I took off work Thursday the 25th through Wednesday the 31st to rebuild my front end and get some hunting in.
I started on Thursday morning by pulling the wheels and rotors and checking the spindle condition. I had a bad wobble at 45-50mph due to loose wheel bearings after my gear install by the now closed hack 4x4 shop. After checking the fit of the new bearing on the driver’s side spindle, it was clear I needed a new one. The spindle bearing surface had worn around .007” and not amount of tightening would fix the wobble since the outer bearing wouldn’t be engaged on the spindle. So I got on the phone to Cruiser Parts and got a new Japanese spindle with needle bearings on order. I pulled the passenger’s side to check that spindle, and while better, it was still worn. So make that two spindles. I got the order in and put the truck back to rolling status so that I could move it and close the shop up. My wife had a party planned for our daughter so I wanted to get out of the way.
Friday a.m. I go out to check on a squeaky belt on my 4Runner. My Longfields weren’t due until Friday around noon, so I had a few minutes. Long story short, I found that I had a broken bolt on the alternator bracket and after removing the alternator to get to the bracket, I found that all three bolts that hold the bracket on were broken. So off to Ace hardware for some bolts in my wifes 92 Toy pick up (this is a Toyota family). Finally around noon I get the alternator back on, and swap birfs.
I had the 80 to the point that I needed the spindles to continue, so the weekend was not for wrenching. Monday morning had me in my greasy coveralls at 7:45am tearing down for the arrival of the spindles. I already had the front end parts from Cruiser Outfitters, so I pulled the knuckles, replaced the seals and started on the knuckle bearings. Just before reaching the torque on the PITA lower knuckle bearing, I broke a stud. BIG “F”. Well, several big “F” bombs, repentance, and prayers later, I was down the road to Milton Martin Toyota to pick up a set of studs which they fortunately had in stock. (Thank you God). Another fortunate event was when I was trying to drill the broken stud part to get an easy out in it, it just unscrewed. I called to check on the spindle order and found that it was due for delivery on Tuesday, not Monday. So I got the knuckle back together and just put the old spindles back on to get the wheels on so I could roll the truck out of the shop. This ended up being a 10 hour day with what seemed like little progress.
Tuesday had me in the shop again at 7:45 (waiting for the sun to rise for extra light), again tearing down to install the spindles. I had things ready and while waiting, decided to check the front diff since I had issues with my rear diff (hence the thread title). I put the in/lb torque wrench on and got 10-12 “/# rolling torque. That’s about right, and I thought of letting it go, but there was a weird scraping which turned out to be the dust cover on the yoke. I checked the torque on the pinion nut, and like the rear it was less that my torque wrench would measure, which meant less than 25 pounds. So I decide to pull the diff. That was a pain because I hadn’t locked the diff before pulling the axles, and apparently you can’t get it to lock without the axles in place. So I pulled the e-locker system off and found the plunger and pushed it in, pulled the diff and went to work on that. In the mean time, the spindles showed up and looked great with proper fit to the bearing. I didn’t have or make a set up bearing for the front so I took a guess at the shim needed for the solid spacer based on the needed shim on the rear pinion and added a .020” shim, totaling .060” of shims. I lucked out and got a preload of 10-12 in/lbs. I reinstalled the carrier and checked the backlash. It was .060” instead of around .007. That’s huge and sloppy. So I played with the side bearing adjusters until I got backlash to .009” and got a good gear pattern. Here’s the crap that burned me up- when the peckerhead installed the gears, he didn’t even scrape off the old gasket material. He just slopped on some black RTV and stuck the diff back in the housing. He didn’t even seal it good. I had evidence of a leak at the top, letting water in and rusting one of the carrier bearing blocks. So I got to spend an hour sanding and cleaning the mounting surface of both the diff and the housing and cleaning up rust. It was nothing too bad and not on critical surfaces, but just lousy work. So I installed the diff, stuck the birfs in, installed the spindles and wheels, leaving only the brakes to finish. It was 11pm when I closed the shop. A 15 hour day with a ½ hour for lunch (salmon burgers and potato chips. Just as I went in the house, I realized I left the brake dust shields off, so I’d be tearing down yet again.
Wednesday, again at 7:45am, back in the coveralls. I tore down again and installed the brake shields, wrestled with getting the 100 pads on the rotors- turns out I had to strip off the squeal pads to get them in. I re-torqued the diff bolts, hub bolts and checked all the other bolts and rotated the tires. 12:22pm and I’m done.
I went in and took a nap.
So my costs due to the crappy shop work:
$166 on the rear diff due to new bearings, tools needed, seals and shim kit
$559 for the front end, not including birfs
Total $725 and about 36 hours of labor.
At least I know it’s right now, and it drives without shaking or death wobble.
