Outer Limits 4x4 Board

I need a decent diff for the back of my Zuk, so I've decided to build a hybrid for it. The breif is:

Cheap(ish)
Able to handle 35 inch tyres
Be Suzuki based
Low ratio
Light
High clearance

Im going with a Vitara centre/housing with stronger axles. I'll add the end of the donor housing to the Vit housing and that should be it....

At the moment, I'm tossing up between Hilux axles and 9 inch axles

This will take a while to do as I'd like to do all the work and this will involve purchasing the tools to do it as the need arises

Photos to come...

Comments/questions/queries/concerns??????

why not just use a complete vitara diff with some type of upgraded axles?

Offset, dont want Vit width, wanna run bigger wbearings...

SAWZALL wrote:Offset, dont want Vit width, wanna run bigger wbearings...

ok sounds fair enough.
do you want wider or narrower than the vit?
are the vit wheelbearings too small to hold up to 35's constantly?

for width I want half way between Vit and Sierra

I want a bearing designed for the loads that a 35 can deliver and a Vit one aint it

sounds like a good rear end for your tim hardy replica when you get it all worked out, i'd be interested in something similar for mine.

i dont know any measurements or anything, but heres some ideas of narrower leafy 4x4s:

- Feroza / Rocky
- Older Subaru
- CJ / YJ (maybe a little wide)
- Old Datsun 4x4's

As i said im not sure on any of their sizes etc, but maybe ive thrown in something of use? i reckon the subaru ones would be pretty strong.

make a full floating Sierra rear with wheel spacers

I've got a shaved and welded rear vit diff you could have

Also have a complete one with a lockrite...

grimbo
Posted: Wed Apr 06, 2005 8:50 am

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

make a full floating Sierra rear with wheel spacers

I agree, a full floating setup with the sierra housing or vit,
http://www.off-road.com/suzuki/reviews/traxaxle.htm
http://www.spidertrax.com/drivetrain_sdw.htm

Just get the axles made locally.

alien wrote:i dont know any measurements or anything, but heres some ideas of narrower leafy 4x4s:

- Feroza / Rocky
- Older Subaru
- CJ / YJ (maybe a little wide)
- Old Datsun 4x4's

As i said im not sure on any of their sizes etc, but maybe ive thrown in something of use? i reckon the subaru ones would be pretty strong.

No Subarus, all IRS

put in a bundera rear and be done with it

wat antt said hybrid will cost heaps and still wont be as strong

or just get a set of lux diffs cheap as not too wide and way strong under a zook.

SAWZALL wrote:Be Suzuki based

I could be wrong but Hilux and 9inch axles are not Suzuki based??

I realy dont know why people try and spend all this money for no gain other than a little clearence. Just fit Hilux Axles or even cruiser. Otherwise no matter what you do you still have a Zook Centre that is weak compared to a hilux centre. And then you have all this custom axle shiat to break.

SAWZALL wrote:for width I want half way between Vit and Sierra

I want a bearing designed for the loads that a 35 can deliver and a Vit one aint it

Sounds like you want a Bundera diff. It meets all your requirments.

Disregard....I woke up to myself and went Toys.......

wise choice

SAWZALL wrote:Disregard....I woke up to myself and went Toys.......

Your Joking right???????

You cant use Toyota diffs in a Zook. The other zook owners will never respect you for that

You've met me Tony, I get no love anyway

I wouldn't be as worried about rear wheel bearing strength with 35's compared to the front. i.e it seems misdirected to put lots of effort into a rear end that will handle 35's if the fronts won't.

Contrary to popular opinion, down here in vic we do actually occaisionally run big tyres and drive off road, and front sierra bearings are far more maintenence intensive than the rears.

I will say again though, a sierra with toyota axles and 35's is less capable than a sierra with sierra axles and 32's. when you take into account weight and clearance.

I would have gone the hybrid. I reckon for the cost of a set of bundera axles, lockers and the work to put them in you could build some pretty cool suzuki based stuff.

Steve.

