Chassis Swop ?

[fester]

Is It Possible To Use A Pickup Chassis With Leaf Springs Setup On A Hilux Jeep (92) In Order To Raise The Suspension Above 10 To 11 Inches ? Or Are They Different Wheel Bases Etc

[kitesurf_phil]

Is It Possible To Use A Pickup Chassis With Leaf Springs Setup On A Hilux Jeep (92) In Order To Raise The Suspension Above 10 To 11 Inches ? Or Are They Different Wheel Bases Etc

I'll have a pint of whatever you are on. Looks like all the techies are in bed. Not me .......... hic!

[fester]

Take It Thats A Plain And Simple Not Possible Then? So How The Hell Has This Chap Lifted His So High ?

[Elvz]

Nah I'm still awake. I can't see any reason why you couldn't put a Surf Body on a Hilux chassis if you can weld a bit.

If you want to raise it 10" it's going to be pretty special anyway so you may as well just fit the steering bits, leaf springs and axles off a pickup to your Surf chassis. The biggest problem with solid Hilux axles is going to be that the front one is narrower by 2 or 3"? than the IFS suspension which is pretty narrow anyway for an off-road car.

I have Land Cruiser FJ60 axles on my Hilux truck because they are 6" wider, have fully floating half-shafts and have bigger diffs too.

[fester]

Are You Going To Tell Me A Pickup Doesnt Have A Chassis Now Or Something Lol Theres Plenty Of Cans A Stella Here Your Welcome To Have One Lol

[fester]

Sounds Impressive El But Do You Have Any Idea Of Costing For This Job And Who Could Do It ? Not Using It For Offroad At This Time Just Want To P*** The Bloke Off Who Has A Humvee Over Ere Lol Plus Every Time I Look At That Picture I Just Need Info Onnit Which I Havent Been Able To Obtain Supertrux In Daventry Said 11 Inch Lift Max From Them With 35 Inch Tyres But Is A Bit On The Pricey Side

[TonyN]

Plus the standard UK pickup is a different wheel base to a Surf, the wheel arches won't line up.



I'm putting a solid axle on our grey surf, see 'We've been shopping' thread. Only worth doing if you wanna offroad properly and need the axle travel.

[Elvz]

I think that if you can't design and build something like this yourself you might be better off leaving it alone or paying LA Supertrux to do it for you. If you're going to use a third party to do most of the work for you, you need to be able to judge whether they are capable of understanding what you are trying to do and have the skills to carry out the work. This sort of job is not within the competence of a normal car repairer! You also need to be able to communicate your ideas to the people actually doing the work and agree the cost with them.

I've been building my Hilux for 5 months now and I already had the engine before I bought the truck and I knew more or less what I wanted to do with the truck from the start. The guys who work for me have booked 160 hours on it, and I have paid an external company around a thousand in labor (at £27.00/hour)

So far I've spent just over £8,000 excluding the engine (which cost £5,500 last year). Most of that has been spent on parts (3" FIAA roll-cage, composite panels, Air-Ride suspension system, etc)

I'm not expecting to finish construction before the end of the summer but it's going to take as long as it takes - you can't put a time limit on something like this and I've recently moved the whole project from the company workshop to my garage at home because it was taking up too much time and space and disrupting more important activities.

I'm building my truck for off road racing and this is my second attempt. The first one was a total disaster but I learned enough from it to be reasonably sure that this one will work out. I wouldn't dream of spending this much time and money on a road car just for the sake of looks.

[Morr]

I remember seeing a hilux pick-up advertised for sale here (Ireland) about 18 months ago which had a lift of around 10 inches or so, don't know if it was all in suspension or partially a body lift, but curiously it had the opposite of your question. Claimed to be sitting on a Surf chassis!

[Guest]

My suggestion would be to get a solid axle from a pickup and fit it to the Surf chassis. Needs a considerable amount of welding but there are some good writeups on it - I'll see if i can find one, popular mod for the mad rock crawlers in the US. Only problem will be that you end up with a leaf sprung front and a coil sprung rear, this will tend to make the front fairly lively. You could always swap in a leaf sprung setup for the rear - again fairly major but certainly do-able if you can get the springs complete with front hangers which can then be welded to the chassis rails. The rear hangers are bolt on items at the rear anyway.

This would even up the handling somewhat however with leaf springs you will notice a considerable degradation in ride quality. You may want to think parabolic springs front and rear which will bring the handling more in line with that of a coil sprung motor. You will also need to be very careful on choice of shockers as they will have a lot more work to do.

Here's a good one to start with

http://www.off-road.com/toyota/tech/solidaxle/

And another

http://www.fourwheeler.com/techarticles/5059/

Cheers

[fester]

Right Im Off To Do My Womework Lol Cheers Gents Knowledge Is King Hey Elv