Thanks for the responses. I apologize in advance for the long post. I should have given all of this info up front, but I was hoping for a quick and easy diagnosis.
I bought the 60 sight unseen back in 2017 with the help of a good friend, who was nice enough to look it over, test drive it, and help out with the purchase. He knows vehicles, but he’s never owned a 60. I told him it would be a dog when he test drove it, so he figured all was well when it was miserably slow.
When I got it, half the smog equipment wasn’t working, and it had a horrible manifold leak. So, I did a full desmog (with parts from Jim C. and new vacuum hoses) and had the manifolds resurfaced.
Once that was done, I did a full drain and refill on the fluids. When I drained the transfer case, only about a cup of oil came out. After refilling, I took it on a long test drive and it was leaking like a sieve when I parked it.
So, I rebuilt the transfer case (bearings, seals, gaskets, o-rings). I did it from under the vehicle because I was gun shy about pulling the tranny and transfer case. The rebuild went reasonably well, and I thought I was good to go.
Then, the clutch started slipping. So, I replaced the clutch, pressure plate, throw-out and pilot bearing, etc. I also had the flywheel resurfaced.
I got a few weeks of joy until I started noticing “the noise”. I could have sworn it was the rear diff singing (my diagnostic skills are lacking), so I replaced the third member with a known good unit that roadstr6 was nice enough to sell for cheap. That didn’t do the trick.
At that point, I got the truck warmed up, put it on jack stands, put it in 4thgear, and used the choke to run up the rpm’s. I couldn’t get it to replicate the noise, but using a long screwdriver, the transfer case sounded really loud. It also had a lot more heat on it than anything else. My plan then was to drain and refill with heavier oil to see if it would quiet down. When I went to drain it, the oil was black and I could see little metal flecks in it. Yikes. I refilled with 85w-140 just so I could get it to town and back for an inspection. The noise still showed up.
So, I dove into the transfer case again. This time, I pulled the tranny/transfer combo and rebuilt it on the workbench. The only thing I saw that looked out of whack was the bearing retainer on the front half of the case. There was a gouge where the retainer seats. It looks like the bearing may have been crooked in the case half, which probably happened because I rebuilt it while sitting under the truck. I’m guessing that I didn’t get the case half seated well before tightening down the bolts. That bearing is on the transmission side of the seal, though, and the transmission oil looks great. I put everything back together, making sure that the bearing and its retainer were seated properly. I replaced the throw-out bearing with a Toyota bearing on re-install just to remove doubt.
Since the noise was still there, I tore into the case a third time. Nothing was obviously out of place. The bearing on the back half of the case behind the transmission seemed to ease into the retainer a little too easily, so I “pinged” the sides of the retainer hoping that it would grab the bearing. The metal sleeve that engages hi/low seemed to move around more than it should, but I convinced myself that there’s no way something rattling around could generate heat and make the oil turn black. I did have to add some shim thickness to get the correct preload.
And that’s where it’s at currently. It’s to the point where I probably need to just take it to a shop that knows cruisers, but I’m a) stubborn and b) not close to any shops that specialize in cruisers.
Thanks in advance for any insight.
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