hi all, new to the board from the Seattle area.  I currently wheel a Bronco but it's offroading days are coming to an end as I finish restoring it and turn it into a pavement princess.  I need something to build up and trash on and looks like it will be a Toyzuki due to small size and parts availability.

My requirements are:
- street legal
- 35s or bigger
- coil suspension / 4-link
- at least 100:1 final crawl

My current thinking is to buy the cheapest Samurai I can find with a decent body and also buy an 1984/85 Toyota 4x4 pickup and swap over the engine, tranny, tcase, axles and maybe the steering box too.

I've been looking at the new Trail Tough slayer coil kit as well as the rocky road kit both of which work with Toyota axles. 

I dont know if these kits will work with the 22R and Toyota tranny and t-case.  I don't see why they wouldn't but I haven't hear back from the manufacturers.  There is a 22R conversion kit on craigslist for $250 that looks pretty decent.  I can't seem to find much info on putting a 22r into a Suzuki.

So basically right now i'm in the planning stages, budgeting parts and figuring out what all will work together.  It looks like I can get 97:1 crawl ratio with Toyota running gear, stock 5 speed, marlin 4.7 t-case gears and 5.29 rear-end.  Close enough to my 100:1 requirement.

Can anyone tell me if I'm headed down a bad path?  Is my plan realistic and doable?  I'm open to any suggestions.

thanks,
dan

disavantage with your plan........
even with the widest fender flairs, the yota axles and 35's will make a sammy non-street legal.  so if your gonna swap over the entire drivetrain and end up with a trailer queen that weighs almost as much as the p/u did to start  why not just cut the body of the toyota(bobed, flatbed, dovetails F&R) and only destroy one perfectly good rig instead of two?
options..........
most people choose to put the engine from the sidekick(1600 16v) to maintain the weight advantage, thats why you havent found much on 22r conversions.
gearing selections for the samauri t-case are abundant and lower the high range also, allowing you to run smaller gears(4.57, 4.88) and acheave a lower crawl ratio than the marlin case(with out doubling)

you askith, i giveith
i have see many vehicles set up the way you plan and they work great, just not my way of doing things

jason

What kinds of terrain do you plan on wheelin on?  From the sounds of the 100:1 gearing ratio, i would think rocks?

With the amount of money that your going to spend on getting an 84/85 yota pickup along with the price of the zuk.  You could just go with the zuk, find some nice toyota axles.  Transfer case gears, gear the axles if you wish.  6.5:1 Tcase gears for the zuk, then if you feel like keeping the 4.10 R&p you should be alright for running a 35" tire.

Find a nice 1.6L EFI out of a sidekick or tracker, most of the reason that zuks do so well is that the vehicle weight is quite low.

Im not sure how street legal this thing will be. Im in the process of swapping yota axles into my zuke, its looking like its going to be pretty wide.  Im just going to see how long i can drive around till i get a fix-it ticket for having wheels that sick out to far, no mud flaps.

Hope some of this info helps

Amilla

The fact that you can get Newfield axles for the Sammy means that it is almost worth just keeping them.  I think the main reason to upgrade to Toyota axles on a SJ (Sammy) now is if you can get a pair for cheap...

If you have Toyota axles and plan on building a custom 4-link setup you might be better off going with a Tracker/Sidekick build.  Put the 4.24 kit in the Transfer Case and low gears in the diffs and you would get close to your 100:1.  That way you already have the larger engine in place and power steering.  And Trackers/Sidekicks are cheaper the Sammy's these days up here...

Do you have a trailer or are you looking for something you can drive up to Reiter and back?