'87runner

I have had an '87 4runner, 22re, 5 speed for a few years now. Not long ago it was a daily driver, but is no longer. It is now just a trail rig and will be trailered to off-road parks in the mid-west. It still has the stock ifs for now even though I have taken the front axle from my donor '82 'yota pickup, and plan on doing a sas next spring. However, in the mean-time I am ordering marlin crawler 4.7:1 transfer gears and plan on locking the axle(s). This weekend I plan on diving into the rear and welding the spider gears. My question is.... has anyone done this with their front diff? I am on a tight budget going into winter and have heard that this procedure can be as strong as a spool or mini-spool if done correctly. I have installed longer shackles in the rear and it slightly rakes now, but the front fenders are rusted badly enough that it wears 33's on all corners without any problems.
I hope that since this is a pre-a.d.d. front end, and the fact that the tires will never be over a paved surface again would make this a low-cost option for getting all locked up. It just needs to get me through winter and I will be junking the ifs anyway, but I want to 'wheel it a few times this winter. I was thinking that with the crawler gears dropping an extra torque load on the axles it may cause problems up front. Any help would be great! Thanks, I look forward to picking everyones brains in the future, and hopefully I can provide some help as well! -Clint

Robinhood150

Your original post was moved to the off road section.