1980 Beater Build!!

[4x4 Station Wagon]

So here is an example of one pin and spring just sitting in there and the other with the wire as a keeper.


Installation was a breeze... now just pull the pins


There is one tolerance to check and that is the gap in the center. It is a fairly wide tolerance (i am guessing here but like .140 - .170 AGAIN GUESSING I LEFT THE BOOK IN SHOP BUT I AM FAIRLY CLOSE). MY TOLERANCE WAS .154 So I like the middle ground. I really liked the fact that none of the factory shims were needed. I would have been a bit screwed as I had welded my spiders and when I plazed them out the shims were questionable.... I will say I like the feel of the metal there is some definate weight in these things just like the lockrites
Reinstall the center pin, the ring gear, and done

 

[Combat Chuck]

Purdy

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Also thanks to a lot of googling especially gearinstalls.com I was able to get my gear pattern to what I think is close after break in and my backlash opens up a little. The details can be found at https://forum.ih8mud.com/79-95-toyota-truck-tech/532433-4-88-superior-gear-install-need-help-reading-pattern.html

Thanks combat chuck now I have one goal and one goal only and that is to get it back together and shatter it and send it back for warranty looking like after I accidently drop one of those glass balls you put on your christmas tree

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Most of all I was happy to be able to leave this in the box..... It was a pain though as I had to find some stock shims that I could adjust the pinion load with in order to get my solid spacer to work properly

 

[Sam Stewart]

Oooooo shiny things.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

4 years ago I could have done a weeks worth of work in one after work setting.... Now its 3 days a week of wrestling practice for the little one and whatever else pops up... Any ways spent tonight mostly making a tool to torque the Carrier Bearing Preload and then setting it. I will say that was a pain in the butt trying to get the torque and keep the proper backlash.... Lots of tighten, loosen, tap on the caps while spinning the pinion, check nope need .003 less, repeat nope need more, repeat


None the less it is done and I rechecked the pattern after final and it looks good to me even though I do not exactly claim to know right from wrong! I enjoyed this install as I learned a bit (THANKS TO ZUK @ WWW.GEARINSTALLS.COM)! I will sum it up for others:

tapping on the caps sets everything so that 100 miles down the road the BL doesnt change

by using a rag or glove to hold pressure and a 17 mm wrench on one of the ring gear bolts you can apply a lot more pressure and actually finally for me get a readable pattern.

huge amounts of carrier bearing preload strengthens the ring and pinion as it doesnt allow deflection (makes sense).

Those were the most interesting things that were new to me. Anyways the third is back in, the axles and the spindles as well. Should get it buttoned back up tomorrow. Then to the back or the radiator plumbing guy one or the other.

I am off to search if the lockrites have 4 springs or the springs are doubled and it takes 8?? I saw one that had eight and mine only has 4... I am wondering if they are missing and maybe that is why others had problems with the locker in the past. If anyone knows off hand I would appreciate it.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

So the lockrites for the T8 do take 8 springs.... I am starting to wonder if the lockrite that was given to me failed twice because the springs were not doubled up.... I ordered new springs which came with pins also from Justdiffs.com for 20 bucks plus shipping. They are suppose to be here tomorrow so now that my front is all bolted back together and tires on I can tear the back down and install the gears and lockrite. I will post the progress. I am a bit more concerned about the lockrite as I was the spartan because I need to use the original side gear shims that took some heat and abuse when I welded the spiders. I have different stock side gear washers that I hope to use instead after I measure the difference.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

So I actually need to give this guy some advertisement. I sent him an email asking what oil he recommended and please not to say synthetic as I often take on water regardless of my breather and change oil frequently. I mentioned I googled some stuff saying 75-140 was found to be better in these Spartans. It is like 10:30pm here and 10 minutes later I check my email (don't ask me why) and I find this.....

Actually anything BUT synthetic. I like the blue bottle of Valvolene – SynBlend. The 75-140 is good but hard to find in the blue bottle.

As well if you have frothing issues, put a tablespoon of ATF in with the oil and that will cure breather issues

Thank you for the opportunity to serve you. If I can be of assistance, please let me know!

Wayne Hartwig
6002 E Alki Ave, #6
Spokane, WA 99212

Phone: 509-340-3911

Jeeperman - Heavy duty bumpers, tire carriers, and skid plates for Jeep Wranglers.
DiffsOnly.com. The Differential Experts. Auto Parts & Services.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

He emailed this back:

Just re-read what you said.. I was thinking you had oil coming out of your breathers...The ATF will cure that. Now I realize you were saying that you get water going through your breathers and into the diff.... ATF won’t fix that problem. But it will fix frothing issues.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Made a little progress after fixing my dang chevy tracker tonight.... Any ways as mentioned before I cant seem to keep water out. I have the breathers at waist level so if water goes in the breather I am wet. None the less i am going to try the accordian looking ones that are about three inches long and expand and contract (expensive though I think 25 bucks each I saw at TG). This is after only about 3 runs:


So the third is out and you can see where in the past the crush sleeve got hammered and let the pinion into the carrier. This ring and pinion do not have any marks other than water rust pits from before I owned it so it has obviously been repaired. As zuk mentioned the rear is most important to spend the money on bearings but these obviously are not original they look good. Something I learned from zuk was the need for carrier bearing preload (CBPL) as in a lot which adds strength to the ring and pinion due to reducing deflection. This set up had little to no CBPL as well as zero pinion load even though it didnt have any slop.