Gwagensteve wrote:I wouldn't be as worried about rear wheel bearing strength with 35's compared to the front. i.e it seems misdirected to put lots of effort into a rear end that will handle 35's if the fronts won't.

Contrary to popular opinion, down here in vic we do actually occaisionally run big tyres and drive off road, and front sierra bearings are far more maintenence intensive than the rears.

I will say again though, a sierra with toyota axles and 35's is less capable than a sierra with sierra axles and 32's. when you take into account weight and clearance.

I would have gone the hybrid. I reckon for the cost of a set of bundera axles, lockers and the work to put them in you could build some pretty cool suzuki based stuff.

Steve.

I disagree but I feel we have been down this path before.

Will a 32 inch tyre climb a 32 inch ledge as well as a 35 inch tyre. NO

Will a zuk axle with 32's be reliable on rocks. NO

Is a lightweight diff a benefit on ledges. NO

Is the Toy bearing under more load with 35's than the zuk with 32'. NO

Will I ever have to replace crappy zuk CV's again. NO

SAWZALL wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:I wouldn't be as worried about rear wheel bearing strength with 35's compared to the front. i.e it seems misdirected to put lots of effort into a rear end that will handle 35's if the fronts won't.

Contrary to popular opinion, down here in vic we do actually occaisionally run big tyres and drive off road, and front sierra bearings are far more maintenence intensive than the rears.

I will say again though, a sierra with toyota axles and 35's is less capable than a sierra with sierra axles and 32's. when you take into account weight and clearance.

I would have gone the hybrid. I reckon for the cost of a set of bundera axles, lockers and the work to put them in you could build some pretty cool suzuki based stuff.

Steve.

I disagree but I feel we have been down this path before.

Will a 32 inch tyre climb a 32 inch ledge as well as a 35 inch tyre. NO

Will a zuk axle with 32's be reliable on rocks. NO

Is a lightweight diff a benefit on ledges. NO

Is the Toy bearing under more load with 35's than the zuk with 32'. NO

Will I ever have to replace crappy zuk CV's again. NO

a 32" tyre will not climb a 32" ledge, and neither will a 35.

Is a lightweight diff a benefit on ledges? YES - if you have to lift the weight of the car to get it up an obstacle (trust me, you do) then you will be better off lifting less weight with the lighter axle.

Is the toy bearing with a 35 under more load than the zuk with a 32 - of course it is - a 35 will exert more leverage than a 32, and the diffs weigh more. Yes, the hilux bearings are bigger, but they weren't designed for 35's either. I had enough bearing problems with my hilux on narrow 32's to know that hilux's are not the last word in strength and sierra stuff is pretty strong. If you were being an engineering purist about this, you would be running no bigger than a 6.00X16 on your zuk axles or a 205 R16 on the 'lux stuff.

Once you have to go to bundera axle$ to get the offset rear, then I think that building something hybridised is no big deal.

Gwagensteve wrote:

SAWZALL wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:I wouldn't be as worried about rear wheel bearing strength with 35's compared to the front. i.e it seems misdirected to put lots of effort into a rear end that will handle 35's if the fronts won't.

Contrary to popular opinion, down here in vic we do actually occaisionally run big tyres and drive off road, and front sierra bearings are far more maintenence intensive than the rears.

I will say again though, a sierra with toyota axles and 35's is less capable than a sierra with sierra axles and 32's. when you take into account weight and clearance.

I would have gone the hybrid. I reckon for the cost of a set of bundera axles, lockers and the work to put them in you could build some pretty cool suzuki based stuff.

Steve.

I disagree but I feel we have been down this path before.

Will a 32 inch tyre climb a 32 inch ledge as well as a 35 inch tyre. NO

Will a zuk axle with 32's be reliable on rocks. NO

Is a lightweight diff a benefit on ledges. NO

Is the Toy bearing under more load with 35's than the zuk with 32'. NO

Will I ever have to replace crappy zuk CV's again. NO

a 32" tyre will not climb a 32" ledge, and neither will a 35.

Is a lightweight diff a benefit on ledges? YES - if you have to lift the weight of the car to get it up an obstacle (trust me, you do) then you will be better off lifting less weight with the lighter axle.

