I believe it was a Holiday Inn Express.Nor am IHave you ever stayed at a Holiday Inn?
Birfield Maintenance Advice Sought
- Thread starter Axe Head
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Just relating what I've heard others do and why they do it, Dan.
In my case, my recent adventure into the front axle saw the DS birf pull right off, leaving the half-axle inside the axle housing. Clip was still attached to the half-axle end. Haven't cleaned the birf up to see, but I assume either the cage was broke right where the ring is retained or the previous mechanic just shoved it all together and hoped for the best. They also didn't even bother with the spindle bushing or half-bushing and needle bearing. Ran at least 35,000 like that, so maybe Toyota should just drop the extra weight of that bushing and/or needle bearing? Probably not a good idea I suspect.
Then there was the apparently aftermarket spindle on the PS. It had the old bushing, although I've been told the 97s left the factory with the new half-bushing/needle bearing in the spindle. Tried dropping the new stuff in the spindle and NO GO so was forced to just keep the bushing for now and plan on replacing the iffy spindle with one that actually fits like factory. On this side, I did have to separate the birf, which took a couple of drops, but no special measures were required. In my case, at 180,000 miles, I simply decided, given the long overdue maintenance, to replace both birfs (as well as the drive plates). A bonus was that this took what feels like 95% of the slack out of the drivetrain.
Sounds like you wore that s*** out. Jebus.
Goes to show how tough these things are though.
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I was sweating bullets every time out of town for the last year since we returned from an east Coast trip to see the inlaws. The truck worked great, except it was clear the brakes needed lots of love before any return to Colorado, Used to visit regularly, but grad school and life has prevented a return for over a decade. Then about six months ago, the DS inner seal let go and it's been birf soup mostly since. Steering in parking lots seemed like I had the locker engaged up front at times, but I don't have lockers.
Had to go home for the holidays on a gear oil transfusion. It was a mess and I knew as soon as it got warm enough to work in the garage, it was time to pull the trigger. Took me about a week, but I'm old and slow like the truck.Need to follow up on a few things on the front axle, notably another drain and fill to flush more of that moly out of the inner axle bits and pieces, replace that funky spindle, and some torque rechecks and final adjustment on the wheel bearings. Then sounds like I should get on to repacking the rear wheel bearings, Dan actually sold me some of the stuff I have on hand for that back when he was, ahem, working.
'Cept now I may have to deal with brakes and bearings. I won't encourage any abuse, but I will say they can take it like champs. On nice roads like they're usually on in North America, I'll bet many things last far longer than expected . Service specs for Land Cruisers tend to presume a rather harsher environment. You can't go wrong by keeping them in the style they're accustomed to, but they probably won't hold it against you if you get a little rough with them either. They're game.
My objective is to get the beast thoroughly serviced before I get too creaky to deal with it anymore. Some days I think the body is telling me to hurry that up, but I'm already doing the best I can.
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Take your time. That is part of the beauty of these things. They let you know what they need, but they start telling you way before you really have to do anything. It allows you to get a plan together and work your plan. That is part of what I love about them. I haven't gotten into the rear axle yet, but I have done a lot of other things to the truck so far and I am running out of things to rebuild and I lost track of exactly how much this has all cost.I was sweating bullets every time out of town for the last year since we returned from an east Coast trip to see the inlaws. The truck worked great, except it was clear the brakes needed lots of love before any return to Colorado, Used to visit regularly, but grad school and life has prevented a return for over a decade. Then about six months ago, the DS inner seal let go and it's been birf soup mostly since. Steering in parking lots seemed like I had the locker engaged up front at times, but I don't have lockers.
Need to follow up on a few things on the front axle, notably another drain and fill to flush more of that moly out of the inner axle bits and pieces, replace that funky spindle, and some torque rechecks and final adjustment on the wheel bearings. Then sounds like I should get on to repacking the rear wheel bearings, Dan actually sold me some of the stuff I have on hand for that back when he was, ahem, working.
'Cept now I may have to deal with brakes and bearings. I won't encourage any abuse, but I will say they can take it like champs. On nice roads like they're usually on in North America, I'll bet many things last far longer than expected . Service specs for Land Cruisers tend to presume a rather harsher environment. You can't go wrong by keeping them in the style they're accustomed to, but they probably won't hold it against you if you get a little rough with them either. They're game.
My objective is to get the beast thoroughly serviced before I get too creaky to deal with it anymore. Some days I think the body is telling me to hurry that up, but I'm already doing the best I can.
