I've seen a couple of you max guys do this but anyway i've got a donor 87 montero and i wanna swap the axles outta it into my 84 diesel max pickup now i crawled under the max last night and seen that the ebrake cable seems to have a bracket that bolts to the rear pumpkin montero doesn't do i need to weld that bracket on the montero pumpkin or come up with a new location. Gonna try and do this on sunday.

If you Montero is a four cylinder, you don't need to worry about swapping the whole axle assembly. Much quicker and easier to drop the third member out of the truck and put in the Montero unit. That way you keep your truck axle housing and get set-up lower gears from the Montero.

Ditto. You can just swap the third member.

When I swapped my gears I used an '88 2wd axle and with a 4.625 third member. The '88 axle was roughly a couple inches wider than the '85 4wd axle that I had. My rear width is pretty much the same as the front now. The problem with using a 2wd axle is that there is no nipple for the breather hose. I solved this by filing the threads down on a 3/8NPT nipple and JBWelding the sucka in place of the rubber mushroom breather.

If you cut the spring hangers off and replace them with those from a 2wd pickup, you can then do a SOA swap too.

cool i've gotta pull the axle shafts out to remove the 3rd member right?? if not that should be a very easy also will i need to setup the gears again or can i just drop the whole thing in?

You have to at least pull the shafts out a few inches. Then the third members will swap.

When you put it back together, you really should check the endplay on the axle shafts. This is adjusted by adding/removing shims from the right side between the brake backing plate and the axle housing flange.

You shouldn't need to adjust the gears or anything, but on mine I did have to adjust the backlash.

You only need to pull them a few inches to install the third, but you have to disconnect the brake lines before you pull the axle shafts anyway, so there's not really any extra work to pulling the axle all the way out to check a couple of other things.... thus it might be a good idea to check the condition of the axle seals while you're in there and I'd also regrease the wheel bearings. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/cheers.gif" alt="" />

What is the ratio of the ring and pinions you are pulling out of the Max. I've got an 85 Raider with 4.625's that I need to switch to 3.7 to 3.9 ratio because of a Ford V8 in the Raider. Would be interested in doing a trade or buying your old ones if they are in the right ratio range and are in good shape.

I have a set of 3.909's, but I think the pinion bearings need to be replaced. I also have a 3.545 set that is good AFAIK.