So I bought this axle off craigslist about 3 years ago. Its been sitting in my basement all this time and I've just gotten the motivation to tear it down to rebuild it.

This is a total noob project for me as I'm learning as I'm going. Watching a lot of youtube videos, 4crawler, and any how-to I can find.

But during my searches I've noticed my steering arm and knuckles look a lot different than what I've been seeing. It's suppose to be the axle out of early 80's truck, but can anyone confirm that?

This is the steering arm that bolts to the top of the knuckle-


These are the knuckles-


I can take more pictures if needed.

 

Pictures of the housing would help.

 

You got it. I'll go take some now.

One more thing I just remembered, the lugs mounted through the rotor and hub body. Only 2 15mm bolts held the hub to the rotor.

 

What kind of spring mounts are on the axle? Leaf spring or coil spring?

 

Forgive the pictures in the bucket. I just spent half an hour cleaning up, didnt want to get grease all over the place again.

 

those look like the push pull steering components that are on my stock 85 4runner, and that solid axle looks identical to my 85

 

Looks like a truck housing…
Maybe someone will know if different knuckles will fit on the truck housing

 

The more I look at it the more it looks like the 85 truck axle I have lol

 

Ok - forgive the dumb questions but I thought the 84-85 trucks had additional gusset support?

and most of the knuckle tutorials i've seen have 2 bolts on top instead of 4.

 

yeah thats what that one has on it

 

The 84-85 had the additional gusset on the bottom. It goes all the way to the spring mount.
The 4 bolts on top of the knuckle are the trunnion brearings

 

the long side bottom of the axle is the additional gusset support

 

lol - I did say I was a noob.

What about 4 vs 2 bolts on top?

I ordered Marlin Crawlers rebuild kit and I see his shims and gaskets match what I have. I just wasn't see the same thing on other peoples trucks so I got curious.

 

Sorry - I get top and bottom confused in my head as how I'm working on it.

Mine has 4 bolts on both sides.

This video sparked most of my confusion. If you skip ahead to the 2:20 point you see him take off 2 bolts on top and not the 4 that I have.

 

thats a diff toyota axle in that video, there are 4 bolts on top and bottom of the knuckle like the ones you have . you will be using those 2 knuckles you have on your axle , you just wont be using any of the push pull steering, you will be using your IFS steering box with cross over steering

 

It's going to be a while between rebuilding this and putting it in the truck (funds). Should I buy a set of the ifs steering arms like the ones in my truck to install during the rebuild? I could probably find them in the junk yard.

 

That's a Cruiser axle in the video. FJ80 maybe?

And what are you going to do with ifs arms?

 

The lugs should also press into the rotor to help hold it together, and there should have been two 14mm head bolts holding the rotor to the hub.

This is why, when you do the big brake upgrade, you use FJ60 Cruiser rotors. Because the V6 IFS rotors are only 6 hole(for the 6lugs), whereas the FJ60 rotor has 8 holes(6 for lugs, 2 for retaining bolts).

 

85runner said I wouldn't use the push pull arms that came with the axle but I would use my IFS steering arms... Unless I misunderstood, which is highly likely.

 

It may have been 14 and I just got it confused.

The lugs were definitely holding everything together as well as those two bolts. One of the lugs were sheered off and made itself a real bear to get out.