Muddin' ** Family Style (1 Viewer)

[2fpower]

It is finally time for me to introduce myself and my new LX450. I bought this off of MUD from Addicted56, and had it shipped to the middle of the country. I drove it all of 10 miles before parking it and pulling out the front axle for a knuckle rebuild. My wife and I hosted a wrenching weekend for our local club, so my plan was to pull it out of the LX, sandblast and pait it before the weekend. Well, time ran out, so I rebuilt the axle first, then double wrapped everything then sandblasted and painted it up. Finally got everything back in this weekend, but ran in to a problem.

I think the power steering pump can't keep up with the big tires. I ran it a mile down the road taking lots of corners and turns and it just stopped working. The resevoir was HOT to the touch. I jacked up the car this morning and manually ran the wheels back and forth with no issues, so what else should I test before replacing the pump?? I know the prior owner rebuilt part of it, so I will see if he will post up here.

Here are some pics..

EDIT: The more I think about it, I wonder if there is something wrong with the gearbox... Now, I have not used a non-power steering rig with huge tires before, but it really felt like it hit a stop. I could turn left but not right at first. Reverse was the same.... With the powersteering fluid that hot, maybe it was working. Could it just be the gearbox? How can I test to see what the issue is?

 

[2fpower]

more pics

So, while the axle was out, figured it was a good time to attack the valve cover leak.

After I took off the cover, discovered the oil seals around the spark plug tubes were in pieces throughout the head!!!

Decided to clean it up and powdercoat it. Had a local shop coat it after I beadblasted and cleaned up the casting.

Blood Red powder that I bought from Powder by the Pound on Ebay.

 

[2fpower]

axles

We ended up doing three front axles over two days that weekend!

I am pretty tired of looking at axles!

 

[addicted56]

Hello,

You are making some good progress. You are exactly the reason I sold it. I'm glad it is getting more attention and better care that I can give it here.

The spark plug tubes perplex me. I just changed those out with Toyota OEM parts less than 10K ago.

Regarding the powersteering pump this may be a really stupid question but I will start here. Is it full of fluid? The cap used to leak a bit but I used RVT on the seal and it had stopped. But even then you would only lose a little.

When I rebuilt the pump I just replaced the outer seal that was leaking. I actually just remembered that I had the rest of the snap/o-rings from the toyota seal kit and I put that in the box this morning with the rest of the parts I'm sending you.

Is the pump groaning when you turn it? It will be hot but that is normal. Yes the tires are large but the pump should be able to handle it in normal driving conditions. Off-road not moving it can be difficult. Also this problem occured after you tore down the axle correct? One other thing, you may want to add a large power steering cooler. Some people have had good luck with those cheap cylindrical coolers from Summit Racing. Between the big tires and the immense heat that the 1FZ-FE puts off in the engine compartment it is hard to keep that oil cool.

Also might want to look at your steering linkage and other components that you put back on during reinstallation of the axle. That fact that it just couldn't turn them at all and works fine with no pressure on the front end may mean you have some binding on some components.

I'll be following the thread and waiting for some more details about the problem.

 

[2fpower]

Wow... I mean WOW on the spark plug tube seals. Yeah, they were toast. That is wild!

Fluid was full, and when I pulled the cap off, it was bubbling up.

Pump was not croaning, just would not turn.

Yeah, I wonder if something is wrong with my rebuilt axles. typical second guessing. I used a scale and it was turning with 10lbs of tension. If I had not done two other axles that weekend that are doing fine, I would be more concerned.

During the rebuild, I swapped the birfs left and right side to even out wear. I mutilated the boot on the tie rod end, so got a new toyota part for it. New trunion bearings, new wheel bearing, all new grease...

IF, and I mean IF some sand got in either the diff or the knuckles, could it do this? (second guessing)

Again, I put it on stands this morning, and turned it back and forth manually and with the engine on using the p/s and no issues.

 

[JackZilla]

This is kind of weird. My buddy (yohavos) was having a similar issue with his '92. The power steering would work for a bit and then it would just stop working. He replaced the power steering pump and it continued to do the same thing. The motor went **** up before we could figure out a final solution so I will stay tuned here to see if you have better luck. Good luck.

 

[tornadoalleycruiser]

I normally use a ford tempo/escort/etc transmission cooler on my power steering units.
Kelly did you burp it ? if it encapulated a bubble it might lock. And is the locker on that front axle working correctly after your mishap with the wiring?

 

[2fpower]

Oh, good question on the locker. I have not tried it yet..... it could be locking the axles up and causing big issues on the corners.

So to test this with the wheels in the air, with it unlocked, car off, if I spin one of the wheels, the other will spin the other direction. If it is locked, they will both spin??? or not spin at all???

 

[CrowleyFJ40]

I'm not sure on the 80 series, but I would guess that if the front diff was locked you would not be able to turn the wheels unless you put the tranfer case in neutral. With the xfer in nuetral, they should both spin in the same direction.

 

[addicted56]

Ohh yeah. There is now way in HELL you will be able to turn the tires with the lockers engaged. But the dash should tell you if they are or not. I would get them up and check if they are locked. If so that was an easy fix. If not I'll have to think about it....

