by v7guy » Mon Jul 01, 2013 10:46 am
There's a big ole can of worms in this thread, there's thoughts on the subject littered all over the forum as hijacks in many threads.
I don't think a 14 bolt rear in the earlier trucks with the ABS in the TC would be too crazy. They can be had for dirt cheap, they're strong, have lockers, you can build links as you see fit. You can also just swap in the SS rear like HARDTRAILZ did. The SS rear seems to be more than adequate.
The front is where it gets tricky, there are a few guys looking at CV inners to replace the tripot. There's at least a couple guys looking at fixing our balljoint angles. I think we haven't seen any serious conversations about it cause nobody is building anything/buying parts and testing them now. But it seems that it's coming. There's not a shortage of guys looking at options. But speculation isn't a specialty of this forum.
Concerning pushing the truck further than what fishsticks and HARDTRAILZ has, you kinda run into a situation of "where do you stop".
If you're going to make control arms for the front and use cobbled together CVs do you fit a larger hub? HARDTRAILZ is replacing his stock hubs yearly with 35s and the stock suspension limitations.
Do you try to keep ABS?
Do you use a 930 CV, or a 934, or go bigger?
Do you have stub shafts made for our diff or change diffs?
Do you use a rear sump oil pan to fit a different diff?
Do you try to lock the front diff?
Do you mount a traditional shock or keep the goofy stock setup?
Can you get a longer shock with our stock mounting setup made for a reasonable price or is it feasible to make an a arm with a mount for the shock that will clear the front axle?
What spindle do you use?
What do you do about the transfer case?
Can you keep ABS with a different transfer case?
How do you handle the steering?
If you are going to all this trouble do you make the front control arms longer?
Do you keep the stock geometry?
and the list goes on and on and on
Our drivetrain/suspension setup is pretty unique, so there's not a lot of options to swap or build parts without redoing almost everything.
Even if you overcome all of this, and build a spiffy IFS, your shit is still going to be weaker than a solid axle, and it's probably going to cost just as much (but probably much more).
It'd be really cool, and it'd be an adventure. But the biggest deterrent so far has been the scale of the project and the money needed to do it.
If you've got thoughts and measurements to back it up I'm sure we're all interested.
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