ZUKIWORLD Online | Suzuki 4x4 Editorial and Forum
ZUKIWORLD Discussion Forum => Suzuki 4x4 Forum => Topic started by: TopHeavy96 on April 04, 2010, 03:48:54 PM
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Well, the Tracker is out of commission for a while. Yesterday, on the way to the local trail/play area got nailed HARD by a dude in a Ford Crown Vic while pullin into a gas station. >:( :'( According to the Sheriff, I'm at fault for failing to yield, even though he was speeding and it looked like I had way more room than I did. I AM SO RELIEVED my passenger wasn't hurt, as we had the doors off (seatbelts work? ??? who knew?). Fortunately my bro said I can use his Jeep to get to work for a while. I got a local boneyard that has a sidekick 4-door, I need the right rear lower link bracket/body mount(ripped away from frame), one axle shaft (bent at wheel flange I think), driveshaft, and maybe(hopefully not) the axle housing(looks like it may be bent right at the end of the Calmini truss). Not to mention my nice new KYB mustang shock that's bent like a boomerang. My driveshaft pulled out of the T-case and fell on the road when the suspension bracket broke, that in turn broke the rear U-joint, and mangled the heck out of the slip yoke. Planning on buying the axle shaft, driveshaft, and frame bracket first to get the car drive-able then decide if I need to replace the housing.
I'm hesitant to grab the parts though cause I know what a pain it is to find the right parts for these things.
The main question I have for the pros here is, will I be able to take the axle shaft out of the pre-95 4-door(OBD-1, 1.6l, 16v) and slide it right into my '96. Also, if my housing is bent, will the gears in my car fit into the housing in the 'yard?
Thanks in advance for any help, and sorry for the stoopid questions, just need to get a little direction and moral support.
Thanks again, Matt
P.S. This Tracker will NEVER go to the crusher! We will prevail!
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Yes, your third will fit the housing that is in the yard.
If you want to use a pre 96 axleshaft in your 96, you are going to need the brake drum too. The 89-95 trackicks have a brake drum that bolts onto the end of the axle, and the wheel studs are pressed into the brake drum. On the 96s the axle flange has the wheels studs pressed into it and the brake drum slides over the studs.
I am not sure if the backing plates are the same between the pre 96s and the 96s and up or not.....so there is a possibility you will need the backing plate too.
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Thanks for the info Skyhi, I didn't think of the drum, I thought the 4-doors all used the slide on drums! Well, it's lookin better for the little Tracker, so glad my third will work in the junkyard housing. Gonna get under there tomorrow on lunch and see what else is messed up.
Thanks again, and I'll keep y'all posted on the Tracker's return to glory!
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THAT SUCKS!!! on my 93 4dr. the drums sliped on the wheel studs and the wheel studs were pressed into the axles.
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THAT SUCKS!!! on my 93 4dr. the drums sliped on the wheel studs and the wheel studs were pressed into the axles.
Must have had an axle swap done at some point then.
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Ouch! If you were closer I'd offer some help and parts.
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Cool, four wheel steering. ;D
Hope you are back on the road soon.
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OUCH :o I hate it when stuff like this happens because of someone else who is speeding >:( same thing happened to my sister in her 93 2dr fullsize Chevy Blazer (2dr tahoe), got hit because she had more than enough room if only the guy was obeying the speed limit.
Hey that sticker on the back, shouldn't it say "If you can read this, you must be driving a jeep" ???
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Yeah, I hate when that happens! It's sometime hard to judge oncoming traffic's speed. The term in traffic-speak is "traveling faster than the speed of sight". Think of it this way... you're backing out of your driveway. You stop, look both ways and decide you can make it out of the drive before that oncoming car that's a quarter mile away can get to you. Only problem is, that car is a AATop Fuel Dragster and he's gonna be here in 4.3 seconds going 300 MPH!
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Been doin a little dis-assembly on lunch breaks, slow goin cause I too lazy :sleepy:. Gonna try to pick up the axle, bracket, and shock this week. Hoping to be able to put new U-joints in my d-shaft and roll with it, otherwise I'll have to get the shaft from the yard and swap my output shaft yoke. More pics of the carnage:
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OUCH! honestly looks better then i thought it would be vs a big car like a crown vic. good luck with the resurection
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Maybe you can just borrow the rear shocks from the crown vic since it must need a few repairs also...... ;)
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Hey guys, thanks for the moral support! Yeah the Tracker came out of it ok considering the smack it took, the rim and axle absorbed the impact a little. Tux that's not a bad idea, ;) I got a little more work done, axle's out, third's out, output shaft yoke is cleaned up, its dust cover straightened up and welded back on. Got the "F"ed up U-joints out and the driveshaft cleaned up, need to get the part that bolts to the pinion flange, mine's screwed beyond repair.
