Front Drive Shaft Issues on Modified Leaf-Sprung Toyos

[Toyo Truck]

Hey guys,

I went for a mad day out on the trails with Darren (China) in his sweet GU Coily ute, he had to test his front locker, I had to test my new front drive shaft.
His locker = GOOD
My new front driveshaft = SEPARATED!

Now I have just had the shaft extended 3" or something, so the thing is HUUUUGE,
but it still falls out, (only once all day, but it was right at the good bit)!!!!!
HOW can I stop this from happening!!! Im sure HEAPS of luxie and landcruiser dudes would have run into this issue before
This is the ONLY thing wrong with my car at the moment and is stopping me from driving stuff so I gotta get it fixed!!!

I have 2" dropped hangers, ORI extended shackles, and I have the 3 main leaves from the rear in the front, with the 3 bottom leaves from the front pack on bottom.
Now this flexs awesome, so much so that I can nearly max out a rancho 9012, but the problem is, as I go over a really steep climb, mainly ledges and the like, I get the front up and over, but as soon as the back starts to climb, the shaft goes bang and the thing pops out and slaps
around like a wet fish! The guys who were watchin said that the whole front diff is twisting back and forth as I climb rocks?? I can't really feel this and I have been driving stuff for AGES like this,
perhaps the springs are loosening up or something? But they are saying it is pretty funky lookin!!
So is the problem that my shaft is too short,
or that the diff will just rotate to the point that it separates the shaft??

Now I have had some people tell me to rotate the diff housing, but others tell me if I do this the castor angle or something will be wrong. On the weekend someone was saying I should put the torque rod back in. But won't this reduce travel? I like travel.
Can you buy a modified torque rod with heim joints in it or something and a twist section, or does this defeat the purpose?

What is the best way you guys used to fix this problem in your modified leaf-sprung hiluxs? without sacrificing travel? Can a front track bar be built or is this just silly?

I did a search but I had like 1300 posts to read through and after like
25 mins of good reading, I still had a few questions. so sorry if these have been answered before. Please just post link of other relavant topic.

Cheers,
Bart

[hypo]

u need to put some clamp on the back half of yer front springs to stop them opening up, this is why ya diff is doing funky shit and its wrapping the diff forward as u climb therefore seperating the shaft, it wood also help if u get a longer slip joint in the shaft, getting the front of a lux shaft extended dont realyl fix this, coz the shackles r at the back of the springs the amount of movement int he shaft itself it huge...

so to fix this, get a longer slip joint int he shaft(my old luxy had 350mm of slip joint)

and clamp the back half of yer front springs....

[hypo]

ok i just saw the pic in yer members thread with ya front shaft extended.

looks like u have enuf slip, just clamp the rear of them front springs up and it will b all good, it is gunna limit flex a bit but u gotta put up with that..

[ausyota]

If you front leaves are getting "funky" you need to clamp them if they arnt allready.
When you clamp the packs together leave about 10-15mm between the top of the pack and the bolts on the clamps. That way when you flex the springs can still twist a bit but wont go totally mental when wraping.
Paul.

[Toyo Truck]

OK cool,
Sorry got no internet at home at the moment, have to use work
but
I had a quick look last night, car is COVERED in Watos mud!!

How do I get clamps on there? Can you buy them? Or do I have to make
some up? Cause I cut off all remnants of clamps when I had them on the
rear, theres no clampage left! How far down the spring should I put the clamps??

Hypo - Did you still have your torque rod connected on your luxie??
Should I put mine back on, but get an adjustable one??
Or just try the clamping thing and see how it goes?
Did you ever have this problem in yo lux? cause it used to get heaps
of flex and all stayed together and worked really well.

cheers,
Bart

PS Heres a photo of the shaft at full droop (limited by brake lines )
That is Dazzas hand and it is 220M OD. The shaft shows about 3" of the slip part of the shaft at rest. I'll take it off and measure it from end to end expanded and contracted tonight if I get home early enough.
As you can see the leaves do separate quite a bit

[ausyota]

The ends of a couple of your leaves should have holes in them where the original clamps were riveted on.

Just get some 20mm flat bar and put it in the vice and get a decent hammer and whack it into a square U shape. Drill both sides of the U at the top and one hole in the centre where its attached to the leaf. Get a 8mm bolt as long as you need to go across the clamp and some 3/8 hydraulic steel tube as a spacer. It needs to be held on the leaf with a rivet. If you dont have a rivet a mild steel bolt the right size and a BFhammer will work. Just cut the bolt so only a little bit pokes through and peen the end over.



