Hey there, I have an 89' Toyota pickup and want to do an sas. I want to do it as budget friendly as possible without it being stiff and horrible off road. I looked into kits off Marlin Crawler and the such and was wondering is that the way to go or can it be done cheaper? I am still in the process of sourcing an axle which obviously is needed and also a rebuild kit for it as well. I figure I will spool/ weld the front and lock the rear eventually. I figure I have to relocate my rear front hangers forward to allow longer springs for more flex or can i get away with short springs? I also am curious about gearing and dual transfer cases and what would be a good budget combination to allow me to wheel without riding my clutch in difficult sections? I am a total noob to offroad upgrades on Toyota, but I have done a lot of research so I have some understanding of what I need It's just that I need it to be cost efficient. I've been trying to find an axle first to get rebuilt then go from there. I really need some advice from some experienced Yota off road junkies and what their take is and would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks, Cameron

 

If you are new to wheeling sas is far from where you need to start. List in close to the order I would go if starting small.and affordable well learning to wheel more difficult trails.

Welded or spoiled rear end lockrIght or similar for the front
Ford or Chevy rear leafs with t bar crank doable for less them two hundred
Set of 33s and with some time behind the wheel you will go pretty far
Duals will save a lot of front end parts being able to crawl but looking at around five bills min
After that I would look into sas because with everything listed you can go far and only spend a few hundred more then just doing a proper sas which will then require tires, rear leafs to match, silly not to have lockers at that point. Sas opens to door to many other things, things I would do first so they are out of the way

 

Thanks for the input bttrs. I definitely want to lock my rear end I think that'd be my first most logical upgrade. I'm not sure if I agree with getting chevy springs and cranking my t-bars as that I've hear it puts stress on the cv joints and when flexing the ifs front I really don't want that. I have 32's on right now but they are beat but I've heard that 31s would be a better choice because gearing isn't set up for the power to be there with tires bigger than 31s. It feels ok with 32s but i figure 31s will open it up. Not sure how I'd go about doing dual transfer cases and wouldn't I want to wait to do that when I get my solid axle?

 

Wheel what you got and learn the truck then upgrade as necessary.

Cheap, SAS and Offroad don't work in the same sentence.

:wabbit2:

 

tons of info on YT..give the search a try regarding dual cases etc.

 

If your going to go sas later on who cares about a little extra ifs wear. And there are thousands of people with 33s and bigger with stock gearing. I was one and it was not bad at all. Wabfab nailed it though wheel it and.learn what it need depending I n your wheeling style you may want something totally different then what you read everyone else doing

 

Well I've taken it out for a few wheeling runs already and I know it is in need of better tires and a rear locker because when i flex the rear end out since its open I lose all traction in one wheel and I have to back up and try a different approach. My reasoning for wanting a solid axle is so I can lift my rig giving me more clearance without wasting money on an ifs lift that will probably be taken out later on. I feel the solid axle would be much better on rockier trails because I live on the Appalachian mountain range and there's mostly rocks and mud that I want to try that cant be done with my stock pickup without beating the hell out of it. I know a Toyota can take the abuse no problem but Its my daily driver and I don't want to break parts like its going out of style.

 

Well with the terrain you described it sounds like a SAS would best suit you, but like Wabfab said, SAS and cheap don't really correspond with eachother unless you can find basically everything used...(diffs with correct gearing and lockers, a good axle, used big tires, used leafs for rear, etc) I'm in the process of doing an SAS as well and I already have the axle with everything cut off and torn apart...and I'm getting 36" tires for 200 bucks and gearing front and rear is gonna run me about 600 plus the actual TG kit which is 1,300... so I'm looking at around 2 grand or so all said and done...

 

Hey check out Addicted Off Road. They are here in Colorado and its a nice medium between convenience and price. They ship anywhere and have specialty kits for Toyotas. Pretty cool place

 

Well 95Yoter8 that sounds like a pretty good deal for the swap I think 2 grand is fair for all the parts. But putting in dual transfer cases will probably cost even more if you go that route. I guess I'm just not sure if I'm ready to spend that much yet I need a better job with more income. And thanks for the input cous, I'll have to check it out.

 

Well I checked out that site cous, and I don't think they make a kit for my 89 pickup and they're about the same price for a kit as marlin and other places I've seen, I guess the cheaper route is to fab pieces myself but I feel like its easier and probably worth the money to go with the kit and have it all there. Just gotta get an axle, rebuild kit, gears, lockers, dual transfer cases and tires to go with it.

 

If you look thru the site again im sure you will find the kit for 86-95 classic kit for about 1100 dollars....

 

Kits are cheaper in the long run by far.

:wabbit2:

 

Just in the time it saves you in all those trips after something you forget.

After like 10 it gets old.

 

I still can't find it ytasteyellowsnow, its not on the main page and I searched it as well. They only have kits for 1st gen and 2nd gen trucks and 1st, 2nd, and 3rd gen runners. It seems odd to me but I don't see one for my 3rd gen truck. They have tacomas too but mines just a pickup. After doing some searching looks like lowrange has the best deal for 1200 it comes with upgraded bilstein shocks and free shipping.

 

Try here:
http://www.wabfab.org/Suspension/View-all-products.html

Then read my signature.
I think that will be much cheaper.

:wabbit2:

 

Those the 5125 bilsteins that come with the kit?

 

Product kit details list components.

Bilsteins.

:wabbit2:

 

Ya I didn't mean to sound stupid, I saw they are bilsteins It just doesn't say what length or model they are.

 

Sas is never cheap.