Toyota Axles

I see there are several Jimnys with toyota axles on, question is... how easy a conversion is it? and what else do you need apart from a set of good axles.


cheers

Its not easy, you need to fabricate mounts on the axles for radius arms and panhard rods, spring mounts and such, you need to be aware that there is different gear ratios within the diffs, propshafts need making up etc. Most toyota axle conversions i've seen use totally new fabricated suspension components, and dont use any of the jimny radius arms, 3 link back end is best. Brakes could be interesting as ideally you'dneed to convert the toyota rear drums to disc etc.
If your a coded welder with a good history of fabrication and pipe bending/welding and have a lot of time on your hands - and want to do challenge events - than go for it. Ive never broken any part of my jimny axles, Martins not broken a great deal and he seems a bit rougher on his car than me.

In short, if your breaking your axles every weekend then get someone else to fit them and be prepared for a big bill, if youve never broken your CV's or diffs then dont bother.
IMHO
Gary

In my defence I have only broken 1 CV and bent the front leading arms and a rear driveshaft.

The CV was not the usual heavy right foot issue, the front wheel was wedged into a wheel sized V-shaped gulley and I turned the wheel hard against the gulley wall and tried to drive the wheel up the edge of the gulley.

The front leading arms were on a baked hard site during the summer. The ruts were like concrete and I noticed the bends in the arms when I got home

The rear driveshaft must have happened at some time without me noticing, it was only when I was looking for a rubbing noise later that I found it.

The rest of my woes are due to the very sandy off-road sites in the area, the sand gets into everything and wears it out instantly.

As Gary says, toyota axles are a lot of work and you have to watch the gearing to make sure your engine can actually turn the wheels. However by seriously over specifying the axles you should have fewer bends and breakages.

Martin

In that case... think i will keep my jimny axles in there.

I have never broken anything other than a shock mount off the front so far, and that was a big bump that did it. i do tend to be hard on my car off road as it goes on a trailer, but by the sounds of it the toyota will be more work than there is benifit in it.

thanks for your opinions.

Never broken our Jimny and I do drive it hard ... The Plain was baked dry this year, so much so I managed to tear chunks out of the tyres and loose a few tread blocks thansk to the flint and ruts but never managed to bend / break or sheer anything yet !!!

However one of the Discos that goes out with us is on his second cam belt, third or 4th set of UJ's and is now a few hungred Kg's lighter after loosing various bits of trim to the plain !!!

i have just about finished the conversion and have been doing a bit of testing in the backyard and it is a whole new car now, it gets so much flex as i am running a triangulated 4 link in the rear and a 3 link + panhard in the front with 14" travel racerunner airshocks. i basically scraped the jimnys whole susension setup and started again and lengthened the wheelbase. the hardest part of the build believe it or not is that brakes everything else is pretty cruisy just time consuming. the build has probably taken us 3 months worth of weekends and we are not qualified fabricators we have just learnt everything through building it. any questinons fell free to ask.

michael

Michael has emailed in some pictures - I will upload later.

Many thanks, Martin

ooo can you do ours too please ?

haha unfortunately i live in australia

.. Fancy a Holiday in the UK ?

hahaha i wouldnt mind actually haha but not building jimnys ahaha thank god mines almost done because im starting to get sick of only ever seeing the inside of my shed every weekend haha

hmm.. now im a little more tempted if the hardest bit is the brakes.
Starting again with the suspension and having it triangulated at the rear would mean i would get better travel as well and possibly not end up stuck as often... oh and bigger tyres would run easier.

maybe it will be a project for next summer funds allowing