I am curious, the Unimog uses portal hubs, and I know people have mated unimog portals to Ford 9" housings and other rear ends I'm sure. With such an advantage in ground clearance I am wondering if there is any aftermarket company making portal kits to convert a 60 or 14 bolt? If there was a portal weld on DIY conversion kit available, would people buy them?

there would be no sense in doing a 60 or 14 center section with mog outers, because the mog outers are the weak link even on stock 404's

I am curious, the Unimog uses portal hubs, and I know people have mated unimog portals to Ford 9" housings and other rear ends I'm sure. With such an advantage in ground clearance I am wondering if there is any aftermarket company making portal kits to convert a 60 or 14 bolt? If there was a portal weld on DIY conversion kit available, would people buy them?

steve gerstner can build you a pair (if he's still in business I ain't seen him around in a while), using Hummer Portals, and a 9" housing. The biggest problem is oiling issues when you flip the diff.

Portaltek is the closest you can find for a "kit"
There is more to it than "just bolting on" a portal drop.
The biggest problem is that you will now need a reversed rotation diff
if wanting to use your existing 60 or 14 bolt centersection.
Furthermore, the deep gears in your 60 are now pretty much worthless
when you factor in the portal reduction (2.13 on a 404) so you have to buy gears too.
if you really want a portal axled rig go Mog-9 or buy one from portal tek.
(I have no ties with portal tek):flipoff2:

After you deal with all the axle issues you then have to make some major changes to the suspension to keep the ride height so you don't need an oxygen mask. Looks to me like a lot of trouble to get the diff up 6 inches.

I looked at portal axles once and decided they are just not worth the problems that come with them. If you ever break one of those things on a trail you would probably be SOL in a big way.

Thanks guys.

Stazworks makes Hum9's.

There is a blog on 4WOR concerning this.

Apparently somebody is about to start building them.

http://blogs.4wheeloffroad.com/6310809/4x4-truck-projects/exclusive-first-look-bolt-on-portal-axle/index.html

In OZ there is a bolt on kit for Nissan axles, but its extremely expensive at about $16,000 to do all 4 corners.
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We are now selling our axle components as kits, so that fabricators can retrofit Ford 9" platforms into a portal setup. The Spidertrax Spider 9 is a platform that we use regularly, however Currie and other similar 9" housings are suitable for this kit. Installation will require competent fab skills. Please PM or email me for questions. I will be happy to post some tech shortly.

production@portal-tek.com

-Jim

I figure this is pretty much the pinnacle of bolt-on portal technology, from a trusted name:

http://www.axletech.com/downloads/ATI_MotorsportBro_100308.pdf

I figure this is pretty much the pinnacle of bolt-on portal technology, from a trusted name:

http://www.axletech.com/downloads/ATI_MotorsportBro_100308.pdf

Funny. My senior design team at TTU developed a prototype unit virtually identical to this. I still have the prototype. We used a Dana 44 hub because it is what I had at the time. The issue we ran into wasn't the front unit it was the rear unit. Our goal was to develop it to bolt onto a factory stock Jeep (with Dana 30 and Dana 35 axle). The problem was the axle itself would not support the added moment. Could probably mitigate that problem with an axle truss. Our design was a 4 gear design using Franklin Quick Change gears. The unit would have super noisy though due to the design of the gear. Another area that needed optimizing. I could go on all day with this stuff, but bottom line is you need an axle with that can handle the extra load on the end.

I talked to a buddy of mine last night that went to SEMA and talked to the guys that make these. Didn't really have any info that's not in the brochure, other than the price.....$6500 for a set of 4. I forgot to ask whether that was 2 or 4 wheel steer, though.

I talked to a buddy of mine last night that went to SEMA and talked to the guys that make these. Didn't really have any info that's not in the brochure, other than the price.....$6500 for a set of 4. I forgot to ask whether that was 2 or 4 wheel steer, though.

When you figure in a lift and gear setup and conversion to full float it isn't too bad. The price will be a little high as long as there isn't a great demand for them. I didn't see on their website where they had a unit for a non-steer axle. Maybe I missed it though...