Toyman01 wrote: Mudflaps. I know they aren't cool, and the off road crowd will ostracize me, but if they save me some cleaning after a trip, they will be worth it. The clay around here is like superglue and it gets in every nook and cranny. It's a pain to get out. I'm hoping to keep the undercarriage from accumulating too much goo. Might also save a windshield or two.
Those look nice and simple. What are they made out of? (I need to make some for my truck.)
In reply to Spinout007:
Sorry, that should have been DWR Power.
http://www.dwrpower.com/
In reply to Mad_Ratel:
I cheated and ordered those off of Ebay. They were already cut for the Samurai.
It doesn't look like he has any more of them.
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to Spinout007: Sorry, that should have been DWR Power. http://www.dwrpower.com/
Thank you!
Back to work on the Samurai today. The rear end in this isn't in the best shape. It growls and whines fairly loudly. One of the reasons I picked up the junk Samurai is for the axles. Today was rear axle day.
As removed, it was pretty nasty. This one has seen lots of mud and water. It was pretty gross, so all new brake hardware, shoes and wheel cylinders were ordered.
First up was a much needed meet with the sandblaster.
A shot of primer.
And some nice glossy black paint. Gloss cleans up better than flat when you get things muddy.
The drums went through the blast cabinet along with all the other hardware and received a coat of paint as well.
All new brakes.
And done. Ready to install.
It doesn't even look like the same axle and should run much better than the one that's in it now.
Next weekend, I'm going to be installing it with a new set of rear springs. That should get rid of the sag on the passenger rear.
Can I ask about that supercharger? (Google is completely useless, giving me AM 500 as a radio station and some dude with a Mustang who says "Now I am 500 to the wheels.") Also, the Subaru Pleo was 658 ccs, right? What (if anything) will you have to do to the supercharger to make it work for a liter more displacement than that?
In reply to Stealthtercel:
Try "AMR500 supercharger", I had a mistype on the last page. There are several on Ebay at the moment for pretty cheap.
I got mine from this guy. http://www.dwrpower.com/supercharger because he makes the bracket to mount to the 1.6l engine I have in the Samurai.
Yup, that R would be my problem, all right. Thank you! (I guess I'll have to go and apologize to Google now too.)
I assume you arnt going to go to toyota axles, but why not a hybrid tracker axle in the back just for the strenght?
In reply to MrChaos:
I'm not going to be doing any serious, abusive, off roading or rock crawling with this Samurai. 75% of my driving is on the street so the stock axle should hold up fine. The problems I'm having now are left over from having 33" tires and a mini spool in it, those were hard on parts. If I had been staying with the larger tires, I'd have gone to the Toyota axles.
Dont forget to extend the breathers on the axles since they are just check valves iirc. You could also get the front 3rds from a grand vitara/xl7 as they are bolt in if you need lower/stronger gears than you can get for a samurai. iirc grand vitara 4.88's are really strong for something that fits in a samurai housing.
In reply to MrChaos:
All the vent plumbing is already in the Samurai, that was done right after I bought it.
With the 29" tires, the factory diffs work perfectly and the gearing is actually better than stock, so that will be staying just like it is.
I <3 this build. 
I bought some line to do the breathers on mine tomorrow.
If you are going to do any deep water, don't forget the transmission and transfer case.
I spent a little more time on the Samurai today. The plan was to drop the old axle, switch the hard lines to the new axle, and install the new axle and new springs. It was a nice plan, but like most plans it didn't survive contact with the enemy.
For starters, if you want good help, grow your own and train them young. 
Toyman the 4th, did an outstanding job of pulling the rear wheels and running tools while Toyman the 3rd learned troubleshooting on the E24.
In no time the nasty old axle and springs were on the ground.
From there things got a little sideways. The old axle had one bleeder for the entire axle. The new axle used a bleeder on each side. The plan is to use the old hard lines to convert the new axle to one bleeder. It would have worked great except the threads in one hole of the new passenger side wheel cylinder, were either wrong or just buggered up. I ended up making a tap out of an old fitting and re-cutting the threads. That done, the lines went together as planned. Next up was mounting the new springs. That also went as planned, and we ended up like with this.
Shiny new axle, springs and ready to bolt up.
Ready to bolt up except for one little thing. Way back on page 2, I added some weld on lower shock mounts, so I could run a longer shock, with different geometry, for better suspension travel. Namely these things.
Guess what, the new axle doesn't have them, I forgot all about them. 
That brought everything to a screeching halt. The factory mounts are on the spring plates. The old spring plates won't work with the YJ Jeep springs, so using them is out. I thought about cutting them off the old axle but decided that it would be pretty stupid to destroy a perfectly good axle tube for a $30 shock mount. I thought about building a set, but I don't want to spend half a day on that. So, new ones are on the way. Until then:
This will sit on the saw horses.
And this will sit on jack stands.
That's it for now.
you going to convert it to disc's in the back or stay drums?
In reply to MrChaos:
I'm going to leave it drums. The rear axle I just pulled, is going to be reworked over the next several months with a locking diff. I thought about putting disks on it, but I doubt I will. It will damn near stand on it's nose as it is and to be honest, it's a 4X4, not a sports car.
Toyman01 wrote: In reply to MrChaos: I'm going to leave it drums. The rear axle I just pulled, is going to be reworked over the next several months with a locking diff. I thought about putting disks on it, but I doubt I will. It will damn near stand on it's nose as it is and to be honest, it's a 4X4, not a sports car.
true, I need to figure out why mine will only do 60 on flat ground.
In reply to MrChaos:
What size tires and what gears are you running. With the 33" tires and stock gears, mine would barely run 65 with the 1.6L and if the ground wasn't flat, forget about it. They just run out of horsepower. That is one of the reasons I went to the 29" tires. It will actually climb a hill now and knock down 28 mpg while doing it.
It has 31x9.50r15 TSL Radial Swampers which weigh 56-60 lbs each without rims and it has 5. I assume stock gears but I think is has Tcase gears since at 60 actual(gps) it reads 50mph at 3200ish rpms on the speedo/tach. The only way I can get that actual to indicated ratio according to the Zuwharrie gearing calc with the early .795 5th is with 4.9 and up tcase gears. When it warms up/stops raining I will confirm gearing and tcase gearing.
updates?
I just ordered the MySide2 from ZOR I'll let you know how it is. Everyone raves that it is the best thing to do to their sammy.
In the past 6 years, I've done very little work to this little beasty.
Today a man came and looked at it. He's cross-shopping this and a Polaris Ranger.
I don't think he's going to buy it. A part of me is happy about that.
Another part hopes someone will buy it and be as excited about it as I was.
what kind of money are you hoping for?
In reply to solfly :
With all the parts, I'm asking $6k. For a GRM member, I'd be willing to drop that to say $5500+-. Make me an offer.
The parts consist of a set of axles with stock gears, a set of driveshafts, two 3rd members with 5:28 gears and lockers, two transfer cases and a rebuild kit, a transmission, all the spacers, drop steering parts, and such to run 4" of lift and 33" tires, a spare set of front YJ springs, at least one front caliper, a small turbocharger, a small supercharger, an oil pan, and an assortment of miscellaneous hardware.
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