with the radius arm brackets, radius arms, and any other amount of junk under there. Also, the location of the tie rod relative to the drag link may induce bump steer if it is out of phase with the panhard.

I 100% agree that messing around with stock sizes CV's/ 22 spline axles is pointless, and that DT's are plenty strong enough for any tyre you could feasibly run in a Jimny, but golly, it looks like a lot of stuffing around.

Spacer for the free wheeling hub? It might be a cheap easy way around it.

I've only messed with the Jimny front centre, not the whole axle, so I could be off...

[31zook]

Hey I thought that maybe a Sierra 1.3 CV would fit on a Jim axle. It doesn't, the jimny axle spline is too small for a 1.3CV. There is ample room in the jimny knuckle for a chromo, as a 1.3 CV has enough room in it to swing a cat while in a jimny knuckle. The brakes are already at 12o'clock and jimny's have no flex anyway.

A 1.3CV is longer but with BenT, FWH adapter kit it fouls by 1.5mm. As the end of the CV actually doesn't get used, I'll take it to a machine shop and get 3mm taken off of the end of the CV.

Sierra left, jimny right.




So here is what I plan to do.

Buy some chromo Sierra CVs, and get custom axles made up to suit a Jimny length and stock side gears. I understand that the stock side gears are a little up for debate, but I already have an ARB airlocker in my front diff that required machining the pinion head down to fit, and I've already paid for it to be installed professionally.

Hope this helps dispell a few myths.

[zooky08]

so once you have sierra manual hubs fitted then all you have to do is machine the end off the wt cromo cv and get inner axles made up?
sounds good

[31zook]

zooky08 wrote:

so once you have sierra manual hubs fitted then all you have to do is machine the end off the wt cromo cv and get inner axles made up?
sounds good

Yes, and by machined, you could also use a drop saw, or bandsaw, just something that is a cold mechanical cut.

I'll do a trial run with monley and let you know how we go.

[gregc]

I guess other options could be:

1. BenT spacer that is 1.5mm thicker
2. Drill / Holesaw out the back of the selectable hub (not ideal though - affects sealing).

Either way - sounds like a good plan 31zook. Hurry up and get it done so mud_muncher can start breaking something else.

[SierraDan]

We're going to see if we can fit my chromo's in there tomorrow.