I've been told I haven't done a deep dive in a while... let's do this 😁. Today, I want to share info on the 8 most popular portal swaps I could find! If you see anything that I got wrong or another option I didn't mention, make sure to comment to help the community. Thanks for watching
Hey Nate. The Volvo C303 was the 4x4 version of the military truck; the 304 and 306 were 6x6 of same truck. I have 303 axles under my 80 series. They were bought from a guy in Grand Junction, CO who used to import them. I've only seen a couple sets for sale in last 10 years. Last year there was an actual factory C303 that sold on BringATrailer and he got a couple sets of spare axles as well. I have 39" tires with stock springs and trimmed fenders. I love them. Getting parts is difficult, a couple companies overseas sell replacement items. There are guys who still use them for racing. If you've seen the Malaysian Jungle races, a lot of those guys have Volvo portals on their suzukis and jeeps. I'm not sure of the strength. I use my cruiser to haul our family of 6 around the trails. I rock crawl, but I don't beat on it because I don't want to break and have to wait months for replacement parts to come from overseas. I also drive it on the road and it'll still go 70 and get 14mpg and I haven't seen the portal boxes heat up like some people claim. Cheers bro. You are still doing what no one else is doing. God Bless - See Ya On The Next One!
I liked your closing comments about leverage. I have a front 3 link and tore the upper arm off the frame last year doing a bunch of downhill ledges. Now the upper mount has a ballistic joint and the frame was plated and a thicker mount was welded on top.
Super helpful!!! I have been tempting to remove my +3.5” long travel with 35s on my FJ and put portals and 38s. But it feels like all the maintenance I would save by going back to stock suspension will be offset by the maintenance on portals. Maybe even a net increase? I look forward to your installation and long term feedback! BTW, what wheels are you going to run? The +45mm offset forged beadgrip is crazy money. All the new Toyotas factory wheels are around 60-50mm offset. I hope method will start making higher offset bead grips for the masses
Portals are great on rocks and snow, but most people don't do enough of either to justify the associated cons imo. But if you want 38s, these will definitely help ease that install. Better cv angles, less stress on your drivertrain and no need to re-gear 🤷♂️. Plus, an FJ on portals is pretty bad ass 😎
Never gonna need or even want portals. However the older I get the more I enjoy learning about such things. I really appreciate your research and informative delivery. Thanks Nate!
Same here. I'll almost certainly never buy a set between need and cost. I wont even buy portals for my side by side which are quite a bit cheaper. But neat to see what's out there.
25:33 this is such a great point that I don’t see super often. Having the budget to afford rad bolt ons is awesome but just keep in mind the complexity you’re adding to your rig especially if you’re planning to get waaaaay out where no one is going to be able to help you. Built not bought may be more time consuming but when the chips are down and you need to limp something home the knowledge you’ll have from wrenching is priceless.
Love these explainers and your humbleness on what you know/your opinions. From a mechanical engineer with an automotive specialization: you know more than plenty of the people I went to school with, no doubt. Also shoutout to The Gear Shop, they are my go to local shop, love those guys!
I like portals I don’t want maintenance so I went with dynatrac axles. I understand everything needs occasional maintenance but normal axles require a lot less. The hummer portals are interesting though price is cheap and with a few upgrades plus parts are easy enough to get not a bad setup.
Everything breaks down eventually. Finally, someone who GETS IT. I retired from 45 years operating hydroelectric powerhouses. Butted heads with Engineers over this countless times. I’m old, so when I think portals, I think VW microbus, Farmall Cub tractor, and Unimog. Thanks for a fascinating video.
All 12k hummer (civilian)/HMMWV (military) portals are ctis ready and helical cut. Exact same grared hub between the two. When you pull the back cover off, there will be a two-piece brass bushing that is the seal. The seals are a consumable that may be bad (or lost depending on who did the maintenance). The hummer portals also have an inspection plate on the side to disassemble the gears/bearings without needing to remove the portal from the truck and easily see contamination without draining the oil.
@@DirtLifestyle I would love a video more in depth on how you use onX or different apps for picking out routes or trails or even camp spots. They have done a lot of updates on it and I’m sure there are videos of it out there but you breakdown things really well. Also maybe in that video breakdown radios you and your group use and what works for you would be cool too.
