After going around in circles for a couple months getting ideas from lots of people, I'm going to go with a Toyota solid front axle in my FrankenWillys project
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and use the stock Toyota rear end. These will be grafted onto the original Willys Wagon frame. Right now, the Toyota donor driveline has the 1988 IFS w/ disc brakes, stock 4.10 gears and the 3.0 v6 + 5speed. The IFS won't work in the Wagon because of the engine alignment issues around the torsion bars and the oil pan on the engine 'straddling' the IFS front axle. A straight front axle would eliminate all those problems, allowing me to place the engine exactly where I need it. At that point, the only thing I'll have to do about the engine placement is to have the drive shafts altered - much easier than trying to 'stub' the frame just to keep the torsion bar IFS!
What year and model front axle should I be digging around for in junkyards to get the solid front axle that I can use as much of my current front brake hardware as possible? I've seen what some other folks have done with Land Cruiser axles into pickups, but they obviously only mention the one year truck they got parts from. What year ranges would be a good fit, since I'm looking at all used stuff? Spring pad placement isn't an issue because they'll be fabricated from scratch anyway with mounts fabbed onto the Willys frame.
Any help is appreciated.
Cheers, - Jeff G