Phoenix gets a new set of underwear (driveline upgrades to my FJ40) (1 Viewer)

[4xphoenix]

I did some reading on a number of forums (e.g. Mud, a Corvette thread, and a Chevelle thead...apparently, these guys change R&P more often than we do!) and gleaned the following useful information, especially with some comments from one of the gear manufacturer reps. I made two mistakes in my solid spacer setup: (1) problems are created when using shims from different manufacturers...I used an OEM (metric?) pinion-depth shim (Nitro didn't mention this in their installation instructions) and a Nitro solid-spacer shim (SAE?) under the spacer; and (2) I tried to use a Nitro spacer between the spacer and the bearing to match the OEM spacer located under the inner pinion bearing race. The OEM shim is 0.45 mm (~0.018"), which I compensated for with a Nitro 0.02" shim, which is too thick; I would never get the preload right! Nitro said to start with the original setup...LOL.

I will be placing the Nitro shims between the pinion bearing and pinion gear. This means solving the problem of removing the pinion bearing without damaging it (one forum user suggested using the old bearing for these adjustments but I think mine may be too worn to really work). The HF bearing pulling tool will never work. I saw images of these bending in the act of removing (maybe yes, maybe no) bearings; I got the HF large-bearing separator (cost ~$16) but it has a lip that is about 3/16" that would never fit between the bearing and pinion gear. I ground it down (it is really soft metal) until it would drive the bearing off while not binding on the bearings themselves.



This photo shows my estimated wedge and how it bound up at the outer diameter of the inner race. However, I was able to remove the bearing without binding the outer cage or rollers in the press.



The pinion gear dropped into a box filled with packing material (no damage) but the bearing stuck in the soft separator metal! I will fine tune the outer edges to make it more robust for repeated use (I still need to do the rear...LOL).



Time for a delay waiting for the GM gear marker...

 

[4xphoenix]

A post-note on the pinion preload and spacers. There was some discussion on Mud about 2.09" versus 2.17" solid spacers. The OEM setup from my pull-out included a thin shim and a thick, conical washer that contributed to preload. Here is a photo of the shim:



It measures (SAE) at ~0.019", which is the thickness if memory serves (I won't know for sure until I dissemble the pinion) of the large shim beneath the inner bearing race (labeled 0.45 mm, I presume, or 0.018"). This is consistent; however, the conical washer measures ~0.113":



The solid spacer is 2.17"...



As a final note, if the machined spacer dimension on me OEM pinion were 2.09", this shim would need to be 0.08" (2.09" + 0.08" = 2.17"); I guess that is not how it worked at the Toyota foundry in 1974. Consequently, I don't know why this confusion about spacer lengths. We will see if this pull-out works...

 

[4xphoenix]

I am still waiting for the GM gear marker paint to ship...in the meantime, I have refurbished the brakes and hubs I got from Justin. I have so much time on my hands that I made this nice photo of the exploded assemblies. The rt side in on the bottom. The lug bolts have been shipped (they are 1/4 inch longer than stock to account for the wheel spacers).



I may pull the transmission next...sigh!

 

[4xphoenix]

While (still) waiting for Amazon and the gear marker compound, I started removing the interior in preparation for removing the transmission/t-case. The really nice seats and frame came out as a unit, but it will be no fun putting those bolts in on the passenger side near the fuel tank...LOL

 

[4xphoenix]

I finally (I am very patient) got tired of waiting for Amazon and ordered a GM (yellow) marker compound from Pace. It arrived in <5 days...LOL. I slopped it on with the correct medium-stiff brush (an acid brush we called them back then...). Here are photos of the drive side (convex) of the ring gear...



All of the contact patterns look pretty good, i.e., centered on the tooth face and not too close to either edge (i.e., the long edges of the tooth, which have proper names I didn't use), compared to the images from the Nitro installation guide.

 

[4xphoenix]

Here are the coast side (concave) images...



