2WD with High and Low range?

Finally decided to see if I could solve the the dreaded wobble in my 2006 Jimny and also investigate the crunching noise when turning.
The result was not good, all kingpins were seized and rusted with one starting to disintegrate.
The RF CV Joint was cracked and would not turn smoothly. 
I am tempted to turn my Jimny into a 2WD version with Hi and Low range.
If I remove the drive shaft to the front diff, remove both CV joints and shafts, drain the diff and block off the vacuum lines it should work as a 2WD Jimny?
Installed new kingpins and bearings and shims to LF and have ordered new CV joint for RF.
If the death wobble is not fixed after this it may end up in the tip, totally over Suzuki's lack of commitment in fixing this design problem that has frustrated Jimny owners for twenty years, not to mention the cost!

Hope i am not offending you but these pictures show lack of maintenence, not a design fault. I have never seen bearings this bad, must have been out of lube here for years.

Normal bearing life for these when maintained is more than 100000km.
When I add large tires and drive like an idiot in stupid places they still last 40-50000km in my experience.

And the cost of the parts are well below other brands of cars with rigid axles even for SKF or Koyo kits in my opinion.

You could remove the propshaft & driveshafts, but there is no point in crippling the car, simply leaving it in 2WD leaves everything stationary.

Your CV joint has most likely burst open due to someone driving it in 4WD on a grippy surface and turning tight corners, the strain on the drivetrain is enormous, and the CV joints tend to fail first.

The problem is the swivel bearings are not protected from water, and people insist on trying to drive through water deeper than the car is designed for, so water gets into the swivel, sits at the bottom and rusts the lower bearing out.
(I won't go through water deeper than the wheel rim - at the bottom!, unless it really is a life or death necessity, you can always go back or around)
4WD makes no difference, except people are more likely to try and drive through muddy water in a 4WD car.

I'd just replace the driveshaft, axle oil seal & swivel bearings, pack the bearings with waterproof (boat trailer) grease and avoid water.
If you still get death wobble, you can get a shim pack and increase the pre-load on the swivel bearings- there is an article on it here somewhere.

I doubt very much if the load rating of those taper rollers is insufficient! you could have a look on here if you have the sizes cdn.skfmediahub.skf.com/api/public/0901d...f_preview_medium.pdf

No offense taken yakuza and yes lack of maintenance has probably exacerbated the design problem.

Those bearings and the front axle design have been essentially the same for 40 years of Suzukis. The only "design flaw" is the lack of waterproofing. A 30302 bearing has a load rating of around 20kn. I can't pretend to know how you determine if that is sufficient, but I'm sure the engineers at Suzuki do. In my experience they fail from corrosion and lack of lubrication, not from excess mechanical load.
I am now using graphite grease on mine. It's highly water resistant and well suited to low speed, high load applications, but I won't know how good it is in this application until they wear out which is typically around 30,000 miles for me.

Busta wrote:

I am now using graphite grease on mine. It's highly water resistant and well suited to low speed, high load applications, but I won't know how good it is in this application until they wear out which is typically around 30,000 miles for me.

That is a very interesting idea, I would not have thought of graphite grease.  Definitely update us next time you have it apart. 

I put my Jimny to hard use, so it would be great to know if I could get a maintenance edge with a different lubricator.