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- #21
Pr0ject42,
You are absolutely right about the stock knuckles. I am not sure if you have been following the build, but my original intention was to do a SOA. I bought the high steer arms and mailed my FJ80 knuckles to OTT industries to have the high steer arms built and the knuckles machined. When I got the knuckles and high steer arms back from them, it became obvious that they wouldn't clear the springs. OTT will not do any additional FJ80 steering arms, nor would they correct the ones I have, they said it was too labor intensive and demand wasn't high enough. So I was stuck with high steer arms and knuckles that wouldn't fit the stock arms.
I looked at all of my options.... You can't go sprung under with custom springs, because of the electric locker and the offset diff. I could buy new knuckles and then pull and swap the machined knuckles with the new knuckles, but I think that the strength of the arms is suspect, and the panhard would still have to be in front of the axle due to the oil pan and filter. So I choose just to use the high steer and modified knuckles. It also let me tuck the lower links up onto the axle housing so they will clear trail obstacles.
If you are looking to swap an 80 axle into anything but an 80, and you have stock knuckles and arms, your way would be hands down the quickest and easiest way.
You can see in this photo that the Tierod, Drag link and Panhard will all be up out of the way, but it is a tough fit.
Ryan.
You are absolutely right about the stock knuckles. I am not sure if you have been following the build, but my original intention was to do a SOA. I bought the high steer arms and mailed my FJ80 knuckles to OTT industries to have the high steer arms built and the knuckles machined. When I got the knuckles and high steer arms back from them, it became obvious that they wouldn't clear the springs. OTT will not do any additional FJ80 steering arms, nor would they correct the ones I have, they said it was too labor intensive and demand wasn't high enough. So I was stuck with high steer arms and knuckles that wouldn't fit the stock arms.
I looked at all of my options.... You can't go sprung under with custom springs, because of the electric locker and the offset diff. I could buy new knuckles and then pull and swap the machined knuckles with the new knuckles, but I think that the strength of the arms is suspect, and the panhard would still have to be in front of the axle due to the oil pan and filter. So I choose just to use the high steer and modified knuckles. It also let me tuck the lower links up onto the axle housing so they will clear trail obstacles.
If you are looking to swap an 80 axle into anything but an 80, and you have stock knuckles and arms, your way would be hands down the quickest and easiest way.
You can see in this photo that the Tierod, Drag link and Panhard will all be up out of the way, but it is a tough fit.
Ryan.
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Jackson had some good advise, and I did my best to follow it. I think that you are right about the Panhard, it only locates the axle right/left in the chassis. If it is too steep or doesn't follow the drag link you will have a lot of bump steer. A question that I asked on several forums, but never got a clear answer was, "Is it best to have a completly flat panhard, or should it parellel the drag link?" I dropped my drag link several inches to closer follow the drag link, so I guess I will see what happens.
