200 Vs. 250 FE - Owners Perspective (25 Viewers)

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You’d have to wheel it with too much skinny pedal to break a front differential- I’ve never had any issues knock on wood..
Some reports are breaking on places like icy driveways. A front locker usually fixes the issue, but you've still got relatively weak CVs to deal with. Locker plus HD CVs seems to be pretty bulletproof.

Unfortunately the 100 is a big pita to change on the trail. The 5G 4R uses a bolt together assembly to attach the lower ball joint, so trail swaps are a breeze comparatively. But they're also pretty strong so breakage is rare. I started carrying two trail spares plus a rear drive shaft as my base kit. After 8 years I dropped to carrying only one and never broke one.

The 100 does have much better factory gas tank skid and rear axle - I've only seen one 8.2 break and that was aftermarket ring gear failure. But it's obviously smaller and weaker. Gas tank skid really is a weak point on the 4R. It's low and gets hammered on harder trails.

On my 3rd Gen 4Runner the axles would snap if you looked at them wrong.
 
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The CVs are pretty big on a 100- I imagine larger than a 4Runner/taco. I’ve pushed mine hard and drive home a thousand miles after the seals were blown.
 
The CVs are pretty big on a 100- I imagine larger than a 4Runner/taco. I’ve pushed mine hard and drive home a thousand miles after the seals were blown.
Not sure. I've seen more frequent trail breakage on the 100s. Infinitely more because I've seen a handfull of 100's and never seen a J150. But that's just anecdotal. 100's are a lot older too. For rough comparison - this is a minitruck/FJ40/FJ60 birfield on the right vs a J150 on the left. The bell is probably similar an FJ80. If I had an 80 laying around I would have grabbed a pic, but I unfortunately I didn't.
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I have read exactly 0 reports of CV failures on the 120/150 platform forum. That is of course anecdotal, but it appears to not really be a problem.

Conversely, several folks have blown up 8" diffs. I have not seen a report of a failed 8.2.
 
Just want to share pics of the front CV axle off the UZN215 (left) next to J100(center and right).

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