Offroad-Express

has anybody tried to strenghten a ail diff off a vitara my mates cracked his again

I think grand vitara diesel ones are steel (cost a lot though) but if he is going though them maybe it would be an option.

Ali is too soft for thrashing, I guess suzuki thought ali would be a good idea and save weight but I wish they hadnt done it.

Diesel Grand Vitara (and maybe Vitara) ones are steel, trouble is finding one, they are not that common and what the wreckers want for them is insane, is there an ARB or auto locker avaliable??? this might help a wee bit

Just sold my steel front end with an arb locker in it .
You can swap a samuari diff head into the ali diff housing , its a start but you need to weld up some sort of mount on the diff head to match the vitara one .
If you are going to play around with it you can also do a mod to put bolt on cv's on both ends , you will see what I mean when you look at a diff . One side splines into the diff when you need to change it and the other bolts to the diff . The bolt on one is easy to change and can be done without undoing any suspension stuff . Good for the bush etc .

Chris

I am helping rebuild this particular truck and was thinking of putting a piece pf box secion steel in with a plate up to each mount to act as a stiffener, anyone ever priced up having splines and flanges added to the axles to stop them chrushing in on the diff?

hey coxsy where is he cracking them, ive broken 6 now and all in different places, i tryed to strengthen one and i broke it any way.i welded my rear diff and and have not broken a front diff since , but no good on a road legal jeep. apart from where i tore the whole pinion out and on one the whole mount and bearing area i just used to tig them back together.i only have one locked one left in my spares so if i do any more i will just put a lux front axle in on coils ,
vaughan

its is cracked at the top where the axle sleeve meets the diff section, this is the second one to go in the same place, how did you strengthen your's (or atleast attempt to)

Jerry wrote: they are not that common and what the wreckers want for them is insane, is there an ARB or auto locker avaliable??? this might help a wee bit

its all about supply and demand. People pay $700+ for a steel banjo housing without a qualm.

we were given a price of $1000 +gst for a steel one

I have a 1991 Escudo 1.6 16v. What model of Grand Vitara has a steel front diff housing that is swappable and is it fairly straight forward to do?

Thanks

Diesel ones with the puegot diesel, the mazda diesel ones may have them as well

I got a steel front diff off trade me for $700 thats both banjo and nugget, put it into a 1990 Escudo with out any problems it was just a bit heavier to fit,had the steel diff fitted in half a hour.
Cheers Woody.

coffeeman wrote:I have a 1991 Escudo 1.6 16v. What model of Grand Vitara has a steel front diff housing that is swappable and is it fairly straight forward to do?

Thanks

The 2.5 V6 Manual G/Vs also had the steel front diff.

There is a very good horse-collar mod for the alloy housing mount flange, which is an area prone to torque breakage. It can be found in the tech' section of Izook.com (Website still up and running although the forums are no more and the site is not maintained.)

Just wondering if a 1.6L vitara/escudo diff will fit a 2L v6? just been reading a bit about changing the diff ratio as i plan to go on bigger tyres for my 1995 vitara v6. Which year and model vitara/Escudo should i look for to replace my one with. Doing a bit of research it seems the 2L v6 comes with 4.88 ratio and i want to go to the 5.12.

from what I know (which is quite little really) the manuals have the 5.12 diff ratio's. so any from the early 90's shape I think.

If i am wrong I am sure I will be told.

Also different axle size! I found this when picked up diffs from V6 as spares...different ratio yes but also the shafts are lot smaller diamter in 1600. So have V6 diffs under house if someone needs em...front at least looks never engaged! Rear is hub to hub but spring mounts been sawn off.

When I was looking at it I found fair bit of info out there (forums) on how people had made up surrounding steel brackets to support alloy and said it worked...amount of steel there may as well just put steel one in!!

$1000 for steel is average.