Speaking of portal axles, anybody see the article in the new petersen's 4 wheel and offroad about the new ford 9 inch portal axle? probably costs a butt load but I love the idea of having the gear reductions after the ring and pinion and u-joints. And as for that 4 inch lift with 16 inches of wheel travel that mustange70 mentioned, its made by autofab -http://www.autofab.com/16front.htm
It looks pretty cool but I've had an 88 and an 89 bronco and had alignment problems with the TTB on both so not a fan of the TTB anymore.

 

Remember one solution to the diffs turning the wrong direction is to flip them over. Then you can run on the power side and still go foreward.

 

The high pinion 60 is a very popular conversion in the rear. Many of the competition crawlers are using them. As well as some other really ingenuitive homebuilt and shop built creations. The main advantage is driveline angle and clearance. But, running that front end in the rear, it is slightly weaker because it drives on the coast side.
Over the years, I've seen several 9" with 44 or 60 tubes converted to run in the front. The only drawback is the extremely low pinion location.

Jason

 

does flipping the axle over like that affect the lube transfer to the pinion bearing? i would think the characteristics would not allow for proper lubrication if turned over.

 

yes it will affect oiling of the pinion bearings. You'll also need to take into account the outer ends of the tubes if you plan on using it as a rear steer axle. You'll need to get those turned back over and reweled.

 

" Over the years, I've seen several 9" with 44 or 60 tubes converted to run in the front. The only drawback is the extremely low pinion location. "

You could take a dana 60 off a rear axle and convert it and use it in place of the dana 50 in the TTB, do the same for the front, get friendly with a driveline fabricator and get a set of high strenght axles for use in your newly built dana 60 TTB, and also see if you could get them to get Portal ends to work with the TT. I also have an idea that is a way to have an automatic camber adjustment to work with the TTB but i dunno if it would be at all strong enough(it involves 2 high pressure hydralic rams, one connected to the radius arm and frame and the other to the portal setup and the other end to the top of the TTB, so when the wheel moves up the fluid in the rams is transferd from the radius arm to the one on the wheel, i don't know if this would work but in theory it should.

 

Are you refering to the knuckle yokes? The only reason I could see to cut and turn them is for steering correction to regain caster angle. But, most rear steer systems are not technically street legal and you wouldn't be using the rear axle for steering at speed anyhow.

Jason

 

Convert a 60 for a 50 TTB housing with adjustable ram camber adjustment? Portal ends? By the time you design and fab that, you could probably have straight Dana 60s front and rear, with geared portal hubs and be into it for half the cost. You don't have to worry about any complex camber adjustment, you have the ground clearance you need, and you have a very strong differential setup with easily obtainable, off the shelf parts.

I don't think everyone understands the difference between wheel travel and articulation. A TIB or TTB suspension that is copied in many successful desert race trucks probably wouldn't be the "hot ticket" for a rockcrawler. While wheel travel is measured at each corner, articulation is a measurement of "axle travel" droop and compression.
Think about it this way. Compare 2 trucks, one live axle, and one is typical IFS, with the same size tires on the ramp. While on flat ground, the IFS truck has more diff ground clearance. On the ramp, the entire live axle lifts while climbing the ramp, increasing the clearance under the ramp side. With a soft sprung IFS truck, the corner and the suspension do much of the work, but the suspension mounting point clearance (diff ground clearance) on the ramp side does not change as much relative to the tire height on the ramp. Clear as mud?

Jason

 

Lets remember the simple designs are often the best working designs too.

 

The thing i mentioned above about the casmber adjustment is more for being able to get a full contact patch on the driving surface then clearence or anything esle. I mentioned that because its something that would be able to help pull crawlers out of no traction situations.

Anyway if you read the newest edition Petersen's 4x4 they have a couple of neat articles in there. One in there that i thought would be neat to get a hole of is the on on Walker Evan's most recent ride. To make a long story short his buggy has some new CV joints and axles that are supposed to be abl to stand up to rockcrawling and something like that would be really beneficial to my idea i came up with. Also the other article (mentioned above) about the new 9 inch portal axle could lend a lot to this idea of mine. You could use the portal ends, the 9 inch pumpkin they use, and by making an adapter, bolt the pumpkin to the Dana 50 TTB housing, then adapt the portals to work with the factory components. I think that that might work better. But yes you could do a full dana 60 converion front and rear for half the cost, but it would be really neat to see what the TTB would be capable of cause i have not honestly seen the TTB true limits.

 

A little bit off the original topic but the Portal looks like something that should be standard on every 4x4 made in this country. Wonder why it takes us so long to adopt good ideas? I just found this 1ton Military on http://www.xtremeaxle.com/ . Looks fairly knarly.