Great video Nate, simply, clear and the best you offered with all your time and research gone into this video, plus edit time is another chunk, plus with this video I think you may have sold a few units for a few companies you mentioned, over 40 years ago I built portal style axles for farm equipment company and got the opportunity to low snow in a 4 acre parking lot with one and it was a blast and they were a bi directional tractor, hydro static drive, 14 ft articulated plow on it and this was pushing almost 2 feet of snow and it was no problem for it and maintenance on portals, the routine stuff like oils and making sure your breathers are intact and no ingress from moisture or dirt is easy it took an extra maybe 40 minutes when doing an oil change, this m these were cat iron portal boxes and we never used any thread locker at first and found out they'd loosen slightly, so immediately we used upgraded hardware, some of the first red lock tite before the public was familiar with it and that took care of that issue ,I still see quite a few in service with farmers over 40 yrs later
I dont know enough about portals, so this is great info for a noob like me. I've reached out to a couple of companies about making portals for the Rodeo. That would push this build to a not so cheap one...which isnt a bad thing. Great info, Nate!
Live in sweden, for 10-15 years ago you could buy Volvo portals for maybe 1500-2500 us but now is the price 5-6000 us + locker, portal, holds up to our small car(max 2000 kg) good with rcv i front - trumbrakes, hevay, portals makes hard to build low
Great info is much appreciated! It's not necessarily an easy task weeding through all of the varying info found on the internet especially when comparing different products! So thank you for the time you dedicated to this topic! For the avg Joe who isn't building a dedicated crawler/offroad rig, who has the bucks and drops their vehicle off at a shop for upgrades in my opinion should stick with 74weld or similar and should stay away from anything fab related. If you are the type who does their own fab and vehicle build the choice is up to you. 74weld for example keeps it simple is basically turnkey and won't leave you scratching your head trying to figure everything out.
I'd like to point out a possible reason why some HMMWV portal gears strip out; these rigs had inboard brakes, meaning all the braking happened at the axle shaft, between the differential and the portal box. Therefore, all the braking force has to travel through the portal gears.
Very informative! I didn't realize that the two gear portals make the axles turn the opposite direction. In my case on my TJ with Currie High Pinion 8.8 diffs, I could just swap the gears from reverse rotation to standard rotation. My concern with portals would be making sure the axle tube strength is enough to handle the added leverage of the portal plus the larger tires. Most axle tubes would be easy to bend in my opinion if they weren't beefed up. The IFS of say the hummer set up doesn't have that issue.
Sweet video as always, thank you! With Unimog 416 portals you actually have a number of gearing options, the differences in overall gearing were all achieved with combinations of different diffs and different portals (transmissions are all the same). The gearing differences can actually be pretty significant, the difference in top speed between the highest and the lowest is like 40 kph on a 416. On the 404, there are two different portal gearing options, but they're almost the same, hardly makes a difference. You can fit portal gears from an earlier generation (411/2010) to get 10% faster overall. 404 axles look kinda like Dana 60s beef wise, but the gears in the portals reduce stress and effectively make the axles significantly stronger. The torque tube design is actually awesome btw, it's just really ard to adapt to any non-mog application. It has been done, though (there's an article on Pirate 4x4 I think). I'm kinda waiting for someone to come up with a kit for that.
This is why I love your channel, I learn so much, to the point where, my next project will be a 3 link front, 4 link rear swb pajero with Dana front diff.
Great video. Answered a lot of questions for me. Don't think I'm going the portal route. Just doesn't make sense for what I want to do. I also want to say, What you said about most mechanics not knowing about portals is very true. I am a retired 50+ year ASE certed. mechanic That has worked on most things with wheels and an engine and up until you turned me on to Unimog I had no clue. Anyway thanks for all the great content and maybe I will see you on the trail...🤓
Dozen guys in my country run Tibus on multiple Jeeps, Toyota, UAZ since 2014-2016, all going strong. Recently seen them on Bronco and Tank300 also. 3 or 4 helical gears, +9.5" each side width, CTIS, 10 year warranty. Also they are way cheaper in Europe than you listed: 7-12K$
H1 12k portals have 32 spline input and most of them are straight cut gears. My portals were 10k 27 spline and I upgraded to 32 spline 12k input by replacing the upper spur gears. Only the H1 "alpha" came with helical gears. Also all factory 12K portals come with CTIS
Thanks for all that info I've seen them but didn't know much about them I do now well way more than I did and they cost alot just like I new they would!!
Sounds like portals have their down sides for sure. Don't think my current build would be prime for them regardless! It'd be fun to join up with you guys for a trip, but only one of your milder ones! Dunno if my XJ is up to the full on rock crawling action quite yet, and I might have to stock up on underwear. Just recently getting into a little more rugged off roading, grew up in the pucker brush of Eastern Washington, so grew up on gravel roads and old two tracks thru the sage and trees. Picked up a clean/straight XJ last month, am modding it up. Starting with 4 1/2 inch long arm lift, 8 1/2 inch wheels to hold better at low pressure, and 33 inch big lug MT's. Bumpers, winch, tire carrier, lockers.... by end of winter should be ready. Will probably hit Moses Lake Dunes to check it out a few times between now and then. My main angle is old logging and mining roads, old mines, rock hunting, and lookin' for a sexy female sasquatch.....
