Solid Axle Swap!!!

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Picked up the sleeves for the rear shackles today. Also gave the old girl its first service this year. 80 series bump stops are a little to long so Im going to cut the first section off and install them tomorrow. May even get time to put the shackles in as well.

Going to get a shop to look at the brakes next week. Going to get a second opinion before I start pulling shit apart or putting bigger master cylinders in. Stay tuned for pics i the coming days

Far out, that's a bit rough, kept her waiting that long... hahahahahah


In all seriousness, its looking pretty good. Hope you get those brakes sorted soon.
 
Finished? haha I would love to see the day she is "finished"
Considering taking the body lift out of the cab to drop the height a little. Atleast then it won't be cop bait. Only issue would be clearance for some parts like piping, wiring and the intercooler.
 
Bump stops are in. Should stop the shocks bottoming out now. Also took the sway bar cross member out so the diff flange should now clear that and not smash the crap out of it

 
Well I have lasted 3 weeks without a sticker. Been looking at TD42's as a daily for the last week so I can take the Nav off the road for a week or 2 to sort out the gremlins. Still need to improve the brakes which I will take to a brake specialist to do, move the panhard bracket up an inch so it is parallel to the draglink, need to get a proper alignment and put some flares on.
 
Well I have lasted 3 weeks without a sticker. Been looking at TD42's as a daily for the last week so I can take the Nav off the road for a week or 2 to sort out the gremlins. Still need to improve the brakes which I will take to a brake specialist to do, move the panhard bracket up an inch so it is parallel to the draglink, need to get a proper alignment and put some flares on.

Flares?
Did somebody say flares?
I have some up for sale if you would like them!!
You can fit 35's EASY under these things!!
 
Im gonna try some 37's on the old girl on friday and flex her up. Should get some pics on here by the weekend
 
Alright bit of an update, bought a 2000 Gu 4.2 coil cab about a week ago so I didn't have to drive the Nav everyday. She goes alright but like any old 4wd there is a few things that need fixing but I can do that in the new year.



Went and looked at a wrecked GQ on Sunday and came home with a front driveshaft, a rear control arm, brake master cylinder and a complete rear axle all for $130. The GU had a bent lower arm so I chucked that in today. Master cylinder I got incase I need to upgrade the Nav one if I have no luck fixing the brakes. Rear axle will go in the Nav eventually once I rebuild it.

Now onto the front driveshaft.. I started by comparing the 2, they both have a 50mm OD with a 3mm wall thickness, almost identical except for the length. The patrol has slightly bigger uni joints and its slip yoke is 50mm OD wheres the Nav one was 45mm. The transfer case has a smaller bolting pattern compared to the patrol diff so all I had to do was cut the uni out of the stock Navara driveshaft, cut the patrol driveshaft to length and weld it in.







Ive still got to weld the uni in but that can wait until I have the gearbox crossmember sorted. That will be tomorrows job.......
 
Well dropped the driveshaft off for balancing today then got stuck into moving the Panhard rod mount



Bolted the new shaft up to see how things were looking, slightly fouls on the Calmini cross member, Im either going to lift the transmission 10mm of notch the crossmember. Took the wheels off and at the axle on some planks of wood so it was at full droop to check clearances. Shocks are at 9.5" of their 10" travel





Took the the old panhard mount with the 4" and trimmed that up nicely. Cut a 100 x 80 x 8mm plate up to start the mount. Will use the same methodology as I did before and drill a 3/4" hole and weld it both sides. Will make up another plate for the back of the mount so the bolt is a double shear.

Im going to drop the panhard rod off to my machinist tomorrow. I need to take 20mm off each end to shorten it as I've run out of adjustment. Other option is to get a new one made up but we will see how this goes first. I still need to pull the entire axle over to the drivers side by about 20mm so having some adjustment on the panhard is an absolute must.
 
Well got the driveshaft back from balancing yesterday so that got bolted up.



Now on the the big **** around: the Panhard rod. I ended up just taking 30mm off one end with the drop saw. It is now short enough to fit with both heims wound 1/2 way in. The other problem was that the draglink was now way too long so again it got the drop saw treatment going from 930mm down to 880mm. Will get some new bungs today from locktup and sort them both out first before I work on the panhard mount.

 
Havnt made much progress in the last week. Been real busy at work. Got most of the week off so should finish the panhard rod mount and gearbox crossmember by Friday. The I can finally take her out and get some decent FLEX pictures. Stay tuned guys there will be some FLEX on Friday
 
Finally had some time off work this week so made the new panhard rod mount, started off with some 3.2 wall RHS, welded a piece of 8mm flat bar to the back of it and boxed up the bottom to give it some strength.





Drilled a 3/4" hole and put it in place, the panhard rod was still too long so took another 30mm off the other end.

 
Tacked it in place then checked the steering from lock to lock. Everything cleared so I welded it up and painted everything with rattle can black







I then reassembled the front end and moved onto the gearbox cross member. I've made some progress on this but don't have any pics so ill cover this in tomorrow's update.
 
After looking at what Nissan had to offer in terms of gearbox cross members for a D22 I decided that nothing on the market would suit the intended use I had for it nor could it be integrated into my current setup. This lead to me making my own gearbox mount using the supplied Calmini cross member and reusing the rubber gearbox mounts supplied not he original cross member.
The design of the gearbox mount is very simple, the 2 rubber mount are sandwiched between 2 pieces of 75 x 6mm flat bar 280mm long. The top bar is bolted to the gearbox and the bottom bar is bolted to the calmini cross member using some M12 bolts. The cross member is secured to the chassis using 4 x 10mm HT bolts



To give the driveshaft more clearance I made up some spacers out of 10mm flat bar

 

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