whats wrong with the stock housings?  the only thing i can see thats better on a anvil is the pass. side shaft is a 3 bolt.  Their must be more or they wouldn't charge 400 or 500 bucks for one.  and one more thing, what about just building a pass. side 3 bolt?  i'm going to pull apart my broke one and try to get creative, red neck style.  lol  lata stu

OPPPPS,  the subject is frint axle housing.  my bad.  i ment front.   lata stu

The Anvil is steel not alluminum.

ya but how hard is it to break the stock one?

I would like to know if anyone has broken the
stock front axle housing with it in the stock
location, (not on a Cal-Mini lift kit), or is it
the Cal-Mini kit that causes the breakage
due to an abnormal dropped axle location.

I have been running Calmini Lift Kits for years and have NEVER broken a front housing. I have trashed many half shafts and axles but never a housing. I'm currently running 33x12.50's and going to 35's soon so the advantage of the stronger stubshaft was worth the price itself. I was getting realy tired of tearing my front diff apart every time I hit a hard trail, to get all of the axle fragments out. Now that I have the Anvil, all I have to do is a 10 minute half shaft replacement and I'm ready to roll again. Not to mention that all I need is 1 srtonger half shaft design and my problem is fixed. No more week passenger side half shafts. I also use to be carefull when hitting rocky sections of trails and now I can hammer it and not worry about a rock shattering the fragile aluminum. I have literally bottomed the front housing on a rock and stood on the gas at 4000 rpm, 3rd gear, and heated the tires untill I poped over the rock, and when I sprayed the housing off there was no damage but a small scratch. I spent the money and have not regreted it one second sence the install.

Zig

I would like to know if anyone has broken the
stock front axle housing with it in the stock
location, (not on a Cal-Mini lift kit), or is it
the Cal-Mini kit that causes the breakage
due to an abnormal dropped axle location.

My sister just did it about a month ago. She is running the RRO set up. The Aluminum diffs are not tuff enough. $ wheel and off road broke one on their stock Xl7 with an auto. So yes they break even if they are not dropped.

The anvil also has a bearing on the passenger side added for better tollerances with the locker. It also stops that pesky leak from the RF axle seal that lifted trackicks get when they are lifted.

Mike

OK Thanks Mike, Hey I thought the Axle houseing
on the XL7 was steel, did they break a steel one ?

it is most definently possible to bust the housing in stock location as i did and all i have is coil spacers, in fact it blew a chunk out of it??i just got done installing a steel one from hawk suzuki, plus new gears as the old ones were trashed. hopefully i wont run into that problem again!

NICE STICKER.....LOOKS LIKE A GOOD ONE FOR THE NEIGHBORS PIG PEN  

OK Thanks Mike, Hey I thought the Axle houseing
on the XL7 was steel, did they break a steel one ?

Wild,
I know that some of the V-6 GV's have alum. housings but I also thought that the XL's were all steel
Zig

It might have been a GV But I thought it was a Xl7

Mike

I broke a housing with the axle in its stock location. I don't think its related to the make of the lift at all although I have heard that some people have installed the Calmini kit with a bush missing in one of the mountings because of a different sized bolt (Spanish model?) I think the real issue is that once you lift it you fit much bigger tyres. We all know that the Zuk relies on wheelspin to equal out the distances the front/rear tyres travel. More grip=less wheelspin and therefore much more stress through the transmission. The front axle is the weakest point.

Hey Zig, are you running skid plates on your kicker?

Go to this website and zip through the links to find what the Euro's have been doing to their front axle housings. Some break the pinion snout, some break the actual 'dome' of the housing, others tend to shear off the area where the mounts bolt into. http://www.k9rdj.co.uk/

Going to something with a little more strength is what is being recommended here. The stock Vitara axle housing is steel in some models (IIRC 03's), and for the XL-7 model, I've only heard for the 5-sp's. The stock setup still requires a different passenger and driver cv shaft.  Going the Anvil, you atleast get a matching set of driver's shafts to run.
I have a 02 XL-7 with the auto. I have the aluminum axle housing and the aluminum diff housing. In comparison, I really doubt you could get a stock Vitara steel housing for less than $300, and you wouldn't have the matching cv shafts. The option of the anvil is the best setup.

Think of it like a locker option: stock open, vs. limited slip, vs full time locker, vs. manual locker. Each has it's purpose, each has it's advantage, each has it's own cost.