For light applications, you can use VW T1 transporter splitcase portal (3 Gears) In France, we found Simca marmon with portals, or Renault trm trucks ( and unimog of course) ... It's cheap, but we don't see a lot of Big 4x4 with portals...
Great video Nate! I'm still new to wrenching on my JK, and have no plans of adding portals. Nonetheless, I watched the whole video and enjoyed it!. Thank you for the great research, very well delivered.
On the 2 gear portals can you swap sides with them and get them to rotate them the correct way? tractor rototillers can be reversed by flipping the gear box and it makes it a reverse rotating tine tiller. Same idea?
I see what your saying and I'm not sure why that wouldn't work. I doubt the gears are directional like a hypoid gear and I know the steering would be swapped but I don't know why this wouldn't work. I get a lot of comments from engineers so maybe someone can chime in.
There's a company calles MatBad 4x4 in Germany that makes components for 404 axles, including the covers (housings) you talked about, as well as chromolly shafts and disk brake conversions.
Great video and very informative. While I don’t think I’ll ever get myself into the portal scene as the price is more than both my Jeeps combined, it’s awesome to see these side by side comparisons and understand how they work. Looking forward to seeing some more snow wheeling videos now that the build challenge is over! Also the Arctic Rover in my opinion is perfection!!!🤟🤟
Thanks dude! Yeah, these aren't the right upgrade for most people's projects but are a sweet addition in the right application. I just got back from a deep snow trip, and I already can't wait to go back out! Yeti is too much fun
I'd be worried a bit with the wheel speed sensor if its stock or aftermarket, but only because, if its mounted different say its further than stock, you're going to need a longer wire just to avoid stretching the wire.
I'm a mechanical engineer and i have a few comments, First: Sleep easy , there's never going to be a proprietary bearing on an automotive application! If you open up that 74 weld bearing I bet there's an off the shelve bearing in it! But of course it may not be servicable. Second: The three gear portals "Can't" be as strong as the 4 gears is definitely not the case, both cases can be designed to perform exactly the same and the choice of using 3 or 4 basically comes to packaging and other constraints that influence the engineering of the portals
Finally the video I have been waiting for a long time. Why is it that the Defender L663 does not have portal options around the world? It would really be much easier than trying to do all the body lift etc
Love the informative videos!!! Of course I love the builds and crawling/camping stuff too but I love learning new stuff and broadening the knowledge in my personal brain library haha. For real have learned so much watching your videos!! Thank you!!!
I would have thought that Mercedes has vastly more experience, general use and competition, in using portal axles with their Unimogs than any other manufacturer. Its always a relatively small exercise to convert drum brakes to discs.
I'm surprised someone hasn't designed portals using an external cog gear inside an internal cog gear. Seems like a better arrangement than using 3-4 gears to change rotation.
As an Alaskan I can tell you, you can find someone to work on anything in Alaska. Now it will likely require some travel, but AK is full of 'good ol boys'.
I noticed in a recent video from Werewolf that the new models they are making only use one large, idle or parasitic gear, and they say it's stronger than the previous 4 gear style, and that they may change all of them to 3.
The Volvo c303/304 are more common in Norway/ Sweden as far as i know. Not something you see for sale everyday, but i have seen them. both axels and trucks. One guy in my group had one last year. And not cheap! The Tibus is also TUV certified for EU cars. Im looking at a set from TRE for a jimny 2000. (not with TUV)
dowel pins are the bigger indicator of the manufacturer controlling case flex. 2 dowels minimum at a diameter about the size or larger of the clamping bolts are good indicators. the face flexing past one another is what cause seal failure and gear misalignment causing catastrophic failure. the bigger the fastener the better, but consistent spacing and a good thread design are also more important. the clamped piece being aluminum is fine, but the threads going into steel is the best. aluminum can also be upgraded by having helicoils from the factory. it is common in aerospace design to use helicoils on a weaker metallic substrate because the shear on the steel wire is far greater, and gives an area advantage for the aluminum without having excessive clamp force from over sized bolts. honestly, the biggest key to long term failure is that maintenance interval and recognizing that it will be an inherently weaker design. keeping that foot under control or using torque management based on wheel speed is a good automated tool. bouncing off rocks breaks everything. damn near doesnt matter the design.
I got a 1967 Camaro 1000 hp rear mounted blown injected big block with flipped differentials dose 4x4 burn outs h1 diffs long axels and hubs haven’t broken nothing yet
I am very curious to know how it would affect highway driving? Does it use alot more fuel? If you where building a capable overlander, would portals even be an option? Or are tuese purely race and rock crawler tools?
