Wheel Bearings
Rear Wheel Bearings. There are 2 types up to 1988 and 1989 onwards - make sure you've got the right one. The bearings should be pressed on and the plastic seal should face the outside. I got it wrong and it cost me 2 new bearing kits plus fitting. Very embarrassing! Some places 'tap' the bearings on - be warned this will halve the bearings' life.
Front ones are relatively easy to do but very, very messy so I get a garage to do them!
Lowering the Gearing
Why would you need to?
Well apart from having more control, lower offroad speed and better climbing
ability, you may need to sort out a vital addition to your car that has an
unfortunate side effect. If you want more ground clearance you need to get the
car off the ground more, however you can only change the absolute ground
clearance ( the height between the ground & the bottom of the differential) by
fitting bigger tyres. This increases the gearing and slows the acceleration
whilst raising top speed. For off roading we want lower speed and to hell with
anything else. So if you fit 31" high tyres, the most popular choice, you need
to reduce the gearing by about 12% to return it to standard.
The added advantage, the one that has made the biggest difference to me is the controllability both on the throttle and giving more time to steer.
So how do I do it, or go even further!
Transfer Box - replacement for a 410 box
A relatively straight swap. The 1000cc engined SJ needed lower gears to give the car some oomph so the easy way was to give the Transfer Box lower gearing than the 1300cc version. This difference is 10% to by doing this swap you can easily and cheaply get back to standard. There are a number of different propshaft flange sizes so be prepared to look around, although any of them can be made to fit. The mountings are the same. Cost? up to £100
Transfer Box - change the gears
Rather expensive but very effective. Remove the box and dismantle. On rebuilding fit so-called rock crawler gears and once refitted you can get a reduction of up to 90%. I was concerned that this would be too slow and as it would affect 4 wheel drive Low only I opted for the diff change.Differential gearing
This is the one I went for. My front diff was grinding badly and the rear had been battered by an inconsiderate driver (me!) and a difflocker so they needed to be rebuilt anyway. The Ring & Pinion gears were swapped for after market Vitara ones (original are too soft) and the diffs rebuilt with new bearings seals etc. The Diff casing has to be 'dished' out, the inset half has to be hammered out to match the other side to accommodate the larger circumference gear - use an old broom handle and go carefully, its hard to start but easy to go too far. The rebuilt diffs are easy to refit, about 20 mins each, the front being trickier and I'd rather talk you through it, bolt up the propshafts and you're done.This gives about 70% reduction which means my real top speed is about 55mph and I can sit in 1st gear Low and carefully negotiate almost every obstacle and not have to steer in a panic.
Changing the halfshafts for uprated items
Why?
Fit a difflocker and get one wheel well stuck and the other will be forced to turn, after too long either the standard halfshaft will fatigue or it'll break under the strain. When that happens replace with an uprated one.How
Remove the wheels, brakes (entirely) and the 4 bolts at the back of the hub and PULL. It will come out but may need persuasion. Refitting, as the Haynes manual says, is the reverse process.
Propshafts spacers
Only necessary if going for a silly suspension lift to stop the propshaft separating. As the wheels travel up & down the distance between the axle and the transfer box varies so the propshaft has a slip joint to accommodate movement. Too much and it pops out and gets thrashed to death against the undercarriage. £££££££££ ! This covered under Suspension more fully.