Or you just go see a susp place and get some clamps and rivets

Just remember to leave a bit of room for spring twist if you still want plenty of flex.

[My Lil Lux]

Not that it will fix your prob, but on the subject of torque rods, check out Superior engineering's website, he's makin a torque rod with a removable pin so when you want to go wheeling it will slip and allow flex, then lock pin in on road and you've got all the benefits of the torque rod for brakin, Old Man Emu rear springs come with a good rear clamp design which allows plenty of spring movement, if you can have a look you'll see what Ben and Ausyota are telling ya.

[hypo]

c in the pic of old mates hand measuring the slip joint, see how far the main leaf has pulled away from the pack ??

u need to make or get some clamps to hold this together, u will loose flex but the front will b way stronger and less rap and hop and will hook up better......

and i had this prob on my luxy untill i clampped the springs, and no i didnt have a torque rod as u dont need it wen u have crossover...

[Toyo Truck]

Thanks for the info!
I will get onto this straight away
This is alot cheaper than getting the shaft lengthened again.
I'll clamp em up good and proper.
That said is there anything else can I do to get more flex into the front end to make up for the loss I'll get with the clamps on?
Cause there is still some more down travel in them ranchos.

Cheers,
Bart

PS My Lil Lux - Oi that LSD centre I got off you DID roll around in the
back of my cressida , it tried to smash a hole through the side of my
boot! You were right dude

[dumbdunce]

That said is there anything else can I do to get more flex into the front end...

coil it

[professor]

I had a heap of the same trouble till i went HP in the front

Chad

[Toyo Truck]

Does HP mean High Pinion by any chance??
Whats the difference? both design and strength-wise?

Which models came out with the high pinon diff??

Cheers,
Bart

[ausyota]

Does HP mean High Pinion by any chance??
Whats the difference? both design and strength-wise?

Which models came out with the high pinon diff??

Cheers,
Bart

The high pinion diff centres come out in 80 series landcruisers front diffs.
Generaly accepted that they are stronger going forwards, weaker when reversing.
Helps with driveshaft problems because the pinion in a few inches higher than a standard hilux diff (less angle on unis etc).
Paul.
Not a very good pic but you sorta get the idea.

[4sum4]

If your front drive shaft was lengthened proply you have to shorten it if you get a HP front,and your front shaft will be seperating when both wheels drop,And if your going to clamp the leafs clamp the first 2 with a hose clamp at the shackle end

[4sum4]

when the truck is sitting whats the measurment from A to B

And also if you stiffen up the front you will get more out of the rear

[redzook]

That said is there anything else can I do to get more flex into the front end to make up for the loss I'll get with the clamps on?
Cause there is still some more down travel in them ranchos.

Cheers,
Bart

get some decent tires on it and a bit more width will help out

[Toyo Truck]

Gareth,
Dazza says his hand is about 220M from finger to thumb
is that long enough? it has been lengthened professionally twice
now. I've been meaning to measure it at rest too. I'll go do this now.

With the hose clamps, I was thinking about doing this, but didn't
know if they'd be strong enough? Do they stay in place? or do they
slide up/down the leaf? What size clamp would you use and are they
just standard hose clamps from bunnings or whatever?

This would be a sweet solution cause I've called all the places near
my work (including ARB in Artarmon) and no one wants to touch it
cause they need to drill the hole through the leaf pack to attatch a
standard spring clamp.

I wanna go up to Stocktons this long weekend and I'll drive it up as
is but if we decide to go elsewhere I might be in trouble,
so I'll whack the hose clamp or whatever on before the weekend and
you think this will be ok?

Tim,
I wanna get bigger tyres, but I am going to try and get the suspension sorted first cause this shaft issue is stopping me from going wheeling
cause I am always worried about it popping out.
But once its done, I can just get 35"s on flipped rims or something.
And did I mention I got a 7M-GE conversion ready to go

Cheers,
Bart

[spazbot]

bart are anypart of the old clamps on ther still if so u could weld a U of flat bar around to them thats what i plan on doing for mine

[Toyo Truck]

I just measured the front shaft at rest.
From the front uni-joint to the uni-joint that bolts to the double cardan
it is just over 600mm.
The exposed bit of the shaft (A-B in pic but at rest) is 105mm.