I just don’t see the need for portals unless you’re building an extreme rock crawler that you either do the most hardcore trails on the planet with or you do rock crawling competitions. For the same price as a lot of these you could get a great suspension to actually gain wheel travel, while still getting lift, easily bolt it on, have replacement parts readily available, not add far too much width that’s typically not beneficial on lots of trails, and not add complexity to your vehicle. Portals definitely have their place I suppose, but I don’t see the need for me or a majority of people I’ve ever wheeled with.
My guess is that when Hummvees went to up armor they increased to the 12 v portal. One of the reasons the military got or is getting away from the Hummvee is after it got up armored it could not tow as much or haul as much. It was never designed to be bomb or bullet proof originally. It evolved into this over weight truck because road side explosives.
Just a heads up, the HMMWV did not come with CTIS. The CTIS came on the Medium duty and heavier vehicles. The portals are very tough though, in my 14 years as a maintainer in the Marines I have not seen a geared hub fail, but I have seen plenty behind it fail.
great video. 74weld social media / owner...is a terrible prick to ever interact with, very easy to just dislike them as a company. On the opposite end completely, is the Werewolf crew out of Ukraine. Werewolf crew is made from iron, and shoot entire videos showing entire install....then they go an bury it up to the windows in mud.
Great video. Price in Canada is $20,000x 40% exchange= $28,000 x 12% tax = 31,360 plus shipping. That is not including brokerage fees ect. I am poorer than you. Almost the price I paid when I bought my new zr2.
Havent finished this episode yet, but since you published the rover stuff, you HAVE to check out allroad 4x4 episode 129 "Classic series 2a" . At the 5 minute mark. He BUILT his own portals!!!!!!! Maybe you can find out how??? Cant seem to find any info on how he did it.🫤
This is becoming a more informative version of extreme 4x4 and what a lot of of us probably wished it was back in the day.
I've been told I haven't done a deep dive in a while... let's do this 😁. Today, I want to share info on the 8 most popular portal swaps I could find! If you see anything that I got wrong or another option I didn't mention, make sure to comment to help the community. Thanks for watching
With great portals comes great responsibility
lol. This need to be on a mug.
Hey Nate. The Volvo C303 was the 4x4 version of the military truck; the 304 and 306 were 6x6 of same truck. I have 303 axles under my 80 series. They were bought from a guy in Grand Junction, CO who used to import them. I've only seen a couple sets for sale in last 10 years. Last year there was an actual factory C303 that sold on BringATrailer and he got a couple sets of spare axles as well. I have 39" tires with stock springs and trimmed fenders. I love them. Getting parts is difficult, a couple companies overseas sell replacement items. There are guys who still use them for racing. If you've seen the Malaysian Jungle races, a lot of those guys have Volvo portals on their suzukis and jeeps. I'm not sure of the strength. I use my cruiser to haul our family of 6 around the trails. I rock crawl, but I don't beat on it because I don't want to break and have to wait months for replacement parts to come from overseas. I also drive it on the road and it'll still go 70 and get 14mpg and I haven't seen the portal boxes heat up like some people claim. Cheers bro. You are still doing what no one else is doing. God Bless - See Ya On The Next One!
I liked your closing comments about leverage. I have a front 3 link and tore the upper arm off the frame last year doing a bunch of downhill ledges. Now the upper mount has a ballistic joint and the frame was plated and a thicker mount was welded on top.
Thank sound like a sweet project!!! And I'm thinking about beefing up the 3 link on my Tacoma for the same reason. So much extra leverage...
Super helpful!!! I have been tempting to remove my +3.5” long travel with 35s on my FJ and put portals and 38s. But it feels like all the maintenance I would save by going back to stock suspension will be offset by the maintenance on portals. Maybe even a net increase? I look forward to your installation and long term feedback! BTW, what wheels are you going to run? The +45mm offset forged beadgrip is crazy money. All the new Toyotas factory wheels are around 60-50mm offset. I hope method will start making higher offset bead grips for the masses
Portals are great on rocks and snow, but most people don't do enough of either to justify the associated cons imo. But if you want 38s, these will definitely help ease that install. Better cv angles, less stress on your drivertrain and no need to re-gear 🤷♂️. Plus, an FJ on portals is pretty bad ass 😎
Running portals with stock suspension will put a lot of stress on your lower ball joints
Can't wait for a Tinkerers portal video 😎
Never gonna need or even want portals. However the older I get the more I enjoy learning about such things. I really appreciate your research and informative delivery. Thanks Nate!
Same here. I'll almost certainly never buy a set between need and cost. I wont even buy portals for my side by side which are quite a bit cheaper. But neat to see what's out there.
