Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Righto people I have looked through most of the toy swap threads here and most on pirate (including the current write up going on over there) and I have figured out that the front diff used is either an 80 or 100 series HP. Recently I stumbled across a thread where it was stated that the toy 80 series fronts are quite weak so I did a little search and sure enough the toyota drivers don't seem to be to impressed with their front diffs, especially in reverse. It seems that putting in a locker helps with the strength issue as well as replacing the r&p with quality aftermarket ones. Now the issue I have is when doing this swap are you simply going from lack of strenght in rovers diffs to a stronger toyota centre which happens to be the weak part of the toyota setup (excluding cv's in all cases).

The reason I bring this up is that I will be looking to do lockers soon on my disco and the associated drivline strenghtening. Longterm plans include 35" (or possibly 36") tyres and a gen 3 swap (build for outback and winch challenges) and I hate doing things twice especially when they involve big $ that can't be recouperated in selling off the gear later. I have been looking at all the options like nissan diffs, maxidrive's etc and it seems most people seeking super high strenght setups are going either gq diffs or toy diff and cv swaps. I would like to keep the rover housings and do the swap as the car can be built up slowly (compared to new mounts, engineering etc) but then the question remains will the toy swap be able to handle 35's and the power and torque of the gen 3, where the nissan swap can handle the power and tyres (plus gives you extra track) but you're jumping in at the deep end(the disco will be my daily driver for at least the next 4 years). For the people that have done these types of mods and anyone contemplating these what have been your thoughts on the front toy centres (I know grimace has been asking about strenght in the toy section but I'm after some rover opinions on the issue) and have you had the same thinking or am I just dribbiling sh*t?

Prehaps I should also be asking the question is does increasing power have as big effect on cv and diff life as increasing tyre size?

Cheers
Stuee

I hesitated about doing toy diff centre swap because of the strength of the 80s/100s front when reversing uo hill. I considered using a Jack Mac diff for the front.

Nissan is a good option.

But I already had some 100s axles, so I went with them. Wally (80Ute on this board) is moding a housing for me, to take a Nissan GQ high pinion, with 100s axles (mod cruiser side gears to fit nissan ARB), cv's and hubs etc.

If I didn't have these lying around I would have gone with Nissan high pinion front and rear.

In the buggies we have made running hilux components we do break a fair bit of stuff. The main issue is the rear crown wheel. With how we do our strengthened CVs at the moment we now break more rear crownwheels than we do CVs. Dont really have a problem with the front high pinion crownwheel although we dont do much reversing up hill.

So IMO the hilux conversion isnt the absolute solution to our strength issues but it is very good. If you do this conversion and then drive your rig and try to break it (as we do in the buggies) you will definately be able to break it if you want (probably both front and rear). I dont think you would be able to break the front crownwheel if you were driving forwards and as long as you are sensible driving backwards you wont break it there either. The rear is another issue cause its definately a weak point (although still much, much stronger than the stock rover stuff). We only break them under full throttle and bouncing on grippy terrain - although they never have totally failed - they just chip a few teeth off and we swap them out. If you wanted something in the rear that you couldnt break then go for a salisbury and do the jac mac 35 spline conversion.

If it was me Id stick a 35 spline Salisbury (bolt in job) in the rear and do the toy in the front. And then if the front gives too much trouble then Id put a 60 series centre in there (which means cutting and modifing the housing cause the 60 series third wont fit the rover housing)

GQs have got weaker CVs than a hilux cause the stub shaft is smaller in diameter.

Sam

Well the Toy set-up would provide you with:

R&P - Aftermarket, cheaper + stronger
Axles - Aftermarket, stronger
CVs - OEM, aftermarket or Longfields, all are stronger

I did the math, and it'll come up far cheaper than having the BEST available Rover 4.11 set-up.

Hey Sam I did a search on the sals and in this post: http://www.outerlimits4x4.com/PHP_Modul ... =salisbury there is a reply by red90 which says there are a few differences such as spring seats and diff pinion lenght. Is there a particular defender which has a diff to bolt into the disco? I wasn't aware the rear centres in the toy were also notorious for being weak.

At this stage cv's are not a concern for me as there is always haultech(nissan) or longfeilds(toyota) to use. I had not found that post previously either and it has some good discussion on diff swaps.

the toyota conversion is good, but will never be as strong as GQ's or even 60 seires diffs

CV's will always be weak, and as you said there are stronger units for both these days.

I went GQ's beacuse everything is factory in my setup... no custom axles or diff casings.

I would think that it would be cheaper to fit GQ's and upgraded CV's than the toyota conversion, by the time you buy all the axles and flanges to make them work.