Time for a cage. Picked this thing up from a guy who never installed it for $100. Normally LROR sells it for $400. Started installing it this last weekend. I need to fab up a new rollbar to fit into my new pickup configuration.
I really like what you've done with this thing!
Thanks! It's came a long way since I bought it when I was 16 and had absolutely no idea what I was doing to it!
Decided to go back to SPUA after all, and drop my tire size down. I don't do enough wheeling to keep it SPOA. With the 1:1 high range, 3.73 diffs, and 33's, the gearing is way too high. By dropping the tire size down, I think I'll be able to daily it a little better, and plus, I can still do some of the easier trails here and there still.
Put 4.57’s in the diffs and drive it.
From what I’ve seen dropping to SPUA isn’t compatible with the VW motor.
Normally the message is there’s no problem running SPUA with whatever tire size you’re willing to street drive/run on Suzuki axles, the engine is going to fight you trying to drop the car down.
There’s certainly no connection between capability and SPOA. Many would say it’s an inverse relationship.
I ran my rig SPUA with 3" lift springs for 3 years, and never had a problem with the oil pan to axle issue. I've played around with the gearing calculator a ton, and realistically, to get my high range much more reasonable, I would want 5.13's. My other option is to just swap back to a samurai transfercase, and I've been seriously considering it quite a bit.
Maybe I will keep it SPOA on 33's and just throw 5.13's in it. I just found some gears for cheap.
You could drop it to SPUA then, put the 5.12’s in it, leave the 33’s on, and have the best of both worlds.
Last edited by Gwagensteve; 02-05-2019 at 04:03 PM.
Suppose that's not a terrible idea. Picked up one set of gears last night, now gotta get the other set, and pick up the stuff to swap the gears over to my steel thirds.
Pulled the rear third out last night, and started disassembly this morning at work. Got the ring gear swapped over, had to use the samurai bolts, because for some reason, the tracker ones were too long, and I couldn't get some of them to thread all the way down, they were bottoming out. I measured up the old crush sleeve, and set up some shims with my solid pinion spacer to within two thousands of an inch difference. I will have to install everything and test it to see if I need to make any adjustments.
Finished up my setup for now, and set backlash and checked my pattern. Picture is crappy, but the pattern seems to be pretty good, especially since this is the first time I've ever tried setting up a differential.
Regeared the front axle, just gotta put the third back in now and reassemble. Drivers side was leaking gear oil, even though I just rebuilt the axle less than 300 miles ago. I put in aftermarket shafts, and when I did the inner seal, the stupid thing didn't fit very snug at all, of course, it popped completely out without any pressure, so I "glued" it in place with some ultra gray RTV.
I decided I wanted to do away with my heim setup. Although it worked great, it technically wasn't "legal" to drive on the street. Plus, by the time I had the misalignment spacers, joint, washers, and bolt stacked together, it was way tall. I needed to get a drop pitman arm for my for my sidekick power steering box anyways, so I decided to convert to fj80 tie rod ends. The great thing about this is, when I carry spare TRE's, they can be used for my drag link, or tie rod. I previously ran a 9/16 bolt in my setup, and the fj80 stud is just slightly larger, so all I had to do was ream out my mercedes arm on the top, and then my new pitman arm. I still need to buy a right hand thread end because lowrange was out of stock.
Finished up my mercedes stage 1 high steer. Mounted my radiator, filled the power steering and cooling system with fluids. Power steering works excellent so far. Seems to have some sort of odd vibe while driving though, so I need to dig into it and figure out exactly what's going on. Hoping it's just something simple. Also this rig was in last months issue of 4wd and offroad, so I was pretty proud of that.