25:33 this is such a great point that I don’t see super often. Having the budget to afford rad bolt ons is awesome but just keep in mind the complexity you’re adding to your rig especially if you’re planning to get waaaaay out where no one is going to be able to help you. Built not bought may be more time consuming but when the chips are down and you need to limp something home the knowledge you’ll have from wrenching is priceless.
Love these explainers and your humbleness on what you know/your opinions. From a mechanical engineer with an automotive specialization: you know more than plenty of the people I went to school with, no doubt. Also shoutout to The Gear Shop, they are my go to local shop, love those guys!
Thank you! What a big compliment coming from someone with your background. Thanks for watching, brother 👊
I like portals I don’t want maintenance so I went with dynatrac axles. I understand everything needs occasional maintenance but normal axles require a lot less.
The hummer portals are interesting though price is cheap and with a few upgrades plus parts are easy enough to get not a bad setup.
Everything breaks down eventually. Finally, someone who GETS IT. I retired from 45 years operating hydroelectric powerhouses. Butted heads with Engineers over this countless times. I’m old, so when I think portals, I think VW microbus, Farmall Cub tractor, and Unimog. Thanks for a fascinating video.
All 12k hummer (civilian)/HMMWV (military) portals are ctis ready and helical cut. Exact same grared hub between the two. When you pull the back cover off, there will be a two-piece brass bushing that is the seal. The seals are a consumable that may be bad (or lost depending on who did the maintenance). The hummer portals also have an inspection plate on the side to disassemble the gears/bearings without needing to remove the portal from the truck and easily see contamination without draining the oil.
I love the ending where you say you have to fix your junk to get it off the trail !
I love these kinds of videos from you. The type that got me to you chanel in the first place like 2-3 years ago.
Thanks dude! I miss doing deep dives. Are there any other topics you would like me to dive into?
Also looking forward to the Tacoma video of you fixing it and doing the portals!!
@@DirtLifestyle I would love a video more in depth on how you use onX or different apps for picking out routes or trails or even camp spots. They have done a lot of updates on it and I’m sure there are videos of it out there but you breakdown things really well. Also maybe in that video breakdown radios you and your group use and what works for you would be cool too.
Finally the video we have all been waiting for
It feels good to finally have it done. Hopefully, this information can help send you down the right path 👊. Thanks for watching man
Great video Nate, simply, clear and the best you offered with all your time and research gone into this video, plus edit time is another chunk, plus with this video I think you may have sold a few units for a few companies you mentioned, over 40 years ago I built portal style axles for farm equipment company and got the opportunity to low snow in a 4 acre parking lot with one and it was a blast and they were a bi directional tractor, hydro static drive, 14 ft articulated plow on it and this was pushing almost 2 feet of snow and it was no problem for it and maintenance on portals, the routine stuff like oils and making sure your breathers are intact and no ingress from moisture or dirt is easy it took an extra maybe 40 minutes when doing an oil change, this m these were cat iron portal boxes and we never used any thread locker at first and found out they'd loosen slightly, so immediately we used upgraded hardware, some of the first red lock tite before the public was familiar with it and that took care of that issue ,I still see quite a few in service with farmers over 40 yrs later
I dont know enough about portals, so this is great info for a noob like me. I've reached out to a couple of companies about making portals for the Rodeo. That would push this build to a not so cheap one...which isnt a bad thing. Great info, Nate!
That might be the first rodeo on portals lol. I'd watch that build 😁
Live in sweden, for 10-15 years ago you could buy Volvo portals for maybe 1500-2500 us but now is the price 5-6000 us
+ locker, portal, holds up to our small car(max 2000 kg) good with rcv i front
- trumbrakes, hevay, portals makes hard to build low
Great info is much appreciated! It's not necessarily an easy task weeding through all of the varying info found on the internet especially when comparing different products! So thank you for the time you dedicated to this topic! For the avg Joe who isn't building a dedicated crawler/offroad rig, who has the bucks and drops their vehicle off at a shop for upgrades in my opinion should stick with 74weld or similar and should stay away from anything fab related. If you are the type who does their own fab and vehicle build the choice is up to you. 74weld for example keeps it simple is basically turnkey and won't leave you scratching your head trying to figure everything out.
I'd like to point out a possible reason why some HMMWV portal gears strip out; these rigs had inboard brakes, meaning all the braking happened at the axle shaft, between the differential and the portal box. Therefore, all the braking force has to travel through the portal gears.
Very informative! I didn't realize that the two gear portals make the axles turn the opposite direction. In my case on my TJ with Currie High Pinion 8.8 diffs, I could just swap the gears from reverse rotation to standard rotation. My concern with portals would be making sure the axle tube strength is enough to handle the added leverage of the portal plus the larger tires. Most axle tubes would be easy to bend in my opinion if they weren't beefed up. The IFS of say the hummer set up doesn't have that issue.
