First car, lx450! (1 Viewer)

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate
links, including eBay, Amazon, Skimlinks, and others.

Which is the foam, correct? Duramat/MLV only does noise right?
Yes, in combination. Also with aluminum reflective side to repel heat.
 
Last edited:
As a counterpoint in a cold place like WY the rear hear comes in handy. I use mine all the time in the winter.
Hey it was 100 degrees last week, weathers great here. But yeah that was what i was thinking, it’ll probably be very helpful in the winter to heat the car.
Yes, in combination. Also with aluminum reflective dude to repel heat.
Ahhh another layer awesome even more money thrown in the six ton brick.
 
Hey it was 100 degrees last week, weathers great here. But yeah that was what i was thinking, it’ll probably be very helpful in the winter to heat the car.

Ahhh another layer awesome even more money thrown in the six ton brick.
Edited to eliminate the use of the word "dude"......

Damn I hate that word.
Unless it's followed by "What's mine say?"
 
Finally pulled out my tow hitch and RS3000. There's two wires from the tow hitch that I should cap off better, but I'll leave that for a later date, it's just a weird splice on the blinkers/brake light and a weird splice on the brake cable sensor or whatever. Back blinkers still work no problem. Hopefully this will resolve my battery drain. Still working on the valve cover bolt, my friend says he'll weld a nut to it so just waiting till he has time to do that.

Do think I'm definitely burning oil, and my oil leak near the transmission is very active. Don't see a crazy drop in oil though it's pretty minimal.

Assuming battery drain is fixed, on to sound deadening and then baselining drivetrain and suspension system.
 
I checked my knuckles finally, I don't have much experience with moly so I don't really know, but this seems a little to watery right? Color seems a bit off too seems darker than it should be. Definitely has a bit of a green tint but hard to see in the picture.

grease.png
 
Have you opened a tub of moly grease? It's pretty much BLACK

if it looks greenish, and sloppy, its probably got gear oil from the diff in it
Haha no never, I thought a bunch of the pictures here looked green but maybe that's just because I was looking at the problem ones. I'll investigate more thoroughly this week, I think the first thing I need to do is clean off the crazy layer of grease around the knuckle/housing.
 
If it hasn't already been mentioned, the factory breather on the front axle doesn't work very well and the pipe assembly/adapter for the breather hose (which is screwed into the axle housing) is often found to be plugged. When that happens gear oil and grease can mix. The fix is to bypass the factory breather (hose running up to the engine bay with a filter or valve on the end) and clean out the pipe adapter.

FWIW NAPA stores in the US sell the Valvoline Palladium 3% Moly, many stores carry the Valvoline Full Synthetic grease which has a bit less Moly.
 
If it hasn't already been mentioned, the factory breather on the front axle doesn't work very well and the pipe assembly/adapter for the breather hose (which is screwed into the axle housing) is often found to be plugged. When that happens gear oil and grease can mix. The fix is to bypass the factory breather (hose running up to the engine bay with a filter or valve on the end) and clean out the pipe adapter.

FWIW NAPA stores in the US sell the Valvoline Palladium 3% Moly, many stores carry the Valvoline Full Synthetic grease which has a bit less Moly.
Has not been mentioned, doing the diff breather sounds like a great idea though, many threads on it.

My friend welded a nut to the top part of the broken bolt, got it out in like 5 minutes. Don't know if it really changed anything but at least my it gives me a bit more peace of mind. Will order a new gasket for the oil cap, then if it's still not fixed will start spraying brake cleaner to see if I can find a crack or something.

Also, having all the carpets out makes it far easier to hear sounds that have been bothering me. Sounds like the fuel pump is causing the whining during acceleration at high speeds.
 
Finally started on underneath the car, will get my diff fluids and moly today along with the crush washers. No diff fluid on top of either differential, couldn't see or feel any significant amount of gasket on the diff slipping up, no visibly broken bushing I could find but definitely pretty cracked on a few. Noticed rear side of the car does have a lot more corrosion along with very old caked on mud that makes it look pretty strange. Rear diff nuts do not look pretty, very rusty.

My PS front knuckle also doesn't look good at all. Maybe valuable to power wash (or soak in diesel + hand wash I've seen) my knuckles before I get started?

knuckle.png
 

My pressure washer barely moved the stuff when I did my knuckles, I scraped the majority off with a flathead before hitting it with solvents/degreaser and wiping the perpetual sludge. It all gets messy during disassembly anyways, so I would mainly focus on actually cleaning the upper half near the ABS sensor and trunnion bearing so you don’t have anything falling down into the housing.

just realized he’s not pulling the knuckles apart :doh:
 
Last edited:
.
Finally started on underneath the car, will get my diff fluids and moly today along with the crush washers. No diff fluid on top of either differential, couldn't see or feel any significant amount of gasket on the diff slipping up, no visibly broken bushing I could find but definitely pretty cracked on a few. Noticed rear side of the car does have a lot more corrosion along with very old caked on mud that makes it look pretty strange. Rear diff nuts do not look pretty, very rusty.