Another question, ::) I believe I've read that they changed the axle splines from 22 to 26 in '96, does that mean I'll have to use the side gears out of the replacement axle in my third? Or am I thinkin of the front splines? Here's some more progress:
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Don't worry those are ANSI Approved cinder blocks ;) :laugh:
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That's the front axles that went from 22 to 26 splines
Wild
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Ohh, and my Sidekick was rear ended by a Thunderbird, they towed away the
T-bird because it was not drivable, the Sidekick drove home with a slightly bent
exhaust tailpipe ;D
Wild
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Thanks man, good to hear that. The simpler I can make this the better, never messed with these "front loader" style diffs.
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This type diff is a drop out 3rd or "Ford" style and are
easier to work with for the most part.
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And yeah, the Vic got towed too, I think my wheel had a negetive effect on his radiator, and it shattered the fiberglass cowl, plastic bumper and headlight. And his airbags blew. :-[
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reminds me about when an s10 decided to run the light and smoke the front end of my kick. i got a broken headlight mounting tab, the grille was broken, and my front bumper cover got some scratches. meanwhile he had the rad broken, front end mangled, and got taken away on a flatdeck, i drove to work.
then i had a Subaru try to take out the back end, it again scratched the plastic bumper and pushed the truck ahead 2 feet. Subaru had the hood, both fenders, bumper, both headlights, all shattered. she was lucky the airbags didn't go off. again, it went away with a flatdeck.
there pretty good little trucks.
my only other time its had an accident was when my neighbour backed into the drivers door. it bent the door in 2 inches and only scratched her cars bumper, but i got 800 bucks out of it... ;) i popped the dent out and all thats left is a little crease, but ill live with that.
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So I cut the bracket off the frame the rest of the way. That made it easier to straighten it out on the bench vice. Welded the the tube back onto the bracket and got the body mount stud out of the rubber. Planning on makin a patch panel for the body mount and welding the old stud to that. Test fitted the bracket to make sure it'll match up to the frame rail and the body where it needs to, looks pretty close. More progress:
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You should sleeve that body mount with a section of pipe/tube that
fits snugly and needs to be pounded in. And you might just want to
put a through bolt thru the top of the body, you will need to cut an
access flap behind the front seats, in the foot well area, if you need
some pictures I can provide them, this is how I fixed my pulled out
body studs. I think trying to weld the patch panel to the bottom of
the truck is going to prove harder than you think, as well as the quality
of the weld just from the difficult position you have to be in to weld
there, and the body coating the thin metal there isn't strong, as well
as the body stud was installed and welded from the top at the factory,
you will probably have a gaping hole there to contend with also.
My $.02 worth
Wild
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Thanks for the heads up, wild. I was thinkin about makin a cup to go around the factory body mount, so I could weld it from the side, I do like the idea of goin from inside though. I might do both; fix the panel from the outside, and cut the access hole and put a piece of metal in there with the mount bolt through that.
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Made more progress on lunch, picked up a piece of schedule 40, cut it to length to fit nicely inside the bracket and the frame. Drilled some holes in the original tube to plug weld to the new tube. Started to work on the body mount, made the outer panel, still gotta cut the access hole in the floor to put some sheet metal inside.
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Pics of the rusted/broken body mount, and the new outer panel I made up, with the hole drilled for the body stud:
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How thick is that plate? On the inside of the body, under where you
would have to cut an access to see, there is a heavy channel that is
welded to the body, if your plate isn't strong enough, the stud will
work loose and pull out again.
This repair is a pain, I decided to weld a plate on the bottom, as well as
a plate on the top side as well, then just used a bolt instead of a stud
and used 2 heavy washers, one for the bolts that are used to hold down
the framing in a house, and another thick hardware washer on top of that
to make sure the bolt won't pull out
Wild
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Hey Wild, I'm not sure the exact thickness, it's about as thick as the original metal that's all rusted out, I'd say about 3/32 or 1/8 or somethin like that. I'm probably gonna do the same, open the floor up, put a piece of metal in there and weld all around it. I was planning to use the original stud, welded to both patches. Now after reading your post, I'm thinkin I'll use a bolt too, so I can run a nut down and squeeze both patches in tighter to weld closer to the body. Then I'll probably weld the bolthead to the patch and remove the nut to weld the bottom. Whattayathink?