Great video! I have always considered portals as an option. The only issue I have with portals is the added width and the tight trails I get on.
Sweet video as always, thank you! With Unimog 416 portals you actually have a number of gearing options, the differences in overall gearing were all achieved with combinations of different diffs and different portals (transmissions are all the same). The gearing differences can actually be pretty significant, the difference in top speed between the highest and the lowest is like 40 kph on a 416.
On the 404, there are two different portal gearing options, but they're almost the same, hardly makes a difference. You can fit portal gears from an earlier generation (411/2010) to get 10% faster overall.
404 axles look kinda like Dana 60s beef wise, but the gears in the portals reduce stress and effectively make the axles significantly stronger.
The torque tube design is actually awesome btw, it's just really ard to adapt to any non-mog application. It has been done, though (there's an article on Pirate 4x4 I think). I'm kinda waiting for someone to come up with a kit for that.
Love your communication skills and humility Nate. That was informative and also entertaining.
Thank you! I really appreciate the kind words 🙏
In the late 70s ford had a front end that took a backward in put for 2 or 3 years that works with hummer portals
Awesome video Nate, can’t wait to see your Tacoma with portals
You and me both!
Many years ago my VW Baja Bug had Bus reduction boxes, very similar to portals.
This is why I love your channel, I learn so much, to the point where, my next project will be a 3 link front, 4 link rear swb pajero with Dana front diff.
FINALLY! Nate, this is the sort of video that has made me a follower since the Bleepin days. KEEP IT UP!
Great video. Answered a lot of questions for me. Don't think I'm going the portal route. Just doesn't make sense for what I want to do. I also want to say, What you said about most mechanics not knowing about portals is very true. I am a retired 50+ year ASE certed. mechanic That has worked on most things with wheels and an engine and up until you turned me on to Unimog I had no clue. Anyway thanks for all the great content and maybe I will see you on the trail...🤓
Dozen guys in my country run Tibus on multiple Jeeps, Toyota, UAZ since 2014-2016, all going strong. Recently seen them on Bronco and Tank300 also.
3 or 4 helical gears, +9.5" each side width, CTIS, 10 year warranty. Also they are way cheaper in Europe than you listed: 7-12K$
H1 12k portals have 32 spline input and most of them are straight cut gears. My portals were 10k 27 spline and I upgraded to 32 spline 12k input by replacing the upper spur gears. Only the H1 "alpha" came with helical gears. Also all factory 12K portals come with CTIS
Great info, thank you 👊
Thanks for all that info I've seen them but didn't know much about them I do now well way more than I did and they cost alot just like I new they would!!
Sounds like portals have their down sides for sure. Don't think my current build would be prime for them regardless! It'd be fun to join up with you guys for a trip, but only one of your milder ones! Dunno if my XJ is up to the full on rock crawling action quite yet, and I might have to stock up on underwear. Just recently getting into a little more rugged off roading, grew up in the pucker brush of Eastern Washington, so grew up on gravel roads and old two tracks thru the sage and trees. Picked up a clean/straight XJ last month, am modding it up. Starting with 4 1/2 inch long arm lift, 8 1/2 inch wheels to hold better at low pressure, and 33 inch big lug MT's. Bumpers, winch, tire carrier, lockers.... by end of winter should be ready. Will probably hit Moses Lake Dunes to check it out a few times between now and then. My main angle is old logging and mining roads, old mines, rock hunting, and lookin' for a sexy female sasquatch.....
For light applications, you can use VW T1 transporter splitcase portal (3 Gears)
In France, we found Simca marmon with portals, or Renault trm trucks ( and unimog of course) ... It's cheap, but we don't see a lot of Big 4x4 with portals...
Great video Nate! I'm still new to wrenching on my JK, and have no plans of adding portals. Nonetheless, I watched the whole video and enjoyed it!. Thank you for the great research, very well delivered.
On the 2 gear portals can you swap sides with them and get them to rotate them the correct way? tractor rototillers can be reversed by flipping the gear box and it makes it a reverse rotating tine tiller. Same idea?
I see what your saying and I'm not sure why that wouldn't work. I doubt the gears are directional like a hypoid gear and I know the steering would be swapped but I don't know why this wouldn't work. I get a lot of comments from engineers so maybe someone can chime in.
By swapping sides you aren’t changing the direction that the axle shaft rotates. Any 2 gear arrangement will always reverse the rotation.
There is a 1975 Volvo C303 for sale in Everett, WA on marketplace right now. It is on portals
There's a company calles MatBad 4x4 in Germany that makes components for 404 axles, including the covers (housings) you talked about, as well as chromolly shafts and disk brake conversions.
