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IFS vs live/solid front axle

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 7:28 pm
by rowan
I'm sure you have all witnessed many times the posting of such an obvious question- Everyone knows that solid front axle is better- that's why people with 4runners do solid axle swaps- right? I was discussing 4WDs with someone the other day and they demamded some objective figures proving that solid front axles are better than IFS- for example that the wheel travel on a standard hilux with live front axles is 80cm, whilst on an IFS standard hilux it is only 60cm (obviously these figure are only an example, as i have no idea what sort of wheel travel each vehicle has) can anyone give me some undeniable evidence that solid front axles are better than IFS?

get stuck in boys

cheers.

Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 9:26 pm
by bad_religion_au
it's not pure numbers that do it either

a live axle doesn't allow independant movement of each wheel, so when one is getting stuffed into the guard, the other is getting pushed down, instead of just being let fall like in IFS

also with IFS the diff center stays put, where if your ramping one wheel onto a rock with a live axle, your also lifting the center and hte housing out the way...

Ifs v's live

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 7:25 am
by Fathilux
I consider myself an expert at breaking Ifs front ends as I battled with mine for the past three years. My opinion is the IFS front end has too many under engineered parts for eg the most breakable part is the Idler arm ( I broke three of these ) then there is the axle flanges, the flange on the diff that is bolted to the CV's it only has a wall thinkness of five mm and I broke two of these. The opinions of other club members is the live front ends are just much more stronger, more durable setup and much less things can go wrong with them. My front end had 60mm travel with the IFS but now its a SAS I have 277mm and that actual figures you can thro at your peers.

Re: Ifs v's live

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 9:35 am
by ausyota
Fathilux wrote:I consider myself an expert at breaking Ifs front ends as I battled with mine for the past three years. My opinion is the IFS front end has too many under engineered parts for eg the most breakable part is the Idler arm ( I broke three of these ) then there is the axle flanges, the flange on the diff that is bolted to the CV's it only has a wall thinkness of five mm and I broke two of these. The opinions of other club members is the live front ends are just much more stronger, more durable setup and much less things can go wrong with them. My front end had 60mm travel with the IFS but now its a SAS I have 277mm and that actual figures you can thro at your peers.
Dont forget the crappy crownwheel that loses teeth oh so easily. :roll:

Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2005 10:02 am
by 4sum4
My mate has broken 6 crown wheels in 8 drives,the problem was the week backing plate that the crown wheel bolts to, all of his broken teeth on the crown wheel were on the top part of the crown wheel ,saying that the pinion was pushing the crown wheel away.

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 9:24 pm
by rowan
hey ausyota what did your SAS cost? did you do it yourself?
I see you're in Manji- do you know if there is a company in Perth that will do an SAS? i really want an extra cab but also want live axle front- whoever started putting IFS into 4WDs should be shot!!!!!!

Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 11:37 pm
by ausyota
I am still in the process of doing mine :)
At the moment Im just collecting up all the bits to make the lux a beast when its all done (lack of time and money as well as having lots of stuff on the go at once is slowing me down).

Opposite lock Balcatta can do a drive in, drive out SAS.
Speak to Russell.