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Just welded on the top should work, I didn't weld the top
of the bolt, so I could pull them out, you know frame lift
or something else, just leaves options. As far as using the stock
studs, I like using SAE bolts instead, much cheaper and lots
more options for length and nut types
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Got ya, weld the patch on top, and the one on the bottom, but leave the bolt unwelded and use the extra big washers to keep the bolt from pullin through. I'm gonna need to fix the rusted mount on the driver side too, so changing to a longer bolt is a great idea for a future body lift. Some more pics, and some of the 'yards verry tired first gen workhorse.
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My 90 tracker got smacked about a 100 yards from my house. It was totaled, all because of some idiot thought he needed to be on his cell phone. I walked away but the poor little truck did not it ripped the axle out from under the back pushed the rear quarter panel in and bent the drivers door. The cop said i was lucky because of the rims and tires i had redirected the impact away from me.
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More progress, got the axle from the bone-yard, out of a Sidekick JLX 4-door (not sure the year...didn't bother to look :sleepy:) guessin 91-93. It has the ABS sensor, 5.125 gears(same as mine), and here's the kicker, I think I got one with the limited slip! The reason I think it's the LSD is the spider/side gears don't look the same as the ones in my old third. In my old one, I can see the gears mesh but in the new one, the spider gears look to be recessed into the side gears, I probably should've taken a pic before I put it all back together, but I was rushin around like a madman at lunchtime. I looked at the pics of the LSD on Calmini's site, but the pics don't show the inside of the diff, so I can't compare the gears. Anyone know how common the LSDs were on the JLX Kicks?
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Got the axle in, turned the junkyard drums, used my brakes and backing plates. Scored a set of 'stang shocks my boss had layin around at his house so that's sweet, gotta love Ford guys ::). The body mount needs to be patched , frame bracket welded on, and it's lookin like I'll have to replace the (apparently) bent upper link with the one that the junkyard threw in, and do some work to the mounting tabs, as they're also bent and pushin the axle toward the driver side by about 1" I put the driveshaft in, and slid the bracket into the frame and ratchet strapped it into place and so I can drive it onto the shop to weld all the madness up.
It moves! ;D
More progress:
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More work done, but the boss is not too happy cause I been sneakin it in between cars.. :angel: ::) I decided to hold off on the body mount repair and just weld the trailing am bracket to the frame. I'll have to repair the other side as its all rotted out, so I decided I'll do both at the same time. My main goal is to get it on the road ASAP, and it's close, in fact I took it for a test drive today and got it up to about 35 MPH, and it felt ok. I used the upper link from the junkyard and had to straighten the bracket. I also slotted the holes in the tabs to give the axle a little left to right adjustment. Aside from the body mount stuff, I just gotta get a few nuts and bolts from the hardware store, crank everything down, bleed the brakes, and do an alignment.
And I guess it wouldn't hurt to let a body guy look at it, the whole body kind of shifted to the side. All the doors close but the pass/rear door is kicked out at the top. The rear of the body basically went from looking like this: l l to this: / /
Pics of my (hopefully) strong welds (sorry about the crap quality):
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LOOKS LIKE YOUR GETTING CLOSE TO GETTING IT BACK ON THE ROAD...
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Yup, pretty much got it all buttoned up. 8) Finally got to drive it home today, got it up to about 70 and it drove pretty much the same as before it got smacked. ;D Still need to get it on the alignment rack to set the toe. I might stop by the body shop tomorrow to see if they can straighten up the body and chassis the rest of the way.
Special thanks to Wildgoody and Skihiranger for the important and accurate info, your help made the search for parts so much simpler.
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Tested it out yesterday in the trail, everything held together fine. No funny noises, not even on the freeway on the way home! And it turns out, IT IS A LIMITED SLIP!!! ;D :o It didn't do the one wheel sittin thing at all, not even once! No matter how little throttle I gave it, both wheels were spinnin in the really muddy stuff. WooHoo bonus!!!
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Limited slip would be cool, but I have only heard of a front limited slip,
the true test would be lift 1 wheel with a floor jack, and put it into
gear and let out the clutch, a limited slip will start to drive the wheel
on the ground.
These trucks work really well if you keep the wheels on the ground,
it's when 1 wheel comes off the ground the traction goes away, but
you keep the wheels down and they go almost anywhere
Wild
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Well, I still need to do the jack test, but I'm pretty sure they're both pullin, I had a wheel come up just enough that it started spinnin and throwin rocks and all the loose dirt out from under, and the other side kept pullin till the loose tire caught traction. But if I try a real tough hill or an obstacle and it's too much for the diff to handle it'll spin only one. All other situations it spins both, it now does so well in 2wd that I actually forgot to lock the hubs a couple times. I'm thinkin that the LSD is probably all worn out like the one in my 442, I need to replace the clutches.