I wanted to ask a couple of question I have that have been touched on, but not covered in depth. I am in the process of building a Flatty, I am running 404's with WEPS disk brake and horseshoe on my portals. This lil Jeep will be setting at approx. 112" wheelbase and 24" to the belly. Here's where my questions start, I am running 43 TSL/SX's on recentered H1 wheels and for a powerplant I'm using a Buick 3800 series II with a pair of Cummins 6.7 vgt turbos. The engine combo should produce around 500-800 HP and may get Nitrous at some point (just because). weight wise we are looking to be around 3800# or less, my question is am I safe to hit on 404's with the power I'm making with the tire size and weight it is. I've seen the little formual about weight/tire size/Horsepower but I felt like I was within the limits.... Please feel free to share with a newcomer to Mogs, I've wheeled all my life , but never been around Mogs and just had to try them.

Thanks in advance...

Well.. Safe you'll never be, not on any axle with that much power and fairly large wheels. But the most failures that I've seen on 404's is the portal breaking off or cracking. But this seems not to be horsepower related more related to what kind of physical abuse the rig see's. If you use your head right you shouldn't have any problems except normal wear and tear. Although I would like to point out that the key to not breaking portals all the time is not having the wheel sitting to far out from the hub! If you look at a 404 with factory wheels you will see that the portal is actually INSIDE the wheel, not poking a foot out from it! I think many people are cheated by the huge bearing on the outside of the hub, but it's not until you have had one apart that you will know how tiny the one sitting on the inside is..

thanks for the input, I wheeled a rig with a stock 4.0 and 42's with 60/70 and the stuff held up decent. My wheels are fairly neutral on backspacing (inside of wheel is at the portal mounting flange.... will welcome any other experience

404 portal gears are helically cut. It makes them quiet. It also makes them generate side loading. This is not really a problem with the factory 80-90 ish HP motor the 404 ships with but with greater HP the lower portal gear may decide to make its exit strategy out through the wheel flange side of the case. This sort of failure is generally associated with shock loading (I know your surprised). That said, the Weps brace seems to solve this problem. Best advise to you is try to avoid wheel hop but mostly be careful how you apply the tall skinny pedal.

I finally got my 404 put together with the weps conversion on all four corners and I am running 49" XL's on re-centered deuce wheels with a total curb weight of about 8700Lbs. Since I got it assembled I have only been out a couple times but I don't seem to have had any problems. Then again I have almost no HP so try it and let us know. To the best of MY knowledge no-one with the Weps braces has had a portal casing failure.

One other point of note might be the aforementioned backspacing issue. I have never heard anyone suggest prior to this that a casing failure might be associated with improper offset; But what I have heard some mog guys talk about is lower trunnion wear. I imagine this is only really a problem if you are bouncing but it may be worth taking into consideration with those kind of ponies.

post up pics as you go.
i would like to see the frame height. i have an 85 runner with 404's and 39's and its been hard to get a 28" hieght. i have already made a new oil pan, gone full hydro, and about to notch the frame.

With that much power, why not just step up to 406 boxes and be done with it. You can go 406/9 to keep the weight down.

Never have thought about running any other mogs. Is that a bolt on upgrade to consider? I'm thinking as light as I'm going to be my lil 404's will hopefully hold up. Besides I already have my brakes and I can always put some WEPS boxes on there if the braced stockers won't cut it.

Never have thought about running any other mogs. Is that a bolt on upgrade to consider? I'm thinking as light as I'm going to be my lil 404's will hopefully hold up. Besides I already have my brakes and I can always put some WEPS boxes on there if the braced stockers won't cut it.

Nope, not a bolt on. Figured you were running custom axle centers, but if your running the entire 404 diff, you might as well stay with the 404 box. Only thing I ever broke on my 404's was the main bearing caps on the 3rd member. Not really sure how it happened, I don't beat them that hard.

http://luxjo.supermotors.net/GREEN_DILYSI/UNIMOG/BROKE%203RD%20MEMBER/DCP04603.jpg

I don't think it's common and my rig is real heavy (although very little HP, maybe 175).

Lol wow. Sounds like your not hard on them. I figured I'd run them as they were and TEST them. :D

You and Heath just need to get on the ball, and get that thing done so I can watch you tear it up.

Lol. Trust me, I WON'T disappoint. I should be a hoot!

a few early pix... It's been to media blast since these were taken.... more to come

Man, that is gonna be fun. I can not wait to see this finished, or at least driving. I bounce my Mog around pretty hard at times and never had any breakage (to the axles that is). Albeit I only got 82 ponies.

I went ahead and posted a build thread...
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?t=901970&highlight=

if a Moderator wants to link or tag this this the Mercedes stuff feel free