I am not not done yet as far as using it as a tool goes though. I have been exploring some non mall areas and it doesn't seem to notice. I think it's kinda dumb to be honest, but as long you keep feeding it drinks, it doesn't seem to slow down.
I don't see anything specific in the maintenance pages of the FSM for a '92 about inspecting, replacing or regreasing the CV joint. But if you already have to do the bearing grease, why not take the extra time to re-grease the CVs?
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Agree the maintenance schedules I have are inconsistent. This is from a 96 Cruiser, my LX document differs. It calls for lubricate steering knuckle at every 15k for normal driving and 5k for "Special Operating Conditions'.
I guess lubricate steering knuckle could be interpenetrated as rebuild axle? There may well be an obscure document, that takes hours for someone with Beno's Toyota knowledge to find, hope he finds it to prove whatever point he is attempting to make. I have a pretty good collection of repair documents and never seen a spec for rebuild axle, but mine are just the commonly published ones for those of us that attempt to keep these old rigs running, not the ones for Toyota gods!
Most of the stuff is helpful, some not so much. That stuff was written at least two decades ago, likely made assumptions on how the rig would be used and how long things would last. My guess they didn't envision how some of us them at this age? We have the benefit of time, miles, beating, proving what works or not. IMHO, learning from that experience, and maintaining to that learning is smart?
Other than simple stuff like oil changes, at this point don't see doing anything on a mileage schedule, we do it by inspection, need. A good example would be wheel bearings. If they are setup according to the FSM and as Beno says ignore them for 30K mi, very likely to be loose, beating parts to death for most of that time, especially with big tires and wheeling in the mix. We inspect every time the wheels are off the ground, if loose, fix it. Most of the time will sneak the outer bearing out, see how it's doing, how the grease looks, if needed repack. Don't care if it's been 5k or 50k mi, do it as needed.
Yeah, I agree, its vague language. Also, any time the vehicle is modified, whether the tires are 1 size up or .5" lift, or whatever, the maintenance needs to follow inspection, not just a mileage schedule.
If you're curious, the maintenance interval schedule that came with the truck in 97 wants the wheel bearings repacked every 30k miles and the steering knuckle lubricated every 15k miles under normal operating conditions. Under the more demanding "Special Operating Conditions", the wheel bearing interval remains the same, but it wants the knuckles lubricated every 5k miles. The schedule goes all the way to 120k miles and I didn't see anything about repacking the knuckles, which I thought was weird. I also found it interesting that it did say to use the same molybdenum-disulfide lithium base chassis grease for wheel bearings, u-joints, and the knuckles as I know there has been much discussion around that.
My info looks to be the same at Tools'.
My info looks to be the same at Tools'.
Where no specific maintenance interval is published, Toyota's standard procedure is "repair or replace as required".
What we all have come to call a front axle service is in reality an inner axle seal replacement. Doing the job entails inspecting all the reusable components and then replacing them if damaged.
The inner seals usually last about 60,000 miles and the lower trunion bearings get notchy about the same time. Can this inevitable repair be pushed out? Of course it can.
When does a common repair with a fairly consistent duty-cycle become a maintenance interval? Should it have been one in the first place?
What we all have come to call a front axle service is in reality an inner axle seal replacement. Doing the job entails inspecting all the reusable components and then replacing them if damaged.
The inner seals usually last about 60,000 miles and the lower trunion bearings get notchy about the same time. Can this inevitable repair be pushed out? Of course it can.
When does a common repair with a fairly consistent duty-cycle become a maintenance interval? Should it have been one in the first place?
I have swapped them without issue at a customers request. There was no clicking as the 'loaded' and worn side are now opposed however, it is also true that they were stripped, cleaned and repacked, this would undoubtedly help.
Regards
Dave
Regards
Dave
If you do any river crossing or a lot of mud terrain water can enter your diff or swivel seals. The water eventually makes its way to the bottom of the steering knuckle and corrodes out the lower trunnion bearing. I personally haven't seen this on my 80 even though I usually have to change diff oil out after 2-3 trips. But it may be a reason to consider 60K inspections depending on your use case.
I had the exact same experience on one birfield separation. Had to cut pipe off to get it out. Never was able to separate it.
Two of us worked on a short-side with a steel pipe until the pipe ends mushroomed quite badly. Then we tried to knock it apart with a big-ass hammer and a drift. We never did get it apart. Probably one in a thousand and I hope no one else ever has that.