Been reading up and checking out things to know to do an SOA on my 66 FJ40. I have a set of '74 axles that I salvaged from a cancer wagon. I've never done this so I want to proceed w/ caution. Can I "prep" the 74 axles, as in do the whole perch welding etc, and then just bolt them on or should I have the chassis near to check fit, remove, check fit, remove, and adjust, etc?

Pete,
Since it's your first SOA, I recommend loose fitting the perches under the springs before you weld them in place. I drove a '66 LC about 80K miles.... sold it in '71. (you can see a pic of the orange beauty on my website) You might go to my website for step by step instructions for SOA's on solid axle rigs. Last year I did an SOA on a friend's FJ60 with over the top drag link. It worked out well. Last fall we did a SM420/D18 swap on the same rig and his crawl went from 28:1 to 62:1. I've done 9 SOA's.
regards, as always, jefe

gotta agree....having things with the weight on them will ensure your angles are correct. I'm sure you've been thru all the links on my site for SOA projects....

Once you get the spare axle stripped and the knuckles cut/loose, it should be a pretty quick day to get it located under the truck and rotated to the proper points. The hardest part IMO is getting both sides equal....measure, measure, measure!!

Woody,
How tight are those knuckles anyway? The pictures of your knuckle rotation shows the use of a rosebud torch head and a 10' bar. I don't have that equipment.......what's a guy to do!
I really wanted to work on the axle as I could while driving the Cruiser w/ the origional axles on it, then just bolt'em up when they were done.

From what I've heard, no two knuckles are the same...mine were on the tighter side, and some have practically turned them by hand...you won't know until you get into it.

I would plan on a week of downtime, BEST case. Lining things up is more of a PITA, and while it may just drop in there, taking a night off and coming back to it with fresh eyes is not a bad idea. It's not something you want to do twice!

i just finished turning my knuckles a while back and my reaction was that it isnt as hard as you might think. I had a few missteps like not using a pipecutter to break old welds, i used grinder and that took a long time. next i heated witha regular torch and didnt make the whole thing totally cherry red. 1\2 hour later and 5billion calories burned pushing and pulling bars i hadnt budged knuckels but had bent a very large bar! about that time i got pissed of and saw a big heating tip like in woodys pics and used that, and my god that did the trick. Heated for a couple minutes till the sucker GLOWED then turned, went like butter. 2 lessons learned, pull out birfield seals if you plan to reuse them, after heating not much is left. Second make sure all of the oil is drained. I didnt check oil and it caught fire and really smoked up the shop. All in all easier than i imagined. If i had tools set out it would take 2 hours tops. great fun!
ben