Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Of course you know how weak rear half-shaft bearing is. I mean it's ok if you drive in a city only and your Jimny never sees mud and water. But if you regularly drive in mud you must know. Rear half-shaft bearing is not protected from water and this is a reason of quick dying.
I thought about this problem about two years. The first thing what I made it was an extra seal for protecting the bearing but after one year it had a radial backlash.
So I decided to make full-floater KIT for rear axle.
What do you think guys?

P.S. I can not post links to the pics :(

looks good how strong are the aftermarket axles?

hillbilliywheelchair wrote:looks good how strong are the aftermarket axles?

I can not say you exactly how strong my new axles are but I will test them in a laboratory on Thursday. I'll broke my half-shaft and stock one.

There is a company in Italy that makes fulll floater kits for Suzuki's including the Jimny. There are pics on their site but I cannot remember what the site was or know what Italian for full floater is to do a search.

We have been doing them with Vit rear housings for the Sierra and they seem to be good so far.

I run a vitara based full floater in my sierra and think they are excellent for fixing a whole bunch of problems all at once.

However, improved water/mud resistance wouldn't be the reason I'd run a floater. There's a number of reasons that I'm not sure this is an improvement:

The inner hub seal's effectiveness is dependent on good bearing tension.

There is a large cavity inside the hub and it's not vented. If it's hot and then submerged it WILL pull mud in.

There's more sealing faces that water can pass.

On a stock front end, the inner hub seal is protected by the brake backing plate. Once the backing plate is removed there's a clear and straight path for mud, weeds and debris to get access to the seal.

Just some thoughts.

PS green-vl - is that a Jimny front hub you are using? Had you thought about using the SJ413 hub which has wider bearing spacing for more strength.

I'll reiterate- I think it's a very nice looking kit and it has a range of benefits.

Steve

Found it

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

cj wrote:There is a company in Italy that makes fulll floater kits for Suzuki's including the Jimny. There are pics on their site but I cannot remember what the site was or know what Italian for full floater is to do a search.

Yes. I know about zanfi.it. I thought about buying their KIT but it was not easy to find wheel hub and spindle from Samurai but for Vitara (Escudo) I could do it and very cheap! Of course second hand but in very good condition.

Gwagensteve wrote:There is a large cavity inside the hub and it's not vented. If it's hot and then submerged it WILL pull mud in.

There's more sealing faces that water can pass.

On a stock front end, the inner hub seal is protected by the brake backing plate. Once the backing plate is removed there's a clear and straight path for mud, weeds and debris to get access to the seal.

PS green-vl - is that a Jimny front hub you are using? Had you thought about using the SJ413 hub which has wider bearing spacing for more strength.

I'll reiterate- I think it's a very nice looking kit and it has a range of benefits.

Steve

I decided to make same KIT with using Vitara wheel hub and spindle. Sure I know that Samurai wheel hub is more effective but I look back to my experience. In front axle I use same wheel hub and spindle from Vitara and I don't have any problems with it already 2 years. My Jimny always runs on 31 and higher tires on rims with offset -20, -25.
If I found that without braking plate the seal is too vulnerable I'll fit braking plate.

As I describe higher I use Vitara wheel hubs in front axle and now in rear axle.
The spindle of Samurai is not suitable with Jimny steering knuckle because it has smaller diameter in a part which fits to knuckle. Samurai wheel hub can not be mounted to Vitara spindle because it's too short.

I forgot to write about minuses.

• -the width of rear axle becomes longer to 30 mm
  -hand brake is gone

I think how to make hand brake. My Jimny has auto transmission so this problem is not so sharp for me.

Good to see some more real engineering being done

MightyMouse wrote:Good to see some more real engineering being done

thanks

in the WT sierra application how are these axles strength compared to the STD suzuki axles.

The only downfall i could see is if you break an axle the would be quite a long wait for a replacement (unless you also bought spares)

oozuk wrote:in the WT sierra application how are these axles strength compared to the STD suzuki axles.

The only downfall i could see is if you break an axle the would be quite a long wait for a replacement (unless you also bought spares)

Even if they were made from the same (average quality) material, a floater is still stronger than a semi floater because the axle only delivers drive load and bears no weight. The secondary advantage is that superior materials can be used (ours are EN-26) so our axles should be at least 50% stronger than stock. We were breaking axles quite often and we are yet to have any problem with the vitara based floaters we are now using.

green-vl wrote:I forgot to write about minuses.

• -the width of rear axle becomes longer to 30 mm
  -hand brake is gone

I think how to make hand brake. My Jimny has auto transmission so this problem is not so sharp for me.

Because we had to cut the housing length down anyway to suit the Sierra/Samurai trackwidth we allow for the added flange thickness so in our application the overall width is the same as stock. It wouldn't be worth the hassle for you but I don't think 30mm should cause any real issues. As much as I don't like them you could add wheel spacers at the front to evenn it up again.

I have gone to a transfer case mounted disc brake for my handbrake but you could look at adding line locks for yours.

oozuk wrote:in the WT sierra application how are these axles strength compared to the STD suzuki axles.

The only downfall i could see is if you break an axle the would be quite a long wait for a replacement (unless you also bought spares)

I hope that my half-shafts are weaker than stock R&P because exchanging R&P is much more expensive than change one or two half-shafts.
On 8th, 9th of May I will have take a part in local 4x4 competition.
I will use Simex Extreme Trakker 32x9.5 tires.
After this challenge I'll pull off half-shafts and look at them to check their condition.

oozuk wrote:in the WT sierra application how are these axles strength compared to the STD suzuki axles.

The only downfall i could see is if you break an axle the would be quite a long wait for a replacement (unless you also bought spares)

The wait shouldn't be that long. The machining of the shaft can be done fairly quickly, it's really the wait for the heat treatment that could hold things up depending on when the next batch is going through.

That said there hasn't been a breakage yet and I have given one a pretty good test on Q78's with all the weight on one wheel under power and it kept coming back for more Anything can be broken though but even if it does you can pull the broken shaft and drive on it knowing that the wheel won't be disappearing off into the bush or down the road and that is worth something to me.

cj wrote:I have gone to a transfer case mounted disc brake for my handbrake but you could look at adding line locks for yours.

I think I will move to disk brake on rear shaft-propeller. Line lock is not my way I don't like it.

cj wrote:Anything can be broken though but even if it does you can pull the broken shaft and drive on it knowing that the wheel won't be disappearing off into the bush or down the road and that is worth something to me.

This is what I love about the full floating idea, and also the fact that a broken shaft can be changed in a very short amount of time if a spare is available

I can't imagine why you wouldn't consider a line lock- I'm crazy about mine.

I'll add to cj's post that on the same day and under the same circumstances (q78's) I broke a stock WT rear axle.

Steve

Sometimes it does not work. When you leave your car right after driving disks are hot. Than they warm down and slightly loose their width. That's it. Your car don't have engaged hand brake. Otherwise you leave your car in morning but day is very sunny and hot. Disks slightly widen and you can not switch off line-lock.
May be it's only our local feature because sometimes we have huge difference between morning and day temperatures.

Gwagensteve wrote:I can't imagine why you wouldn't consider a line lock- I'm crazy about mine.
Steve