[Fix8td]

Hi All,

New to this page and new to owning a Zuk so i dont know alot about them.
Im from NZ but seen this page and thought id try my luck in here for advice.

Brought an old rusty zuk to use four wheel driving.

The rear axle snapped so i went and brought another one, only to find it was not long enough.

The plate on the engine bay is saying its an SJ50.
On the dash passenger side it says SJ413

It has coil springs up front and at the rear.

I brought SJ413 axles and they were not long enough for my diff housing.

My question is..... can i use a SJ413 diff housing and have all the parts from my old diff housiing put on the 413 housing so the springs and arms etc can attach to it, or, can i run a totally different rear diff and housing (escude, vitara etc?)

Im stuck trying to find axles to fit what i have and have broken 2 axles and twisted 2 so far

About to give up and get rid of it lol........ there are a few more issues with it but at the moment this is the main one.

Any help appreciated

Cheers Myke

[Brenno]

A picture may paint a thousand words.

It could be that you have a coil model car with a wrong identification label either via body swap or something else.

Coil models I believe have slightly wider axles than wide track models.

[Gwagensteve]

As Brenno points out, A picture would clear things up some.

If your car has SJ80 running gear (coil sprung Sierra) you'll need to get an axle specifically for an SJ80. They are about 17.5mm wider per side. They are NOT interchangeable with any other suzuki.

In terms of swapping axle housings etc, yes, anything is possible if you're willing to fabricate the appropriate bracketry/have custom axles made etc. However, I'm more concerned that you've broken 2 axles. If you're willing to get rid of the car because you can't find an SJ80 axleshaft, you'd be wiser to investigate a stronger alternative because SJ80 axles are relatively rare and if you've already broken two you're going to break more. (and you obviously have a modified car and are driving in very difficult terrain - rear axle failure isn't common)

The SJ80 was only sold for jus over two years 96-98- there is not much market for upgraded parts . It also uses small front CV's and the wider track width means it's not feasible to upgrade using "normal" widetrack (1988 SJ50 or 1988-1996 SJ70) parts.

The common swap is Toyota LC70 (sold here as the Bundera) which is a coil sprung hilux sized semi floating axle with 30 spline shafts. You'll need to swap both the front and rear axle from the land cruiser and swap to 6 lug wheels etc. It's quite a large project.

Alternatively, there are options to increase the strength of your existing axle, but they are expensive and custom. They're well covered on here:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=56094

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=38240

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=13839&start=1440 (this is my build thread, I have vitara/escudo based axle housings in my car with Cromo front axles and 30 spline landcruiser axleshafts in the rear.

[Fix8td]

Thanks for the info, sorry i had forgotten to put some pics up....

I have managed to take the rear diff housing out and took the diff head out (which is a welded one) and bits fell out.... found some other SJ80 rear axles but at $300.00 each im not going to bother with that!!!

Someone has suggested making the diff housing shorter to run the SJ413 axles rather than transferring the bits off the wider one onto the other one.

Im not really wanting to spend too much money on it at the moment as its pretty much just a bush hack, but i guess its no good if it keeps breaking lol

Will read thru the post threads that has been suggested too

[Gwagensteve]

A word of nomenclature.

SJ413 is misleading- it just refers to a 1.3 litre sierra. There are three different track widths for SJ413 axles, as you're finding out.

From the looks of it, you have an SJ50 body on an SJ80 chassis. SJ80 is the key way to identify the parts your car needs.

The leaf sprung housing you have there is from a narrow track SJ413, which is an SJ50. you can see its about 100mm narrower than your existing housing. That will cause significant clearance problems for your tyres. If you want to narrow your housing to run more common axles, it makes sense to narrow it to suit SJ70 axles, which are closer in width to what you have now.