My PS front knuckle also doesn't look good at all. Maybe valuable to power wash (or soak in diesel + hand wash I've seen) my knuckles before I get started?

View attachment 3714464

That knuckle looks to be in good shape to me. Grease is just a bit messy, but not terrible.

Can still see all the machining lines on the ball. No rust spots and no groove worn into the ball.

A flat 1" paint scraper would get rid of most of that muck
 
My pressure washer barely moved the stuff when I did my knuckles, I scraped the majority off with a flathead before hitting it with solvents/degreaser and wiping the perpetual sludge. It all gets messy during disassembly anyways, so I would mainly focus on actually cleaning the upper half near the ABS sensor and trunnion bearing so you don’t have anything falling down into the housing.
That's good to know, I cleaned most of the engine by hand so might as well do the knuckles that way too haha.

.


That knuckle looks to be in good shape to me. Grease is just a bit messy, but not terrible.

Can still see all the machining lines on the ball. No rust spots and no groove worn into the ball.

A flat 1" paint scraper would get rid of most of that muck
It was really that V spot that has layers and layers on it, but I guess that never really gets touched anyways. I'll start doing some cleaning, refill em, and go from there.
 
Started cleaning the knuckles, PS is bone dry but DS is just messy. I think PS has way less grease than DS (and has for more than a short while) which seems weird, I dunno who in their right mind would fill one but not the other.

Checking all of the bushings, most seem "ok" but the two shock absorber bushings are well past cracked, not in good condition. How excessive would it be to go all out and do a full bushing and u joint replacement project (plus shocks, etc)? Definitely a bit intimidated by touching that much of the drivetrain and needing a press, but I'm sure my friend with a lot more mechanical experience (and a hydraulic press) would help.

I still don't have jacks (somehow have done this much without ever lifting the car up) but also want to just feel out the wheels for anything loose, from the noises I'm hearing I'm leaning towards there's something.

shocks.png
 
Last edited:
I would guess one knuckle ball is leaking faster than the other, not that someone filled one and not the other.

The Ih8mud crew might encourage you to replace all of the bushings in the suspension, but we can be a little over the top sometimes. Replace the shocks for sure, shocks wear out fast and make a huge difference in ride quality, handling and safety. The rest of the bushings I would inspect and replace only if broken. Same story with the u-joints, chock the wheels and put the transmission in neutral to remove any load from the u-joints (they are holding the vehicle from moving when transmission is in park) and then thoroughly check for play. If the joints are tight, grease them and keep driving. If there is any play they’ve probably been run dry in their history and need replacing. Toyota u-joints seem to last forever if they are greased regularly.

Don’t forget to keep some money in reserve for new tires and fuel to drive the truck.
 
Started cleaning the knuckles, PS is bone dry but DS is just messy. I think PS has way less grease than DS (and has for more than a short while) which seems weird, I dunno who in their right mind would fill one but not the other.

Checking all of the bushings, most seem "ok" but the two shock absorber bushings are well past cracked, not in good condition. How excessive would it be to go all out and do a full bushing and u joint replacement project (plus shocks, etc)? Definitely a bit intimidated by touching that much of the drivetrain and needing a press, but I'm sure my friend with a lot more mechanical experience (and a hydraulic press) would help.

I still don't have jacks (somehow have done this much without ever lifting the car up) but also want to just feel out the wheels for anything loose, from the noises I'm hearing I'm leaning towards there's something.

View attachment 3714730
Post pics of the cracks in suspension bushes.
They shouldn't have any cracks really. But dry deep cracks like that shock bush shows the rubber is toast!

If they are original, having them on the radar for a refresh is a good idea. They get hard and crack and do affect handling, and how direct the steering is
 
I would guess one knuckle ball is leaking faster than the other, not that someone filled one and not the other.

The Ih8mud crew might encourage you to replace all of the bushings in the suspension, but we can be a little over the top sometimes. Replace the shocks for sure, shocks wear out fast and make a huge difference in ride quality, handling and safety. The rest of the bushings I would inspect and replace only if broken. Same story with the u-joints, chock the wheels and put the transmission in neutral to remove any load from the u-joints (they are holding the vehicle from moving when transmission is in park) and then thoroughly check for play. If the joints are tight, grease them and keep driving. If there is any play they’ve probably been run dry in their history and need replacing. Toyota u-joints seem to last forever if they are greased regularly.

Don’t forget to keep some money in reserve for new tires and fuel to drive the truck.
That's what I was guessing, just didn't want to say it out loud yet. I'll refill those and just monitor the leaks, don't want to jump to a rebuild this quickly.

Quite possibly the first person on mud to advocate for someone else's wallet! This is my daily though, I do not have another car, so I am leaning towards a bit more "excessive" measures (within reason) for my own peace of mind - that being said much of this would probably be overkill. But yeah I keep pushing off a new set of tires, at least gas is $3.2/gallon and I'm getting about 11mpg right now so not horrible.

Looks like I have a new problem to solve as well, I'm fairly certain my transmission drain plug got stripped. I cleaned it off and will drive around checking it, but that is not fun.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top Bottom