When I built my 71 fj40 I did a spring over and shackle revears on the stock front housing which meant the caster angle had to be corrected after the pinion angle was set. At the same time I converted the front knuckles/brakes to SA pick up disk and threw away the stock drums. In order to perform the caster correction the knuckle mounts have to be cut from the housing and rotated. Also, in order to perform the brake swap, the fj40 knuckle mounts have to be modified slightly to fit the pick up birfs. Because I bought a complete pick up front axle to rob parts from, I decided to cut
the knuckle mounts off both housings and transplant the pick up mounts onto the 40 housing. It was far less work then I thought it would be and it works flawlessly.
This is nothing new or original but Ive been thinking lately of similar transplant on a fj80 housing. OTT wants $800 for fj80 high steer arms and knuckle mod and you still don't have selectable hubs. Would it be possible have the advantage of a high pinion and extra width combined width much less expensive high steer arms, less expensive longfeilds, and retain the selectable hubs?
, if the knuckle mounts are being cut off the 80 housing then lets take it a step futher and just flip the whole housing to a drivers side
drop for a Tacoma. Modify the housing slightly to get the third to fit right side up in an up side down housing, I think the bolt pattern is a mirror image of itself so just a little grinding to get the ring gear to fit. Then put a drain plug on the top (now the bottom) of the housing and vvvwwaaa la! trick Taco front using mostly Toyota parts!
Would this work or should I have stopped thinking a while back?
