Them Landcruisers are a dang good rig. Axles as big around as your wrist. Put a Chevy small block in it, and yeah. that'll step right out. And the stock 22R is pretty near bulletproof too, btw.
As a side note you'll only get stuck in water up to and just above the highest electronic oject in the truck... First time, the CB was under the dash, so the water went just under the top of the dash - the am radio and gauge cluster being the highest electronics...
Second time, I had a radar detector on the dash, and a cop-style spotlight in the a column ... You guessed it. Water went right to the top of the spotlight.
In the last iteration, I thought to beat it. So I hung the CB and the radar off the roof (I really liked them there)... Shortly thereafter I was inducted and promoted in the General Motors Navy as captain of a submarine.
That's right... the first automatic hubs had to turn 3 full turns of the wheel to engage... Can't even tell you how many of those poor guys I tugged out. Nobody thinks to reach for the stick until they're already stuck... Then the vacuum ones, that'd jill-poke the line and there you are. Try digging around in 3 ft of mud or snow to put that line back on there... And the electric ones are just about as bad.
Thanks... I will stick to Spicers. It ain't no thing to get out and twist em in. And when they're out, with a NP205 in 2wd, nothing up front is turning. ==Mileage.
I planted it in good spring mud. Right to the running boards. A friend with a really nicely set up pickup with a 10000 lb winch tied on and another friend who had brought his wrecker down to watch the show ended up tying on to him to keep him from dragging himself into the mud. I had it in 4 low, reverse, throttle set to turn the wheels slow (It has a PTO, too, but I really didn't want to go the way my winch was pointed), half the brush in the river bottom under the wheels and was outside with a tree branch rocking it to break the suction when it finally popped loose.
It left a real neat impression of the underside in the mud.
I have this thing about going into standing water--I have always been careful about that.
When we were kids (12 or so) we had a '53 Plymouth over at my best friend's farm his dad would let us drive around the farm. Only problem was there were no floorboards in front, except for over the hump. (Tidewater of MD, metal just doesn't last like it does here, too much salt water around.)
That never bothered us any, and we called it our "Flintstones Car" (we weren't dumb enough to put our feet down). But if a guy spat at just the right speed the wind howling up through the floor would carry it back into the face of whoever had the misfortune to get the middle seat.
Anyway, my friend was behind the wheel and we had a little low spot at the head of the marsh with some water standing there and for some reason that still evades me he thought we should just drive through that big puddle of water. We hit marsh instead, and ended up climbing out the windows. The goo coming up all around (and through the floorboards--at least what we were not already wearing) kept us from opening the doors. Mud from a salt marsh has a fragrance all its own. By the time we got back with his dad's bulldozer it was almost in to the door handles, and even after we pulled it out and ran it up and down the boat ramp a few times to wash it out, it never quite smelled the same on a humid day...
Years later, in Grand Forks during a big flood, I was driving along a back street at night when I noticed the water was getting high. Actually, the street had a bit of a dip in it, and the water wasn't moving, but when I looked out the window of that '70 Dodge Coronet, the water was pretty close to the glass. I drove real slow, came up behind an barricade (no one had thought to put one at the other end), and caught hell from one of the police for driving along there. I pointed out there was no barricade at the other end and popped my door open (dumped water all over the poor guy's feet) and asked him very nicely if he would move the barricade so I could go home, because I damnsure didn't want to go back the way I had come.
After that, I haven't been much for driving through mudholes. Heck, I don't even trust snowdrifts much, unless I know there isn't something real solid in there.