who sells the kit to make the automatic disconnecting differential to the manual locking hubs.
i know its on here somewhere i saw it last night. and now i cant find it can you help me out?

 

There is no "kit", per se.

What you need to do is replace your front hub flanges with locking hubs, either Aisin (ideally) or Warn (less expensive but probably easier to find). Wabfab on here sells rebuilt Aisins.

Installation is simple. Then you'll need to lock the ADD collar in place, by using a vacuum lone or opening the actuated cover and using a hose clamp to keep it in place.

 

Id go to the junk yard for hubs. And for your long shaft, you can either lock the shifter fork in place with a simply hose clamp, or replace the whole long shaft with one from a truck with manual hubs.

 

what does locking the fork in place do to a ADD front end. thinking of doing this too but I do a lot of highway driving.

 

locking the fork in places eliminates the need for the vacuum lines, which going down trails can potentially be damaged and therefore your 4wd will not work.

locking it in places means that it will ALWAYS be engaged, then all you gotta do is twist the hubs, yank the stick back and have at it.



i can't remember which is better, the NON-ADD axle tube, or the ADD Axle tube, but one is better than the other

 

The non add axle tube is better because it is one piece. But the add one is still plenty strong.

 

If you can find them. Any truck I've ever seen in a yard that had them was picked clean long before...

 

I have an 87 parts truck with everything you need. PM me if you are interested or can't find them local.

 

I'm not a survivalist, but I kinda have the mentality.

A good 4WD is simple and has fewer moving parts.

The ADD tube has... Hold on... It's JUST LIKE THIS.



I.O.W's it's ONLY as strong as it's collar.

Get rid of all that stuff and a component won't fail and leave you w/o 4WD and possibly going home.

This is why I don't like the "Band Clamp" "Mod" in the mods section.

If something fails there are just too many things that it takes to work, and you're just asking for it.

Put a one piece tube on it with good old locking hubs and it's KISS.

Or, keep both and leave the hubs locked in the winter for the same shift-on-the-fly effect.

True.

 

I got mine from the Yota Yard, $40

 

Don't worry about breaking the collar, worry about the spider and pinion gears breaking.

 

The manual hub conversion is better for highway driving because the CV axles aren't turning when the hubs aren't engaged

 

OK let me get this straight, because I have to replace my front diff.
-Lock the fork into position
-get manual hubs

 

That comment has me a little confused. I'd think the collar would be more prone to breakage than a R&P.

 

Not necessarily. The long tube side of any 86-95 non ADD will bolt on to the IFS housing.

It's easy enough to do, AND it eliminates some potential fail points.

If you do the "Band Clamp" mod... :roll I'm gonna assume you will disable the vac switch as well?

So, now that you've gone through the same labor as changing the tube, you just put a band clamp in it.

Now you're 4wheeling and something in the front lets go. How will you fix this to get home?

It can only be in the long shaft's two-piece axle, the vac selector, the shift fork, or the axle collar.

With a non ADD long shaft you just eliminated 3/4ths of those potential failure points.

Yes, always. Largely because there is NO difference in a locked hub and a drive flange.

You now have the ability to manually select between having the CV rotate 100% of the time, and none.

It's a selectable hub. A drive flange is not.

 

PS, I get the feeling a lot of ppl are getting caught up in the "mods"...

It is NOT a requirement to do the long shaft side, or disable the ADD vac switch when going to manual hubs...

 

Very well put there Tried!

i just thought the bearings in the ADD shaft were BETTER than the ones on the NON-ADD shaft.


i'm still kind of a newbie to this honestly, i've never read TOO much into it

 

Camo- The bearings are in the diff, not the shaft. So the solid shaft will go into the add diff w/o any problems. Not too sure on this, but I believe the upgraded bearings are only on the long shaft side.

I have the ADD front out of a 95 runner in my 87 Runner that came stock with the manual hubs, so I dont have any of the switches/vacuum stiff for it. The only reason I have it is because I couldant get the ADD shaft out of the diff, it was getting late, and the truck had to take me to work the next day. Original plan was to pull the diff at a later date and swap the solid shaft in. But the ammount of work that it took to get the diff out makes replacing a real PITA, so it probably wont happen.

Its in my dd with an open diff and 31s, I dont think im going to break the collar, its pretty much the same size as the collar that locks the hubs to the cv shaft. If your worried about that breaking, I would be equaly concerned with the collar in the hubs. However, the collar in the hub is a little easier to get to than the one on the shaft.

 

I also agree that the collar is fine. If you're wheeling hard enough to break that, then you should be worried about breaking other stuff like the stub CV itself.

On my truck when I did the diff swap I just did the hose clamp trick because I didn't have time to get the solid shaft to bolt on (mine was an issue with the tube's mounting hardware being too long and bottoming out in the housing). Anyways, been running mine like that for over a year now and have wheeled it several times without issue although I plan on completing the swap sometime later. As for the bearings, from what I recall it's the ADD tube that has needle bearings vs a sleeve on the non-ADD tube.

ReRe - couldn't get the shaft out? Did you try a BFH and some sort of wedge? Should be just held in by that snap ring on the splines and it just needs some umph to pop out. I hear ya on not wanting to take that thing out again - ive had to do it twice now and might do it again to swap the tubes and put in a locker (sure glad I didn't weld in my IFS brace too!). You could always drive w/o the diff in until you get it assembled you just need to make sure your hubs are disengaged and the CVs are secured from flopping around.

 

Knew it was something like that. Thanks!

Apparently we didnt try very hard on the shaft. Haha. Oh well. The diffs in and working great, wheeled it a few times with no complaints.