Is the toy bearing with a 35 under more load than the zuk with a 32 - of course it is - a 35 will exert more leverage than a 32, and the diffs weigh more. Yes, the hilux bearings are bigger, but they weren't designed for 35's either. I had enough bearing problems with my hilux on narrow 32's to know that hilux's are not the last word in strength and sierra stuff is pretty strong. If you were being an engineering purist about this, you would be running no bigger than a 6.00X16 on your zuk axles or a 205 R16 on the 'lux stuff.

Once you have to go to bundera axle$ to get the offset rear, then I think that building something hybridised is no big deal.

Maybe ledge is a poor coice of terms. A 35 will climb what a 32 will not...

A heavier diff on top of a ledge will give more traction than a lighter one

35 is less than 10 % larger than a 32. Is a Toy axle bearing more than 10% bigger than a Zuk....yes

Gwagensteve wrote:

SAWZALL wrote:

Gwagensteve wrote:I wouldn't be as worried about rear wheel bearing strength with 35's compared to the front. i.e it seems misdirected to put lots of effort into a rear end that will handle 35's if the fronts won't.

Contrary to popular opinion, down here in vic we do actually occaisionally run big tyres and drive off road, and front sierra bearings are far more maintenence intensive than the rears.

I will say again though, a sierra with toyota axles and 35's is less capable than a sierra with sierra axles and 32's. when you take into account weight and clearance.

I would have gone the hybrid. I reckon for the cost of a set of bundera axles, lockers and the work to put them in you could build some pretty cool suzuki based stuff.

Steve.

I disagree but I feel we have been down this path before.

Will a 32 inch tyre climb a 32 inch ledge as well as a 35 inch tyre. NO

Will a zuk axle with 32's be reliable on rocks. NO

Is a lightweight diff a benefit on ledges. NO

Is the Toy bearing under more load with 35's than the zuk with 32'. NO

Will I ever have to replace crappy zuk CV's again. NO

a 32" tyre will not climb a 32" ledge, and neither will a 35.

Is a lightweight diff a benefit on ledges? YES - if you have to lift the weight of the car to get it up an obstacle (trust me, you do) then you will be better off lifting less weight with the lighter axle.

Is the toy bearing with a 35 under more load than the zuk with a 32 - of course it is - a 35 will exert more leverage than a 32, and the diffs weigh more. Yes, the hilux bearings are bigger, but they weren't designed for 35's either. I had enough bearing problems with my hilux on narrow 32's to know that hilux's are not the last word in strength and sierra stuff is pretty strong. If you were being an engineering purist about this, you would be running no bigger than a 6.00X16 on your zuk axles or a 205 R16 on the 'lux stuff.

Once you have to go to bundera axle$ to get the offset rear, then I think that building something hybridised is no big deal.

Maybe ledge is a poor choice of terms. A 35 will climb what a 32 will not...

A heavier diff on top of a ledge will give more traction than a lighter one

35 is less than 10 % larger than a 32. Is a Toy axle bearing more than 10% bigger than a Zuk....yes

yeah but you void the added traction of the axle on the ledge by having to use that traction to pull the heavier diff up the ledge so there is no advantage there.

Just the same as an overloaded car generates lots of traction but no one would claim that an overloaded car is more capable than an empty car.

indeed - a 35 is less than 10% taller than a 32... but I bet that there is little difference in GC between a zuk on a measured 32 and a hilux on a measured 35, which means that to gain 10% in tyre, you are gaining less than 10% in clearance but adding more than 10% in weight to the car

Sure, hilux stuff is way stronger. No problem there. I'm just very very dubious that it makes for a more capable car. The more you do the sums the less it makes sense, unless your definition of hardcore is to have an supposedly "unbreakable" sierra.

I will conceed though that for comps like WErock, the rules pretty much elimitate the possibility of building a functional car with sierra diffs. The 1000kg weight limit precludes this. I will maintain that at approx 600kg and with an auto, appropriately beefed zuk diffs would live in a buggy, but this is a separate topic altogether.