Offroad-Express

With 30x9.5R15 mud tyres my truck always drags its rear end in deep ruts due to the large (for Suzuki) diff head.
I decided i'd like some more clearance under my it. A few of the trucks in the club i'm in have had there diffs shaved with fairly good success so it thought i'd give it a go. I did a few searches on different 4x4 web sites to see if anyone had done anything similar to the said truck but to no avail!
Oh well... Maybe i'm the first one in the world to try this on a Escudo or perhaps i've just been looking in the wrong place?!

Any way i picked up one of these for $75 from a local wrecker.


Then i picked up this from a club member - just a standard diff head and the remains of a damaged housing which he didnt mind if i sacraficed


Marked the center of the housing then out with the angle grinder and a thin cutting disk.


This gives a good side view of how close i can get to the crown wheel without guessing on the good housing.



Figured about 5mm clearance between the crown wheel and the new plate i'd be putting on. It went on at this sort of angle


Fast forward a bit (about 5 Hours of grinding the housing and i forgot to take photos ) and here is the new plate that has been welded on (by another club member as he's a better welder than me - Plus he was at home looking after his kid for the school holidays.. BONUS ). I went for 6mm.. I could have gone 5mm or perhaps 4mm but i thought best to be safe than sorry. Hopefully it won't flex. I cut the original drain plug out of the sacrifical housing and made a new hole in the plate after checking it was going to clear everything. Obviously i have lost i bit of oil capacity but its only around 1/2 - 3/4 of a cup.


A splash of paint and shes good to go..


Havent installed the new housing as yet as i have to swap my locker over and i also have other plans for the same housing. All in all i managed to gain a little over 25mm of clearance.


Was it worth the effort? Time will tell but you can never has too much clearance.

Now i just have to make these new bigger wheels fit before the start of the Laurie Sanson Fun Trials

Nice job Scott.

Got a few pics of the fire wall job?

Heath

Heath wrote:
Got a few pics of the fire wall job?

No - Was in a hurry so i only got the finished article!

Nice work Scott.
How come the 410 is in pieces?? (front clip outside, rest inside?)

lilpigzuk wrote:How come the 410 is in pieces?? (front clip outside, rest inside?)

Slight issue at the last Shore 4 wheelers round of the Laurie Sanson (i fell over).... I got myself a another tub as the original one was toast - It had been buggered for a while but body filler can be magic stuff
Once i'm finished changing a few things on the Escudo I'll get back to it - I wanna do a tube frontend like the ones in the american web sites.

This should be stuck in the tech section.
Esp. if you couldnt find it somewhere else first.

Looks great.

Finally got around to installing the housing over the weekend.Heres a before shot of the of the standard axle housing.


And heres a picture of the finished article. Unfortunatly i discovered that the wheels bearings are buggered so i'll have to pull them back out again shortly



No oil leaks either which is a bonus

PuddleJumper wrote:Now i just have to make these new bigger wheels fit before the start of the Laurie Sanson Fun Trials

Tell ya what Scott. I'll take those wheels and tyres and give you a smaller set I have to save you the hassles of fitting them. I know its too much to ask but hey, I'm willing to do that much at least for you. Just to save you some time and effort. Hell I'll even come and pick them up. You just tell me where and when buddy...

Heath

Nice try Heath

PuddleJumper wrote::lol: Nice try Heath

God loves a trier!!!