Spaz,
Nothing at all is left rear of the diff on the front springs.
Cause I use the main and 2nd leaf of the rear and the bottom
3 leaves of the front, I removed the 2 leaves with the clamps
attatched.
I'm liking 4Sum4s Idea of thehose clamps though

Cheers,
Bart

[hophoar]

Why don't you try a spacer to reduce the amount of travel in the shaft, this will allow it to extend more at full droop. I run no clamps on mine and get some funky axle wrap without seperation.

John.

[Surfection]

Limiting strap !!! Weld a tab to the top of the diff and to the crossmember and run a cable or strap between with minimal slack. This will stop the diff moving so far down and back when you get droop on both sides. You probably won't lose as much flex as with clamps.

[STUMPY]

Limiting strap !!! Weld a tab to the top of the diff and to the crossmember and run a cable or strap between with minimal slack. This will stop the diff moving so far down and back when you get droop on both sides. You probably won't lose as much flex as with clamps.

Jeremy, if you weld a tab to the top it'll only help to a small degree. by having the tab on the top of the diff it'll give the diff something to rotate around. if you have it at the bottom, it'll work much better.

Bart, if you need a strap made up, give me a call. i can make one at work for you with a 3tonne breaking load and is only 1" wide webbing strap. i can also sew skork corb (bungie) into it to soak up the slack during compression. i also have a 14" slip front shaft for a lux but it set-up for dual transfer cases but it could be shortened if your interested.


cheers joel

[1MadEngineer]

just put 2 clamps on the rear of the front spring packs, don't reinvent the wheel. As hypo said, we run this on BeeBees and it works great even with a std pinion. ther are other reasons for the clamps as well, it will hook up way better and get less hop under power, and it will break less cv's due to the hopping.

[Toyo Truck]

Can I use hose clamps? If so what size should I get mm?
I was thinking if I wrap gaffa tape around the hose clamp
once it is tightened, It will stop any movement of the clamp
up and down the leaf spring? Booty-ahoy!!

How hard is it to drill a hole through leaf springs?
What is the best way to do this? cause all the spring places are
like "I've never had to do that before" and "what happened to
the original spring clamps?".

Cheers,
Bart

[dumbdunce]

How hard is it to drill a hole through leaf springs?

not very hard at all, a standard HSS drill bit will do it

What is the best way to do this?

the best way is to do it in a drill press with recirculating coolant, and with the lowest RPM you can get. The spring steel is hard so if the drill bit gets hot it will go dull very quickly - start with a sharp bit, keep it slow and keep ikt cool and it will punch through with no trouble at all.

if you want to try and "save time" by doing it with the springs still in the truck, you will need an assistant armed with a spray bottle full of soluble oil/water mix, and a drip tray to catch the coolant, and probably plenty of rags, and a few drill bits, and a lot of patience, and not mind having lots of coolant run through your drill and down your arm - use a cordless drill on the lowest gear setting. it will do it but not as easy as it will go in the drill press.

[Toyo Truck]

Thanks mate,
Thats what I was thinking, but all the shop guys reckon its the
hardest thing to do!
Could I just drill a hole right through and whack a bolt through it?
This will hold the leaves together wont it?

Got any opinions on the hose clamps in the meantime for this
long weekend stocktons beach run?

Cheers,
Bart

[ausyota]

Could I just drill a hole right through and whack a bolt through it?
This will hold the leaves together wont it?

Bad idea. that will weaken the other leaves you are drilling through.
You only want the ends of the leaves your clamping drilled.

[dumbdunce]

Could I just drill a hole right through and whack a bolt through it?
This will hold the leaves together wont it?

Bad idea. that will weaken the other leaves you are drilling through.
You only want the ends of the leaves your clamping drilled.

whay ausyota said - the leafs need to slide along each other so pinning them together would be bad.

hose clamps probably won't work, they will slide off. should be able to rig up a temporary limiting strap for the weekend, or spend a couple of hours and get the clamps on there!

[STUMPY]

Don't worry about the clamps bart, just buy my frontshaft

http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/PHP_Modul ... hp?t=55876

[1MadEngineer]

swap some leafs with some other packs to get the factory clamps that run up the sides and have a bolt thru them. try and set the clamp spacing up so it divides the rear section into 3 equal parts.

hose clamps = no

a new shaft alone will not fix all the problems
clamp the springs and it will perform better!