I have been considering doing a SAS for some time, and after starting to get serious, I decided to do a little research.

I plan on reading all the build-up threads that I can, but thought I would start this thread in order to get a little feedback.

The vehicle: 1988 TrooperII
The quandry: Which axle?

I am mostly after the hints and tips that you wish you would have gotten before doing your swap.

I really have no idea which way to go. Links and coils?
Leaves?
If you wouldn't mind giving me your input, I would love to hear it.

Check out the following thread in the Talk Forum:

http://www.4x4wire.com/forums/showf...&an=0&page=0#Post1207433

I will sticker it.

Yup. I did look at that. It was actually what brought me to this site after doing a Google search. Not really a whole lot of details. I liked houlster's build up, but I don't know how it turned out. Left more questions than answers.

I was looking for more indepth insight, and was hoping for some consensus on certain parts, or things to look for. Like, for instance, what leaf spring locates the axle perfectly?
Is there a particular axle that matches WMS/WMS with what I have now?
Did you have to extend your frame rails ?
Did you find any particular bracket or hanger that worked perfectly?

The answer really is it depends. it depends on what you're trying to accomplish, your particular set of skills, and how much time/money you're willing to spend on the project. link & coil setups tend to be more involved and time consuming but offer a better level of fine tuning and overall versatility. Leaf setups can be thrown together much faster, are far more forgiving, and can perform just about as good as the more complicated setups. It just all depends on what you're going for. I would say Dan's setup is on the more progressive, detail oriented side... its definitely not a beginner's SAS (say, compaired to mine).

generally speaking, the Jeep Wagoneer D44 tends to be the obvious matchup... but thats not to say there aren't many other axle choices out there. You won't have to extend the frame rails, but depending on what leaf springs and shackle setup you choose, you may have to locate the front spring eye's as far forward as possible. I think most everyone makes their own shackle and spring hangers themselves though I'm sure you could utilize some toyota SAS or some generic weld-on tabs/buckets that a lot of these fab companys make nowadays.

-Rob

Thank you Rob. That's kinda what I was after. It seemed that the Waggy axle was a popular swap. No-one said whether or not they had shortened it, so I was curious about that. I didn't see any that used a Toy mini truck axle, nor any cherokee axles. Houlster did state that he didn't want to use one, because of the width.
As far as my ability? I can do anything. Ihave the tools and the time. The resources are the issue. I don't have that many junkyards around me and the ones I do have are over a three hour round trip and not well stocked. Not that big a deal if I know what I am after. So if I kinda have an idea of what I should look at and/or compare to, the better off I am.

Talk with Matt Brown at Independent 4x (independent4x.com).

He can supply just about anything that you need in terms of axles, brackets, etc.

i don't remember the exact numbers, but your rear axle is somewhere in the ballpark of 59" wms to wms. waggy D44 is around 61.5" wms to wms which is about as perfect as you can get since you generally want a front axle a hair wider than rear for tracking. shortening an axle is not that bad if you can source or willing to pay for shorter shafts. i ended up rotating the knuckles on mine for better steering angles, it wouldn't have been too much trouble to hack off some of the width. i think a toyota mini-truck axle is another good swap but a little narrow if I recall and the gear ratio's don't match up as nice. the older cherokee D44's also work, but they aren't as plentiful if I recall and many of them were in the 80's and those driver's side drop. if you wanna go totally custom, you could consider building a hybrid... something like a ford 9" or even turn a isuzu 12-bolt into a steering axle could be an interesting project for kicks.

-Rob

Funny that you mentioned the hybrid option. I was up for hours thinking about just that very thing. I don't really see that being cost effective, though. Even if I build it myself. Looks like I have some options. Gonna have to gie it some thought.
All of this started because I hate the auto hubs. Have nothing but issues since I got the thing. I was considering the SAS and searching for info found this site.

If I were to stay with the current set-up and regear it to 5.38's and lock it up front and rear, would the ten bolt up front hold up to 35's?

In a word, no. I did run 35's for a couple trips on my Rodeo back when it had IFS, but you definitely have to have a gentle driving style and even then, count on breakage sooner or later. I trashed a couple CV's on 33's locked up front and rear and I consider myself to be pretty careful with the application of the throttle. Also, a big problem with the IFS and larger tires is the tie rod strength... and then broken tie rods very quickly turn into broken CVs as well.

33's are about the practical limit of the IFS unless you just want to run 35's on the road for looks.

-Rob

I don't think that you will break the new tie-rods that Matt Brown sells, but that is just going to transfer the breakage to the CV joints. The other issue in your plan is that I don't believe that there are any 5.38 gears for the 10-bolt available. For some reason, Tera made many fewer sets of the 10-bolt gears than they did the 12-bolt sets.

You can alieve some of the issues with the CV joints by making extended axle brackets, but that is simply a band-aid. I run IFS with 33s, but I have extended axle brackets, the uber-heavy tie-rods, but I only use the front locker if absolutely necessary and each time I do I expect the CV joints to go.