Another day, another story
Some friends were heading out camping yesterday, and they said their first campsite was only 1.5 hours down the road so I decided I'd take the Hilux and stay with them the first night. The truck has been running great, has the engine protections working, so even if my laptop died so I lost my gauges I was confident the truck would be fine. I threw a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, tent and a couple clothes in the truck. My friends also packed my Coleman mini bike in the bed which happens to be the perfect size to sit on the frame rails sideways, and then a camp chair strapped to the cage and that was the extent of planning I had!
We went over the mountain on the way to Bryce Canyon. Truck's first time climbing the mountains with the new setup, and no issues going up. I was worried about water on the road, but besides a few trickles nothing bad. Just had my headphones in, laptop with the dash up in the footwell, just cruising between a GX and a F250 and some beautiful weather! Sadly though, my wife was correct not an hour earlier saying she didn't trust the truck to not break hahaha
I literally texted her saying the truck is doing fine, don't worry, and then not two minutes later said can you come get me.
The GX passed two cars, and another car was coming the other way so instead of being in the GX's ass since the truck is way faster, I just chilled, let the other car come by and then went to pass. I didn't think I was particularly pushing it hard, but it's so hard to tell, I rarely use more than 50% throttle in the truck because it makes so much boost, so fast, and the torque and push back in the seat is immense without needing more throttle. I think I was in 4th gear, and just letting it rev out, and then higher in the rpm got the (now classic) thump in the rear. For some reason my mind always defaults to the axle falling out? Regardless, hear/feel the thump as I shoot past the second car I'm passing and instantly the truck is going sideways in a clockwise spin. Around 180deg I see smoke everywhere, and the whole time I'm kind of spotting and waiting for the truck to roll. Again, not sure why my mind defaults to that, maybe it's from all the offroading I do and rolling vehicles so I expect anything will roll if it gets sideways. The truck spins past 180, and has now essentially pirouetted around the second car, going from passing on the left, to spinning clockwise and now facing forward again in the right hand lane, and then sliding off the shoulder. Once the truck started sideways I hit the brakes, I figured locking them up (no ABS) wouldn't make any difference since it's already out of control. The first time the rear end let go we still had brakes and control, this time it was instantly sideways almost at the same time I felt something happen in the back.
What I THINK happened, there was so much axle wrap that the U joint got maxed out, and that locked up the rear end. This is why it started spinning right away. The diff still spins, but one of the yoke ears got ripped in half and the driveshaft is buckled/twisted, and the rear tires have flat spots. and the leaf springs are noticeably warped now. The U joint maxed, locked the axle for a second, the engine kept spinning, twisted the driveshaft and broke the yoke.
I'm sure the cars I passed absolutely s*** themselves as a loud little truck passes them and then bursts into smoke and 360 spins in front of them. I was totally fine, the back of the truck was maybe 4ft off the side of the road, so no banging around or anything since it just spun down the road and then settled into some loose dirt. I called the wife, and she grabbed the Tundra and trailer to come get me. In the mean time the front right bead had been popped, so we got that reseated.
We then flat towed the truck to a gas station back where the two highways joined, and waited for the wife to show up.
And needless to say, that ended my camping trip! I thought the truck was going to do great, and I was even trying to be mindful of loading up the rear end since we know it was a weak spot. I figured it might break at some point, I didn't figure it'd be so fast! Especially after all of the tuning and WOT runs lately, I thought it had somewhat proven it would be fine staying at lower power---but as I said, "lower power" can still be a lot!
This morning I unloaded it to see what other carnage there was besides the obvious. Maybe the most sad actually is one of the Coleman's tires got popped.
The Coleman was fine throughout everything, and then FLAT TOWING the truck to the gas station, the front tire shifted and got rubbed through on the back tire of the truck! This was probably the saddest part, some stupid collateral damage that was totally avoidable!
But back to the truck, both cooling lines this time broke.
Of course the exhaust once again got mangled. On the plus side, I will definitely install a muffler to try to quiet it down this time I fix it!
The rear diff still spins fine, but there is a lot more backlash and some radial play now. The yoke has an ear ripped in half, and is actually cracked in half down the center.
The driveshaft that I got a week ago is now dead, albeit not in two pieces! Arguably the little diff hoop helped.
Lots of dirt and mud under the truck, coolant, gear oil from the trans, but at least the axle didn't spit oil everywhere!
Probably need new rear tires already, we'll see how bouncy they are. At least they're cheap!
The current mystery is the front right alignment is WAY off, the tire is shifted backwards an inch or two. I can't find anything so far that's obviously bent or broken. I do have the 3D scan of that corner though, so have been comparing scan to real life measurements. So far the lower ball joint seems to be pushed back 1.5-2.0", and the upper arm seems to be in the same spot. But the lower arm doesn't seem to be bent, the mounting points vs the the ball joint are the same distance. There is some dirt that is shifted in one or two spots, maybe that amount of motion is enough to have moved the LCA backwards that far?
I'll need to investigate more, maybe there's just some bushings or the LCA bolt got bent or something, since the frame seems fine, UCA seems fine, LCA seems fine, but the LCA seems to be angled back quite a bit.
And that essentially wraps up the latest fiasco with the truck! My neighbor said this is twice the truck has tried to kill me, I said first of all the first time you were driving, and second of all both times the truck has stayed straight down the road. It's not like it has tried to veer into a telephone pole or something, so maybe the truck is trying its hardest to contain the fury. All of this was kind of expected, and why I went ahead and bought the 9" axle so all these failures I keep having will stop happening. Axle replaced, go to a linked rear in, she'll be built like a tank to handle the power. I was hopeful it would last a bit longer, but oh well, the truck will go under the knife next to get the front right corner fixed up and then fix everything underneath and cut off all the leaf spring and axle parts in preparation for the 9". And since the radiator is now drained, I will also pull the heater core and replace that since it seems to have a slow leak onto the floor.
