KZJ78 Front diff (1 Viewer)

[Black94Prado]

Hey guys, so we've been in Colombia now for about 2 weeks, after shipping the truck from Mexico, we went through some pretty sticky mud in the somewhat dry lakebeds of the Guajira desert and did some dune driving and hitting mountain mud roads. But overall, no real difficult or heavy 4x4. I thought I heard a very faint whine from the front so I started poking around and it looked like the front diff got a bit of contamination, greyish diff fluid. It was pretty recently that I replaced the diff fluid but there's some pretty wild rain here and lots of driving in water.

When I went to drain it there were about 5 pieces of metal roughly the size of a pencil eraser, all different shapes and sheared off in different ways, lots of metal shavings too ofc. Anyways I flushed the diff best I could and filled it up and there's no more whine, and 4wd still works and seems like not really any difficulty in getting the front wheels to move.

Either way I guess at least a few teeth are missing. Long story long, are the diffs on the FZJ73 the same? Seems like every 3rd truck in Colombia is some variant of a 4500cc 70 series, there's a guy here who's a bit of a guru so I think finding some donor truck would be simple. Honestly, the front axle has a variety of damage from hard use so I wouldn't mind just swapping the axle assuming it's all the same. Thanks.

 

[AirheadNut]

The axle is different, at least up through 1999 (probably different after that too, but I can't be sure). The differential should be the same, except you'll want to confirm gear ratios. The KZJ78 came with 4.30:1 diffs, not sure what an FZJ73 came with but I think maybe 4.11:1?

 

[JuanJ]

Hello,

Look for axles from a "Land Cruiser II." That was the name for the Light Duty 70 Series in that part of the world,

The local Toyota dealer can help if you supply a part number for a Land Cruiser II / Light Duty 70 Series.

Differentials from an FZJ73 are not the same. Colombia spec 73 Series were assembled from CKD kits (from 1995 to 2004) and include many local components. Stay away from them.

You may want to try an axle from a post 1999 71 Series, but that may not be a direct fit.





Juan