Belize Troopy front axle struggles

[Bill Brown]

Hello,

I am a volunteer physician in Southern Belize. We have two troop carriers that we use to get out to remote Mayan villages to see patients. This is our 2001:



We have been struggling with an uncontrollable front-end wobble at about 55km/hr that makes the truck unusable. Our maintenance man tried many things: tires, wheel balancing (they are split rims), and had the axles serviced at Belize Diesel (the Belize Toyota dealer). Apparently it wobbled coming home from the dealer. They didn't have any other ideas.

I brought an 80-series down and had spent lots of time on that forum in preparation and since. I had to re-build the axle for an inner seal leak, so with this (I hesitate to say) experience, I thought I would go for it. I got a re-build kit from Beno in the States including wheel and knuckle bearings, thinking this might be the problem.

I read up on the free-wheel hubs on this forum (though I certainly don't fully understand them at this point) and got everything taken apart today. Unfortunately (as I was hoping to find something grossly abnormal), everything seems good. The knuckles were nice and full with moly grease, no diff. oil leaking, all of the bearings seem fine, and I don't see obvious signs of wear on anything else.

I did, though, see a few things I didn't expect. First, my free-wheeling hubs don't look like the ones I have found on various posts or on the FSM exploded diagrams I have found:



Then, with it removed, there was only one snap ring on the end of the axle (the inner one, it is already off in the picture). I wondered if maybe the outer one is engaged as part of the FWH mechanism (?).



Finally, there was only one nut on the axle, not the thrust washer, adjusting nut, lock washer, lock nut that I was expecting. This is the nut:



It was right against the outer bearing:



From there in it was just like my 80-series.

So, is any of the above not right? If it is, does anyone have any other thoughts about my problem (with the vehicle, not the obvious one that I am in over my head!). With this vehicle out of commission we are really struggling, and our options are quite limited. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Bill Brown

 

[Hulsty]

Thats very different to any other I have seen. The hubs look like Nissan hubs and never seen the nuts like that.

 

[Tapage]

I saw plenty of those hubs down here .. most of them are in crap pile since folks prefer the old school Aisin manual locking hubs ..

the nut came with those " new " 5 wheel studs axles .. I never do any job on any of those but no lock nut .. that's interesting ..

Did you check if your wheel bearings were tight before you pull 'em ? that would be a clear death wobble cause ..

 

[Bill Brown]

Thank you guys for the replies.

I didn't check to see if the bearings were tight. The one nut, though was not very tight.

I have thrust washers and lock washers here. I think I have two nuts that I pulled from mine when I did the work on the 80-series. Wonder if I should re-assemble it this way.

Bill

 

[sadam_husain]

have you checked all your radius arm and panhard bushes they can be the source of wobbles and death shakes, also the steering arm studs are known to come loose on the swivel housings but you would have picked that up when you pulled the hubs down to do the knuckle bearings if they were loose

 

[Bill Brown]

thank you for your ideas. I will look more closely at the radius arms, for sure. The panhard bushes seemed ok, but now I am thinking it might be wise to look again. The steering arm studs were certainly tight, too tight I suspect.

Bill

 

[cicak]

Tie rod ends they have a spring end in them check to see if needs to be replaced. Death wobble is not fun

 

[JuanJ]

Hello,

Your hubs are referred to by Toyota as "automatic locking hubs." If I remember correctly, if you tighten that center bolt a few turns, the hub is permanently locked. Good if you want full-time four wheel drive... provided you lock both.

Maybe they were tightened incorrectly sometime in the past. This could explain the symptoms.

There is another possibility: a bent front frame section, from an accident or offroad abuse. Either the truck left the road abruptly while at speed and bumped front first into something, or it hit something, again front first, wheeling offroad. Whatever the cause, the bent frame is not level anymore and messes with the suspension arms and the front axle.

I saw this problem on a 2000-something 70 Series not long ago. Check the front frame rails.

Hope this helps.





Juan

 

[dabasscow]

IF your pan hard rod and radius arm bushes havn't neen replaced since the vehicle was purchased in 2001 I would definately look at them.

Swivel hubs should have some pre load.

 

[Bill Brown]

Great ideas guys, thank you very, very much for the additional things to consider.

Bill

 

[yotahed]

Check the front shock bushings top and bottom. They may look fine, but get someone to rock the suspension real good up and down. The ends of the shocks should not move around at all. I had 3/16" movement and this was the cause of my death wobble. You can also do this to check the rest of the suspension bushes.
Also check panhard bushes, tire lateral runout/radial runout, trunnion bearings, wheel bearings, tie rod ends, steering box play...

 

[Aussie 25]

Thank you guys for the replies.

I didn't check to see if the bearings were tight. The one nut, though was not very tight.

