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There is a great draw for them but they are also a pain to do!!

 

SAS is only worth doing if the majority of wheeling you do is difficult rock-crawling. For moderate rock crawling or anything less, including "overland" wheeling, the IFS is adequate for the rocks and much better suited for the rest.

 

Most bike guys take 25 days, it's 5000 miles of dirt... I think it would be reasonable to do it in three weeks the way you drive. Then do the cannonball run back home.

 

When you're truck weighs 6k+ and you've already blown a rear diff on the side of a mountain you start to consider these things.

No matter what my rear diff has to get stronger. I'm looking at a couple options.

I read a post from a guy in Iceland that said they take the 9.5 Land Cruiser rear diff and chop off the tubes. Then chop the tubes off of a Tacoma diff and weld it up to the LC center. From what I understood the splines are the same so the axles brakes and all that stay the same you just get a bigger ring and pinion. If that's all true it's an option.

Another is a custom rear diff like a diamond. I believe @username said he spent about 5k on his. So that's an option

If I did the custom rear I would be tempted to do LT up front though and that's probably an additional 4k.

The SAS idea I'm looking at would use F350 Super Duty axles and 40s. Parts list comes out a little over 10k but that includes wheels and tires. I could also recoupe about $2500-3000 by selling my current Geared and locked diffs, suspension and steering components.

Don't know which way I'll go, but those are the options I see.

I lean towards the SAS. Ultimately I would like to see us put together a SAS kit that the home builder with a good welder could get under the truck for around 10-12k. Don't know if that's doable yet though.

If you know me you know I lean towards the overbuilt. I don't like leaving things to chance. I feel like with Tons, crawl box, 40s and my generally easy and lazy driving style there would be little room for breakage and an ability to go ANYWHERE I would want to go.

Might get 9mpg though. I'm at 12 as it is.

 

I've already done Charleston SC to Dallas TX in one 21hr straight shot. That's about half the country via highway. I think I could get home in 3 days but I probably won't wanna see my driver seat for a month after that.


Here's a tip for the iron assed long haulers. If you carry IWB take your pistol off when you get in the truck for a long haul. My SI joint hurt so bad from leaning on my Glock that long I had to take a week off from the gym.

 

Take out your wallet too if you keep it in your back pocket. Helps make the ride much more comfortable for such a small difference.

 

Learned that shit the first time i drove 3 hours from Clemson back home. Never again.

 

Yeah if you could get a whole month that would be better. Or just take the three weeks and call the boss from Oregon and say your grandma died. Mine died four times before my boss figured it out.

The rear end is a tough question to answer. If money is tight but you have time the Ford 9" under some late 80's early 90's vans is almost as wide as ours...if you can find one. Gusset the housing and regear and run it. There are a lot of option for hybrid FJ80 axles. It sucks the pumpkin isn't centered, because they are 63" WMS to WMS and many have a factory E-locker, plus they are already linked and coiled from the factory. Ruffstuff has some nice housings if you can do your own fab work and piece together the parts, but I didn't have time for all that and needed a complete axle so I went with a diamond. It was exactly what I wanted, but $5K is a lot of cheddar. Shoot, that's what I paid for my complete landcruiser, with 4.88's and lockers front and rear!

 

The hunt begins

 

Or find two 2nd gen tundras and get the rear axle off them and then make one a tundra 60 with 60 outers... 10.5 inch ring gear and keeping it toyota. Thats what im hunting down next for stage two of the SAS.
@sean266 hows the tundra doing

 

http://forum.ih8mud.com/categories/vehicle-trailer-classifieds.326/

I bought mine from the TW classifieds, but mud has tons of listings. The 93-97 had a factory E-locker option on some of them(front and rear) and full floater axles and disk brakes all around plus the bigger engine compared to the 91-92. The Elock isn't a deal breaker, mine has ARB's which I think are more reliable. The 91-92 has a gutless but super reliable 3FE, some argue the apex of Toyota reliability. There are many examples north of 500K miles that have never been touched other than spark plugs.

 

That's my next DD. Fj80 with an LSx (probably Chevy 5.3) swap

 

theres a guy around clemson with a CLEAN 97 FJZ80 with the lockers all around and man I want one...

 

I hear ya. Sounds like a SAS could be the right solution for you. One thought that comes to my mind with the cruiser axles is to consider swapping t-cases to an atlas or something that will work with an offset rear diff. Swapping a t-case is gonna be less work than chopping axle tubes and adding them to a cruiser diff. I for one, think the 80 series axles under a Tacoma would be awesome, and I've brainstormed how to make that work many times.

 

This sorta is a noob question but how does a Center diff lock work?

I understand the Front/Rear as its pretty straightforward but how does the center work?

 

Center diff is necessary for a Full-time 4WD vehicle. The Cruiser uses a Viscous Coupler in the center diff. Locking the center diff forces an equal split of power between the front and rear axles.

 

So in that respect the center diff is always locked? sorta like an AWD sorta setup right?

 

I'm not sure that would be possible with my crawl box. (Box isnt installed. It's sitting in my dining room waiting for a functional transmission to go behind)

 

No it's not always locked. In the same way a differential allows one wheel to turn at a different speed than the other wheel on the same axle, the center diff is necessary (in an AWD or fulltime 4WD vehicle) to allow the front axle to rotate at a different rate than the rear axle. When the center diff is locked the power is split 50/50 between front and rear axles and they rotate at the same speed. Locking the center diff is the equivalent of shifting your part-time t-case from 2WD to 4WD.

 

Your crawl box is likely set up for your centered rear end, so no it wouldn't work with an offset rear diff. Your choices would be to either go with a different t-case behind the Tacoma transmission, or since it sounds like you're looking for a transmission too, you could swap a complete trans/t-case combo that has an offset t-case output. I know a lot of people are fans of manual transmissions, I am too, but I've grown to love having an auto trans. There's a reason the large percentage of KOH rigs and comp rigs as well as race trucks all use automatic transmissions. If you could source an adapter/bellhousing to allow your Tacoma motor to mate to an 80 series trans/t-case combo it would give you an offset output. Any cruiser trans/t-case would for that matter. The H151F is a manual 5-speed cruiser trans that would be a sweet option if you wanted a manual. The A440F automatic from the early 80 series is a beast. I have never heard of a single instance where one of those transmissions has failed. They're as close to "bomb-proof" as you can get. The later A442F that is in my Cruiser is a little smoother shifting and still very strong, but doesn't have the "legendary" reputation of the earlier trans.

There are several different crawler gear options available now for the 80 series t-case too.

Sorry for babbling. As you can tell, I've wasted lots of time thinking of the options to do just what you're looking at, and keeping all Toyota components.

Here's a good spec sheet of the different Cruiser transmissions and ratios. This is from a non-US source but still good info.
http://www.marks4wd.com/transmission-ratio-information