On Friday I heard that there might be a high pinion differential coming available from a guy in the Rising Sun 4×4 Club. I sent Dave K. a message and soon I was on my way to Grand Junction, CO in my buddy Matt’s truck as he headed west to Boise. I rolled into Grand Junction at about 2am and crashed in a rooftop tent that Dave had setup on his truck for me. The next morning I got out of the tent and found an 80 Series Land Cruiser with a broken axle from the previous weekend’s fun in Ouray that needed to be swapped for a freshly built axle that Dave happened to have on hand.
We spent most of the morning disassembling and removing the broken axle from his 80 series in the driveway of one of his friends. Dave lives out in Evergreen near me.
The newly rebuilt axle waiting to go into the truck. Complete with E-locker!
The old broken axle waiting to go into the pickup truck for the ride home to Denver.
It took us a day and a half but we finally got the new axle in and, after battling with an unruly E-locker, we hit the road back to Denver. In a few months once Dave finishes a few more axle swaps between vehicles, I will have a shiny new-to-me high pinion differential for the planned solid axle suspension swap that I have planned for my 4runner this winter.