I have a set of Unimog 404's that I have had for years. Didn't know they were worth that much.
Great video and very informative. While I don’t think I’ll ever get myself into the portal scene as the price is more than both my Jeeps combined, it’s awesome to see these side by side comparisons and understand how they work. Looking forward to seeing some more snow wheeling videos now that the build challenge is over! Also the Arctic Rover in my opinion is perfection!!!🤟🤟
Thanks dude! Yeah, these aren't the right upgrade for most people's projects but are a sweet addition in the right application. I just got back from a deep snow trip, and I already can't wait to go back out! Yeti is too much fun
What about the UAZ military portals.
IIRC Dstrac makes portals too. They are from Brazil.
I'd be worried a bit with the wheel speed sensor if its stock or aftermarket, but only because, if its mounted different say its further than stock, you're going to need a longer wire just to avoid stretching the wire.
I'm a mechanical engineer and i have a few comments, First:
Sleep easy , there's never going to be a proprietary bearing on an automotive application! If you open up that 74 weld bearing I bet there's an off the shelve bearing in it! But of course it may not be servicable.
Second:
The three gear portals "Can't" be as strong as the 4 gears is definitely not the case, both cases can be designed to perform exactly the same and the choice of using 3 or 4 basically comes to packaging and other constraints that influence the engineering of the portals
Thank you Nate!
Tre also has chain drive portals. I was hoping you might have some insight or thoughts on them. How would the compare in strength and noise?
Finally the video I have been waiting for a long time. Why is it that the Defender L663 does not have portal options around the world? It would really be much easier than trying to do all the body lift etc
Love the informative videos!!! Of course I love the builds and crawling/camping stuff too but I love learning new stuff and broadening the knowledge in my personal brain library haha. For real have learned so much watching your videos!! Thank you!!!
While I THINK I may never do portals, this is DAMN GOOD information.. Thanks, boss!!
Thank you for watching man! I appreciate the positive comment 👊
You need to add an “I’m not an engineer” counter to this video. 🤣
lol dude seriously though... I'm not an engineer 😀
@ 🤣🤣 love watching your channel man! Keep up the great content!
Take a sip or a shot every time he says “I’m not an engineer”
Awesome vid, really looking forward to seeing them on the Tacoma!!
I would have thought that Mercedes has vastly more experience, general use and competition, in using portal axles with their Unimogs than any other manufacturer. Its always a relatively small exercise to convert drum brakes to discs.
Same thoughts here!👍👍
Hi Nate! Great job on this!
Sure hope the Blue Jeep truck is in the line up for Continuation...
I'm surprised someone hasn't designed portals using an external cog gear inside an internal cog gear. Seems like a better arrangement than using 3-4 gears to change rotation.
All you bro 😀
Very interesting vid, man. I’ll never have the scratch for ‘em, but always cool to learn. Still holding out hope to see that manual Xterra build. 😅
Awesome vid Nate. Thank you!
As an Alaskan I can tell you, you can find someone to work on anything in Alaska. Now it will likely require some travel, but AK is full of 'good ol boys'.
HMMWV (military) are not CTIS Hummer (civilian) are but they have different reduction gears.
great info thanks dude 👍
I noticed in a recent video from Werewolf that the new models they are making only use one large, idle or parasitic gear, and they say it's stronger than the previous 4 gear style, and that they may change all of them to 3.
I'm surprised you didn't mention the portals that come on the G-Class 4x4 Squared. 3 gears, 15 bolts.
I like portals and would love to figure how to get them on my 97 powerstroke
The Volvo c303/304 are more common in Norway/ Sweden as far as i know. Not something you see for sale everyday, but i have seen them. both axels and trucks. One guy in my group had one last year. And not cheap!
The Tibus is also TUV certified for EU cars.
Im looking at a set from TRE for a jimny 2000. (not with TUV)
Did the quick math. The jump from 30 to 37inch tires will increase the circumference of the tire by roughly 25%.
dowel pins are the bigger indicator of the manufacturer controlling case flex. 2 dowels minimum at a diameter about the size or larger of the clamping bolts are good indicators. the face flexing past one another is what cause seal failure and gear misalignment causing catastrophic failure.
the bigger the fastener the better, but consistent spacing and a good thread design are also more important. the clamped piece being aluminum is fine, but the threads going into steel is the best. aluminum can also be upgraded by having helicoils from the factory. it is common in aerospace design to use helicoils on a weaker metallic substrate because the shear on the steel wire is far greater, and gives an area advantage for the aluminum without having excessive clamp force from over sized bolts.
honestly, the biggest key to long term failure is that maintenance interval and recognizing that it will be an inherently weaker design. keeping that foot under control or using torque management based on wheel speed is a good automated tool. bouncing off rocks breaks everything. damn near doesnt matter the design.