 

[2fpower]

Here is the deal, taking the axle out, I disconnected everything except I could not disconnect the wiring harness to the locker, ( I said to myself .... "self, don't forget to work on that before you drop the axle")

Well, guess what, I forgot. So, I ruined the harness, and was left with a bunch of wires hanging out. We did not know what wires went where, so we looked at other 80's and the manual, and came up with our best guess. The wires on the harness going to the motor, were different colors than the other 80's and manual. The thought was that it may be a motor for a rear locker??? So, like I said, we made the best guess.

The dash does not show anything is locked currently, but since I rewired it I am not sure that it is working correctly. I will investigate

 

[PNGCRUISER]

You might want to check the front crank bolt torque (304 ft lbs). I know that sound wierd, but that's what happend to my rig with the po. It had intermittant oil pressure and no power steering assist. The front accessory drive gear for the oil pump and power steering pump is not keyed. It is just a friction fit held by the crank bolt torque. Sandwiched inbetween the timing chain gear and crank snout. If the bolt torque is not enough the gear will slip causing reduced oil pressure and lack of power steering. My rig did it at random, oil pressure would drop on guage to less than a 1/4 and lack of steering assist would occur at the same time. Took me a while to figure it out. HTH

 

[2fpower]

Ok, so it is on jack stands and the locker switch is off, and the front axle if locked. So, I likely did not wire it correctly. So several questions here. Does anyone have a 97 that can look at the color of the wires going into the connector at the locker? The 96 and 94 that we looked at have different colored wires.

If I remove the locker motor, how can I manually unlock it?

The light did not go on that it was locked up, so should I be concerned that this is not a locker issue? Would some sand getting into the differential lock it such that both wheels spin at same time? Again, don't think that sand got in there, but.....

I will post up the wire combinations that we wired together in a little while.

 

[Walking Eagle]

Ok, so it is on jack stands and the locker switch is off, and the front axle if locked. So, I likely did not wire it correctly. So several questions here. Does anyone have a 97 that can look at the color of the wires going into the connector at the locker? The 96 and 94 that we looked at have different colored wires.

If I remove the locker motor, how can I manually unlock it?

The light did not go on that it was locked up, so should I be concerned that this is not a locker issue? Would some sand getting into the differential lock it such that both wheels spin at same time? Again, don't think that sand got in there, but.....

I will post up the wire combinations that we wired together in a little while.

Tomorrow night I'll look at mine.

 

[LINUS]

Ok, so it is on jack stands and the locker switch is off, and the front axle if locked. So, I likely did not wire it correctly. So several questions here. Does anyone have a 97 that can look at the color of the wires going into the connector at the locker? The 96 and 94 that we looked at have different colored wires.

I will post up the wire combinations that we wired together in a little while.

Are you working with the factory EWD book?

I want to say the socket locations of the wires by color code are in there, going from memory.

I have a '97 & your motor for the diff lock looks like mine (I don't think you can even interchange them - different paths of motion IIRC)

I'll see if I can post the wires & the locations (or snap a pic or 2) of that end of the harness - I might have buried the socket connection in tape as I was re-using an old harness for my locker swap, but LMK if you need help still with anything you haven't yet figured out on your own.

 

[TomH]

Try these - from 1996 EWD

 

[TomH]

Couple more.

 

[2fpower]

I printed off the above pages, and they are fuzzy on the color of the wires, so I will look at my 94' factory manual, to see if they are the same, and can fill in the blanks, until then, here are my wires that I can see and how we wired them up.

I also found the part number on the motor for reference: 41450-60060


coming from the passenger side fender connection of the harness

wiring harness to ecu
position 1: Dark Blue/black
position 2: Green/red
position 3: White/black
position 4: Dark Blue (heavy gauge)
position 5: Dark Blue/Red
position 6: Dark Blue/Yellow

Connect to harness going to front locker/sensor

position 1: Dark Blue/black
position 2: Green/red
position 3: White/black
position 4: Dark Blue (heavy gauge)
position 5: Dark Blue/Green (note this is different from car harness color)
position 6: Dark Blue/Yellow

At motor here is how we wired it: (we did not use connector, just soldered them on, so the reference I am using is the position from the connector above)

Note: the Green/black going to sensor, and half of the white/black -- both going to the sensor were not cut, so those are factory original.

FROM --------------------------- TO on motor
position 1: Dark Blue/black -------------Yellow
position 2: Green/red --------------------- to sensor (looks like green/black)
position 3: White/black --------- (splits) to sensor and to Black wire at motor
position 4: Dark Blue (heavy gauge) -----Dark Green (heavy gauge)
position 5: Dark Blue/Green -------------- Green/red
position 6: Dark Blue/Yellow -------------- Lt. Green

So, every manual that I go do does not show these colors on the motor: lt. green, and yellow solid wires. Any ideas?

 

[2fpower]

I may be getting ahead of myself here.... General question, is there a way to manually disengage the locker? I want to rule out any issues with my front diff.

I would think that i should be able to pull the wire harness off of my sensor at the front diff and check to see if it is closed.

 

[TomH]

Here is something on manually unlocking the diff. Not sure if the answer is in the thread or not.

Here are the pages as a pdf (now that I'm at work and have more Adobe capabilities).