Solid Axle Swap BS Thread

You really have one of the cleanest builds in here. Looks great. That 9” is gonna make that truck solid as hell.

 

Thanks. Means a lot. I work hard for my parts and to do the work right. Always learning something and improving as I go. A 9" from currie or ruffstuff with an arb and high pinion front with an arb are probably some of the last things ill do for a while but itll be a little before those even happen.

 

Front drive shaft tech question for those of you with links.

The way I understand it, with links, during compression the pinion is the farthest away from the transfer case. When it droops, the axle is moving closer on a horizontal plane but also drooping vertically too.

What did you do with your front drive shafts?? did you get custom ones made or just re-lengthened them?

Yesterday I learned that my front drive shaft is a couple of inches too short Luckily it happened towards the end of the trail.



Here's is at ride height after I put it back together. From the discolored section, it seems like I have close to 2" of additional added available before the splined section completely separates.

Trying to decide which direction to go 'cause not feeling like spending a ton of money for a custom made shaft, especially since I don't daily drive this thing anymore.

 

Just measure from tcase flange to the pinion flange at full droop and full bump and ride height. Take the measurments to a drive line shop with a tg long spline driveshaft and have them build you a shaft. To save some money take your current drive shaft and have them reuse the ends.

 

Man, we measured this thing several times stretching the axle both ways with a forklift. I know measurements with a forklift are never 100% accurate, but with links you can get closer to the final measurements than with leaf springs.

Thing is that the shaft did not separate as I took the hard lines on some obstacles. It popped much later at some point towards the end of the trail which was easy. Something does not add up lol

I already had a shop work on this shaft. It got rebuilt, re-lenghtened and re-balanced. Needed new joints cause the old ones were busted. Also, the holes on the tacoma flanges would not line up with the d60-to-toyota flange or the atlas-to-toyota flange even though both of those are trippled drilled to accept "all toyota bolt patterns patterns." Apparently that does not include the 1st tacoma bolt patterns haha So the shaft now has older toyota truck flanges on both ends, with those the holes aligned perfectly.

 

That's how I measured for my driveshaft for my truck and my dad's linked jeep and haven't had any problems . Put the truck on jackstands and take the tires off to get the full droop number and either take the shocks off or just tae the coils off and empty the nitrogen and get the full bump number. Bet the problem is the splined section is just barely to short. I don't remember the exact number but at full droop I have like 9 inches of splined shaft out with 3 inch in and that's pushing it.

Tacoma flanges are different than the tripled drilled flanges. had the same problem and had it changed over to a mini truck end as well.

 

My shaft moves 1/2" throughout the suspension cycle . Start checking for messed up suspension components, maybe a jam nut loosened up and moved around or something.




Oh and where are the damn wheeling pics???

 

Stock front driveshaft slip here with 3-link and 12" coilovers... Slip moves maybe 5/8" thought the entire suspension cycle

 

I'm gonna remeasure everything - again - to make sure. But I think you are right. I bet the splined section on my shaft is barely too short.

And it was so frustrating learning about the tacoma flanges LOL. So many holes on the triple drilled flanges and the damn thing wouldn't align with any of them haha

1/2" is not much. This week I am going through everything to see if there's anything worn out or loosened. I never take pics but posted a couple from a guy on our group on my build thread

Cool, thanks for posting. So yours barely moves. I have 14" coilovers but we flexed this thing out plenty of times in the past to measure. Now I'm thinking that maybe a limiting strap on that side of the axle might be an easier/faster fix than having the shaft re-lenghtened

 

Well I guess I can post in here now lol first time in the rocks and so happy with it! Working out some minor kinks but so nice to wheel coming from LT on 35's..

 

@NorthwestCruiser, big difference from the IFS to the front straight axle huh?

So got a quick fix for my drive shaft problem. Got it extended it a couple of inches; homemade so it is not balanced nor 100% straight Hope it does the trick for now.

Curious to see how bad it will whoble at low speeds. I only engage the front driveline when needed (which the atlas allows me to do easily), and typically when going really slow. If it's too bad I will just bite the bullet and order a custom shaft.

Anyway, hope my calculations were right this time. This first pic is before. Now the "male" end of the shaft rests right where the paint line is at ride height, which gives me roughly 2" of extra play before the splined end separates. Basically, before I was running at the very edge at the end of the splines but I didn't realize it until it separated on me for the first time.



Next pic shows the home made fix. This is all about function - assuming that it will work

 

Umm yeah quite the difference
That should work for now.. It should be about $100 or less to retube with longer tube/rebalance it if it annoys you. I had to get a custom Tom Woods and it wasn't too bad price wise but my problem was different.

 

I doubt you will even notice it.

 

What issues did you have with your front drive shaft? Why did you end up getting a new custom one instead?

I already had the shaft re-leghtened and re-balanced once. You are right, it is not too expensive. I think I paid a little over $100. So I wanted to try a quick fix this time around instead of keep dumping money on that shaft again.

That is surely my hope. Some Jeep guys I wheel with probably wish they had manual locking hubs so that their front driveline is not spinning at highway speeds.

 

In case anyone is looking for a linked truck my friend is selling his tacoma up here in Seattle, its had the works done to it.
https://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/cto/d/toyota-tacoma-rockcrawler/6393222340.html

 

My yj had a completely blown out slip yoke so I used to disconnect it from the axle end and ziptie it the frame rail when not wheeling. Nice budget fix for a poor college kid!

 

clean looking rig

That proves there's always a way!

 

Honestly im still not 100% sure exactly what caused it, but something with when I had it linked we built it with 6 degrees caster, moved the axle forward, and raised it about an inch higher, caused the driveline angles to get all wonky. Anything over 25mph I'd get a bad grinding noise coming from the front end when I was coasting or feathering the throttle. Tore apart the axle and rebuilt it again, pulled the third and had compound run on it to see if its the gears. Also made sure it was phased right too. I put my friends double cardan in and the noise went away.

 

Probably one of my favorite sas tacomas. Love the bed he made on it. Super clean and simple.

 

Has anyone here ran fox 2.5 air shocks on their rigs without limit straps?? How did they hold up?
After I get it sitting on the ground at ride hieght I’m going to measure for air shocks and just wanted to here people experience.