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Here you can see the steel cable attached to the bottom of the strut housing. Some fender lining helps protect stuff in the engine bay from flying rocks and debris.
There wasn’t a liner on the other side of the car which allowed us to see more stuff! Here you can also see the massive flaps and skid plate.
The tie-rod is connected to the backside of the spindle. With the engine being so far forward, the steering rack has to go behind it hence the location of the rack versus the spindle.
The front sway bar end-link is pretty isn’t it? I think the linkage going into the tranny visible above the axle is for the shifter. The big hose to the left of it going vertical is probably for a tranny fluid cooler. Oh yeah, more safety wire everywhere. Rally cars tend to jump a lot of things and go over rough roads, so making sure nothing comes loose is a good thing.
I’ve never played with rally cars or off-road trucks, but it appears the half shaft can be replaced without removing the splined part from the tranny. On my old Nissan SE-R, to replace the front axle, I’d have to drain the tranny fluid before pulling out the full axle. That doesn’t really work for quick road-side repairs that rally and off-road truck teams have to perform with no assistance. So it makes sense to design the half shaft holding the potentially busted CV joints to be replaceable on the side of the road by just unbolting the old part and bolting in the new part.
There’s some really serious flappage going on here. Yes, I made up the word flappage.