I have thrust washers and lock washers here. I think I have two nuts that I pulled from mine when I did the work on the 80-series. Wonder if I should re-assemble it this way.

Bill

I think you should set it up like the 80 with the nuts and lockwasher. At least then the wheel bearings will stay tight. I have never seen one of those nuts on a landcruiser before.

 

[Bill Brown]

Front axle update

Hello again,

Since my last post I have been able to change the panhard bushes, radius arm bushes, both tie rod ends, and the right hand steering rod relay end.

For several days the wobble was gone and we were thrilled. Since then it has happened two or three times, at a bit higher speed.

A local mechanic did the last round of work and did think one of the tie rod ends was loose/bad.

I would like to finish the job by changing the LH steering rod relay end- part number 45045-69075. I couldn't get it from Beno in the States as apparently that part was never in a U.S. vehicle so couldn't be stocked.

Is there a Canadian source someone could recommend? Central American? Australian? We have students/volunteers come down frequently, so I could have it shipped to the U.S. and carried down.

Thanks again for everyone's initial advice and any further recommendations you might have,

Bill

 

[cruiserdan]

You might try Yan at Cruiser Addiction

info@cruiseraddiction.com

He has been able to get items for my BJ74 that are not supported in this market.

 

[Squash]

Pm sent.
Might even have one laying around as I did swap some HDJ79 parts onto my 80.

What others suggest x2

For the wobble:
Place the unit on jacks/blocks remove tires and engage the drivetrain.
If it still wobbles remove a drive shaft and so on till issue is found.

 

[Bill Brown]

Thank you Cruiserdan and Squash, I have sent emails to the contacts you suggested.

Bill

 

[DamoPeru]

Hi Bill,
I have your model, 02/2002 so a few months older, and i also struggled with death wobbles. at first the entire car was trashed in a mine, rims and wheels were more akin to wagon wheels when in took hold of her. it used to death wobble really early at 30 or 40 km/h after any bump so i could never get into to much trouble . first up i replaced the front shocks temporarily until my kit came, but i made the mistake of not replacing them myself, i was getting a heap of work done at once so some mechanics slapped them on, so i didn't see the problem. changed out the front end rods etc., new front bearings, hubs, brakes, damper, basically everything and now she started death wobbling infrequently but still regularly at 50-60 km/h, also triggered by now bigger potholes or cornering as i could actually drive faster. my damn hard to find 5 stud rims finally arrived from australia so on went the new 285/75/16 boots and for a moment i thought it was gone... the big wide feet compared to the skinnies should have made a difference regardless of whether the rim/tyres were the problem, and now it allowed me to go faster but it occurred at 80-90 km'h much less frequent but usually under braking or around corners o huge bumps, at that speed finally they really were true death wobbles and i stopped driving it until my new suspension kit arrived our of shear terror.

anyway the 2" lift suspension kit arrived, complete replacement of everything now, second mistake was getting a workshop to fit all of it again, i didn't have the gear to press out/in the castor correction bushes, nor anyone to help me with the rear leaf packs so i got lazy and got them to put in everything instead of just those bits, sort of weird to half do a job in stages... over the moon i thought everything was fixed then a year later she wobbled at about 100-110 on a corner.

to cut the story short, actually I could have started here when taking the shocks off myself for the first time i found the problem.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/92862911/TroopyBuild/s***ShockMount.jpg

the shockie washer pictured beneath the mount is what came with my kit supposedly for my model, and the one on there previously was the same and are commonly available everywhere. the mechanics that i'd lazily let change them twice before didn't tell me anything the f*(^ers. it seems our model has a rare wide shock mount hole, and this was what had happened over time on the bottom right hand size mount. i say rare because running around every shockie store i could find in a city of 10-million and no-one had a washer with guide that would fit (thus ordered from toyota japan). being in latin america where mechanics are generally lazy as a result of not having properly studied mechanics or never having studied at all, i'm pretty sure the first time early in her life when the shockies were changed out that these four special washers (different to all the others on the vehicle) just went into a bucket and the normal ones, not necessarily from my vehicle, went back on, probably without a guide. so the bottom one had worn out as you can see making it worse, but essentially all four front shockie shafts were actually just moving around in their mounts, explaining why bumps, bends or braking would set it off. i suspect the suspension kit stopped it for a while because they tightened nuts to their limit to compensate... not telling me so i would pay the bill and drive away without any further effort or hold ups.

i still have to rivet weld a plate on both sides to repair the damage to the mount, but the toyota washers fit snug and don't move as it is, though i still use the washer pictured, it appears the original factory shock has a larger diameter shaft, luckily the pictured washers guide fits snug into the hole the toyota washer has for the shaft no its snug and is no longer moving about, i suspect the kit washer was designed to be used as such in conjunction with the original.

i hope this is your problem, only cause i know what its like to not know what it is!

Cheers,