When I saw the marks and knew a repair had been done I was worried I had a aftermarket crush sleeve in there so I was very pleased to be wrong!!

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Cleaned up and ready for the lockrite. Other than a little surface rust the lockrite looks to be in excellent shape. The springs and pins didnt show up today like i hoped so I am stuck waiting. Last time I set it up prior to the locker install but I didnt like tearing it back apart including the ring gear for no reason. I still need to plaz the welded spiders out. Again as mentioned before I need to try and salvage the thrust washers on the side gears.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

new pins and springs showed up today. I only had about an hour to work on it so I plazed out the old side and spider gears, measured both shims (side gear washers) which were still in good shape. They were the same at .066. I got the lockrite most of the way in there. Upon further inspection the lockrite teeth are not perfect. I ran a file over the tops of the teeth but it didnt do much. The one edge is slightly rounded. Not bad you have to look very close and be very picky to see it. I am going to try it and worse case scenario I will yank it back apart and weld the lockrite.

One of the carrier bearings can be removed by hand so it recieved a dab of permatex sleeve retainer which I just happened to have laying here from this weekends chevy tracker repair which was interestng. For those with Trackers feel free to PM me and I will share a common issue that they ALL have and it is a time bomb before it slowly starts loosing power and MPG.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Ok so the back pinion had .080 shim same as the front. I didn't try to measure the CD this time although I wish I had as the stock pinion shim was way off. The .080 gave me this pattern:


and was easily confirmed with the coast side not that confirmation was needed

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

I knew I was way shallow so I added .020 to make a significant difference. It ran a shallow pattern of:

Confirmed on coast



I didnt try and hurry and it was cold outside so I bet I am a bit lathargic but I noticed on my camera i was taking pictures of the next pattern after a shim change 26 minutes later.... Luckily I have a press and everything already laid out but the time is spent getting the proper backlash with atleast some preload.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

So on the front gear set up found at https://forum.ih8mud.com/79-95-toyo...r-gear-install-need-help-reading-pattern.html I had a better pattern than this but was shallow and found .010 more shim to be as far as I could tell the right number so I am going to add .015 to this tomorrow and that should get me really close. I will also measure the CD when i am completely done with my terrible tools for that and see how much closer I could have started.

After installing the lockrite I would say the spartan is a slicker set up with its pins but they both are not rocket sience and they look identical. If the metal was the exact same and they lasted the exact same durability wise no question buy which ever is cheaper.

 

[Combat Chuck]

This is after only about 3 runs:

Chevy Tracker?
More like automatic gravy-maker.
Save it, Thanksgiving's just around the corner.

That sucks!

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

Lol yeah would make decent gravy for my in-laws. Nah that was the yota the Tracker had a crank cog gear issue that involves wearing out the keyway which in turn allows the cam timing to slowly retard to the point that you really do not realize that you are slowly loosing power or mileage. I check my MPG constantly and noticed a 4 mpg drop from when I bought it but most of all I could hear a noise that was driving me crazy...

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

So I said I was going to add .015 shims to the pinion but after a while of googling gearinstalls.com again I knew that was too much. I decided to try .010 thinking a little deep would be better than shallow but it was too much it made the pinion deep. It basically reversed the pattern so I knew I needed .005. I was only able to find shims enough to reduce it .004 but it worked out good
Drive

Coast

I like it. I had some help tonight so I made quicker time. We then tore it back down, installed the seal, set the pinion preload at 6 inch pounds using the solid collar, reinstalled the carrier, and loaded about 110ft lbs of CBPL with the home made spanner wrench. We then ran another pattern just so I could sleep at night.


My yota is sitting on all four tires again. I am going to pick up a piece of 1.5 120 wall tubing tomorrow to start bending the rear shock mount/radiator mount/ tire carrier. We have a day after thanksgiving run so I am running out of time. It is going to be one heck of a maiden voyage. I still need to chain my motor mounts and grind on my front driveline which I happened to notice the other day didnt have enough angle clearance due to how I made the square tube. I suspect to break my rear driveline hack job but other than that it should be a solid run. I did a pretty oakie job on the rear driveline temporarily until I get the last adapter for my doublers. At that time I can shorten my good driveline.

 

[4x4 Station Wagon]

So the run didnt go so well for me.... I fought the rear locker all the way there. I knew I was in trouble before I ever started. I didn't want to be a burden but the guys didnt care so I tried it anyway.

Here is how it went:

Drove to town night before oriellys said they had the stuff to build me a pressure hose for my powersteering..... Nope wasted trip so I stiff armed it with a locker and 40s. Not recommended

Tightened my alternator belt last second didnt realize it put the fins barely into radiator hose got lucky when friends noticed it.... Oh and two weeks ago I was only putting the radiator back in it to drive 7 miles to the water pipe bending guy to route the water lines to the rear.... Must not have thought I needed to bolt the radiator in!!

High idle wouldnt drop for some DANG reason tosmorning when I got in it... I fought it a little but it always finally dropped. I ran all day at like 2500 rpm that sucked. Will fix soon

Dont ask me how but when I was swapping flanges around I must not have tightened the nut on the front t-case flange and my driveline fell off luckily right away not under power (no harm done but :whoops.

Got half way down the run and turned around and barely got back out before the locker broke for good.


Since I was home early I had time to fix that issue once and for all. I read it cant or shouldnt be done but I had a couple tried and true sources that said been there done that still holding:

 

[Combat Chuck]

I hate to say this, but since your truck's more a designated wheeler, and therefore a welded rear may be your best bet.