I still don't understand why you're breaking so many axles though. your looks to have about 31" tyres - it should be very difficult to break an axle on 31" tyres. I don't recall every seeing it, generally it takes a 33" or larger tyre to break a rear axle and hard use in high traction conditions, which isn't my understanding of NZ terrain. I'm suspicious your axlehousing is bent, which isn't uncommon. If that's the case, narrowing it won't help anything and you'll have to straighten the housing (and straighten it again after welding)

However,

$300 is likely to be the cheapest option to get the car running. If you're going to cut and weld a housing to run different axles, you'll need two axles and the parts required to straighten and align the housing will most likely need to be machined. I reckon you'll be close to $300 in easily without any labour. It doesn't make sense to do that work and just break more axles - that will go on until you can't find widetrack axles any more, and it doesn't deal with the front, which is far weaker than the rear and every bit as hard to find parts for.

[Fix8td]

Gwagensteve wrote:

A word of nomenclature.

SJ413 is misleading- it just refers to a 1.3 litre sierra. There are three different track widths for SJ413 axles, as you're finding out.

From the looks of it, you have an SJ50 body on an SJ80 chassis. SJ80 is the key way to identify the parts your car needs.

The leaf sprung housing you have there is from a narrow track SJ413, which is an SJ50. you can see its about 100mm narrower than your existing housing. That will cause significant clearance problems for your tyres. If you want to narrow your housing to run more common axles, it makes sense to narrow it to suit SJ70 axles, which are closer in width to what you have now.

I still don't understand why you're breaking so many axles though. your looks to have about 31" tyres - it should be very difficult to break an axle on 31" tyres. I don't recall every seeing it, generally it takes a 33" or larger tyre to break a rear axle and hard use in high traction conditions, which isn't my understanding of NZ terrain. I'm suspicious your axlehousing is bent, which isn't uncommon. If that's the case, narrowing it won't help anything and you'll have to straighten the housing (and straighten it again after welding)

However,

$300 is likely to be the cheapest option to get the car running. If you're going to cut and weld a housing to run different axles, you'll need two axles and the parts required to straighten and align the housing will most likely need to be machined. I reckon you'll be close to $300 in easily without any labour. It doesn't make sense to do that work and just break more axles - that will go on until you can't find widetrack axles any more, and it doesn't deal with the front, which is far weaker than the rear and every bit as hard to find parts for.

Great info thank you.

I am also wondering if the housing is bent as it seems to also sit lopsided, and the rear spring on the right looks like a banana.... maybe the housing has something to do with it!!!!

Unfortunatley over here, there are stuff all SJ80 parts which is why im wanting to try get away from that issue as $300 per axle is a lot of money for a bush hack and if those break im kind of stuffed trying to find any more.
I guess i will have to deal with the front when it does break, but in the meantime i want to get the rear sorted.

Im running 31/11.5/16 mudzilla's.

In regards to SJ70 axles, im not sure how common they are over here also.
When people advertise stuff its always just SJ413.... so i guess i need to check what model SJ it is before buying parts.

Think i will try modify either diff housings and try run spacers to bring the track width out again... fingers crossed

[fordem]

If the axle to the right in this picture is what being discussed, I'd say it's bent.

[Fix8td]

fordem wrote:

If the axle to the right in this picture is what being discussed, I'd say it's bent.

Yip that's the one that I have just pulled off the Zuk and want to make shorter to fit the other axles.... I had a feeling it may have been bent damn it

[Jezzer]

Over here in NZ
SJ413 is the narrow track. They changed the model name to Samurai with the wide track leaf spring model.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Gwagensteve]

Hmm, well thats confusing of Suzuki.

In that case you want Samurai axles.

[Fix8td]

Gwagensteve wrote:

Hmm, well thats confusing of Suzuki.

In that case you want Samurai axles.

Yip and finding them is hard also.
Have decided to take all the mounts etc off the WT housing and put onto a NT housing.
Seems to be the best option as there are plently of axles for those.
Just hope the front ones dont break as that is all SJ80 coily still.
Removed the welded diff and thats all broken too so will either repair that as the NT axles fit, or try running an open diff and hook back up the rear fiddle brakes and see how that goes...... was going to ditch the whol;e thing and buy another bush truck but for that kind of money i might as well fix this one