I'm looking for some advice.
I have a 73 FJ40, original drivetrain, sitting at the 180K+ mark now. Due to some inexperience many moons ago, I never got the full torque on the rear pinion nut after changing the seal. Never thought much about it, but now I have a pretty pronounced growl from the rear end. I suspect the pinion bearings are worn/damaged. Noise got worse after I actually got it torqued all the way down a couple years ago.
The truck is nearly all original component wise, so there is something to rebuilding the original third and keeping it with the truck, but at the same time, I could probably easily swap a good used unit in.
What I'm wondering about is how far to go in the rear end. I haven't had the cover off in about 20 years, so I have no idea how it looks inside, oil has been looking okay. I did, however, have the cover off my FJ60 recently to pull the axles and change the outer axle seals. That truck has 250K on it and I was surprised at how worn the spider gears were. The ring gear didn't look too bad, but the spiders were pretty much rounded and have a lot of slop in them.
The bad pinion preload in the 40 may have affected the ring and pinion pattern, also, I suspect, judging from the slop, the spiders have to be on there way to the same wear the higher mileage FJ60 is showing.
So the question is, how far do you go. Just do the pinion bearings and see if the ring mesh can be made right and go on. Replace all the guts, including bearings, ring and pinion and spiders, or swap it out for another, or ditch the spiders and put in a locker or something, costs are all mounting at this point.
On a similar note, I have T100 with 236K on it, it also has a very loose and maybe noisy rear end, same question, how far do you go?
I've never done a diff, so I'm not sure where you make you the cutoff on runnable and non-runnable on wear issues. Any advise on this would be appreciated, thanks, Graham
I have a 73 FJ40, original drivetrain, sitting at the 180K+ mark now. Due to some inexperience many moons ago, I never got the full torque on the rear pinion nut after changing the seal. Never thought much about it, but now I have a pretty pronounced growl from the rear end. I suspect the pinion bearings are worn/damaged. Noise got worse after I actually got it torqued all the way down a couple years ago.
The truck is nearly all original component wise, so there is something to rebuilding the original third and keeping it with the truck, but at the same time, I could probably easily swap a good used unit in.
What I'm wondering about is how far to go in the rear end. I haven't had the cover off in about 20 years, so I have no idea how it looks inside, oil has been looking okay. I did, however, have the cover off my FJ60 recently to pull the axles and change the outer axle seals. That truck has 250K on it and I was surprised at how worn the spider gears were. The ring gear didn't look too bad, but the spiders were pretty much rounded and have a lot of slop in them.
The bad pinion preload in the 40 may have affected the ring and pinion pattern, also, I suspect, judging from the slop, the spiders have to be on there way to the same wear the higher mileage FJ60 is showing.
So the question is, how far do you go. Just do the pinion bearings and see if the ring mesh can be made right and go on. Replace all the guts, including bearings, ring and pinion and spiders, or swap it out for another, or ditch the spiders and put in a locker or something, costs are all mounting at this point.
On a similar note, I have T100 with 236K on it, it also has a very loose and maybe noisy rear end, same question, how far do you go?
I've never done a diff, so I'm not sure where you make you the cutoff on runnable and non-runnable on wear issues. Any advise on this would be appreciated, thanks, Graham