I got a 1967 Camaro 1000 hp rear mounted blown injected big block with flipped differentials dose 4x4 burn outs h1 diffs long axels and hubs haven’t broken nothing yet
What a cool episode!! 👍🏼👍🏼
74weld = weight savings 💪🏻
Best breakdown of portals since Phineas and Ferb went to Mars.
You also save by not having to regear a set of Rubicon axles and running 40s.
Are we gunna see the end of the dually this year? or not looking like it unfortunately
Jesse haines needs a collab. He's the best rock crawler I've ever seen
I’ve thought about it. Until I looked into cost.
Laughed and then decided I’d just tackle less difficult trails or get better at off-roading.
No option for manual hubs on these?
Not that I've seen
Are you going to redo the text overlay that got jumbled? otherwise great information bud!
I am very curious to know how it would affect highway driving? Does it use alot more fuel? If you where building a capable overlander, would portals even be an option? Or are tuese purely race and rock crawler tools?
$20K for 74 weld and they are already showing rust?
Great video!
Thank you for this video
Thank you for watching this video 😀
Remember, most aftermarket portals have around 50k rebuild interval.
Where can one find a full set of 12k portals for $1000? I usually see them for $4k 😢
I just don’t see the need for portals unless you’re building an extreme rock crawler that you either do the most hardcore trails on the planet with or you do rock crawling competitions.
For the same price as a lot of these you could get a great suspension to actually gain wheel travel, while still getting lift, easily bolt it on, have replacement parts readily available, not add far too much width that’s typically not beneficial on lots of trails, and not add complexity to your vehicle.
Portals definitely have their place I suppose, but I don’t see the need for me or a majority of people I’ve ever wheeled with.
My guess is that when Hummvees went to up armor they increased to the 12 v portal. One of the reasons the military got or is getting away from the Hummvee is after it got up armored it could not tow as much or haul as much. It was never designed to be bomb or bullet proof originally. It evolved into this over weight truck because road side explosives.
Has anyone done anything with Pinzgauer portals or are they just too weird?
Guys he’s not an engineer 😂
Just playing Nate great video with awesome information.
Nate: I hope you like this video I hope you got something out of it..
Me: yes! I got sad bc I don’t think portals are for me anymore 😢
Just a heads up, the HMMWV did not come with CTIS. The CTIS came on the Medium duty and heavier vehicles. The portals are very tough though, in my 14 years as a maintainer in the Marines I have not seen a geared hub fail, but I have seen plenty behind it fail.
Perfect 👌. This is the type of comment I was hoping to see. Thanks for the info!
My dad's 98 h1 has central inflation. 🤷♂️
Army hummers came with ctis. The marine corp was just too cheap to get it on their trucks.
@@mattstoll4747 to busy buying crayons?
@mattstoll4747 sadly that actually tracks lol. Thanks for that!
So 5 29s plus %22 are you goung to 47s or 49s on the tacoma? Haha
Lol no. But I hope to gain back at least one overdrive 😆
A NWfab crawl box would be a good upgrade while you are changing things up also for that snow crawling.
no way in hell is would pay that much for the 74weld units simply because of the proprietary unit bearings....that is the most failure prone part
great video. 74weld social media / owner...is a terrible prick to ever interact with, very easy to just dislike them as a company. On the opposite end completely, is the Werewolf crew out of Ukraine. Werewolf crew is made from iron, and shoot entire videos showing entire install....then they go an bury it up to the windows in mud.
Unimog is way more stronger than Dana 60.
That is going to make the Tacoma pretty widen with the Martin crawler parts
Yep, I'm pumped!
Im poor aint I.
This stuff is crazy expensive
@@DirtLifestyle yep 😄
Great video. Price in Canada is $20,000x 40% exchange= $28,000 x 12% tax = 31,360 plus shipping. That is not including brokerage fees ect. I am poorer than you. Almost the price I paid when I bought my new zr2.
Each of your videos is a small masterpiece that surprises with its originality and creativity. Keep up the good work!🏓🎲🦩
Your videos are not just entertainment, they are a source of inspiration and wisdom. Thank you for your creativity and effort!🧭🚕🫐
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pinzgauer_portal_axle.JPG
Great content! It's always a pleasure to watch your videos - they are so high quality and interesting.🖲😕🐞
Havent finished this episode yet, but since you published the rover stuff, you HAVE to check out allroad 4x4 episode 129 "Classic series 2a" . At the 5 minute mark. He BUILT his own portals!!!!!!! Maybe you can find out how??? Cant seem to find any info on how he did it.🫤