They look as good as the drive side of the ring gear...it paid to wait for the best marker...I will hope for comments from other forum members to verify my (admittedly) weak color/contrast sight...

 

[4xphoenix]

I installed the 1/4" longer wheel studs today...here is the difference in length...the Toyota part number is 90942-02079; I found a thread on mud that had a link to the Toyota dealer in Kalamazoo, MI, but I am too lazy to track that...I am grilling Tilapia right now...

 

[4xphoenix]

I did a couple of jobs today...I assembled the rotor-hub assemblies and disassembled the differential. There was a missing bolt from the hub; the missing bolt hole was screwed up and rusty from sitting in the field at Justin's house...LOL...I decided that if it held the torque of 30 ft-lbs I would leave it alone...it did. I used red loctite on all of these bolts. Neither the Hane's manual, which is supposed to cover all FJ40s, or the 1975 FJ40 manual I am using (no surprise there) discussed disc brakes, so I used the available FJ Cruiser (2007) manual Service Specification page for a 7T bolt (the bolts were clearly marked).

I removed the pinion inner bearing race and looked at the OEM shim; it was 0.45 mm...



which is ~0.018 inches; I measured with my micrometer and got this measurement. Nitro didn't supply this thickness shim; instead, I have a 0.016 inch and a 0.020 inch, so I re-examined the pinion-depth markings from a previous post. The markings vary substantially but most would be okay with a little thicker shim, i.e., the pinion depth is a little shallow as suggested by the marking with the lithium grease. I will thus reassemble with the 0.020 inch shim under the inner bearing ( NOT the race)...

I tried to separate the bearing from the pinion and got some separation, as seen in this image (barely)...



...but the roller bearings wouldn't spin...the separator is too thick (>1/4 inch) and wedges against the bearing outer cage. This gear/bearing is completely different in design from OEM, which pulled easily with minor modification of the separator tool (see previous posts). I will remove a lot of material from the separator tomorrow and see if it will get a grip on the bearing inner cage...it doesn't take much bite but it has to clear the outer cage...

 

[4xphoenix]

Today, I finished modifying the HF large-bearing separater some more; now the bearing will rotate with the separator fully tightened with some resistance, but it rotated by fingertip. Here is a photo of it in the press using the method described above...



It screeched as it came off but the separator had a good bite, as seen in this photo...



I am not going to clean it up because the metal is so soft; I will let it bite deeper for the next time, which will hopefully be once on the rear pinion when I install the ARB and new R&P in the future. The bearing appears undamaged by the multiple attachments of the separator so I am ready to install the pinion with the 0.020 inch shim under the pinion inner bearing (the one discussed in this post).

 

[4xphoenix]

There is no hurry to reinstall the new pinion while I wait for the beam-type inch-lb torque wrench to arrive in ~1 week, so I continued getting ready to remove the transmission/t-case. It is hard to believe that the gas tank is held in place (under the passenger) by ~6 small (10 mm JIS heads) bolts, but it is. Someone had used outdoor carpeting to pad it! The only thing holding the actual gas tank in was not even spit and chewing gum...the hoses weren't very difficult to remove and here is the image of the floor under it...


no rust...the brownish red is mud. Some rusty crud fell out of the drain as I removed the gas, but the tank looks pretty good overall...



Nevertheless, I am betting it would cost as much to clean this tank as a replacement. I removed the float temporarily and peeked inside (no photos). It had patches of rust, especially around the drain, but I noticed that the fuel outtake is in a higher part of the tank; however, this is a blind area and I have no idea what it looks like.

I also removed the shifter (no big deal, right?)...well it was for someone who removed it previously. The retaining clip was chopped up with a hatchet...why I don't know, because Hayne's describes the procedure. I faked the Toyota tool with two 1/8" wrenches for removing circular saw/angle grinder blades and it came off easily. ..



I just wore the work gloves and wedged my right hand against the heater while pushing down and rotating CW with the left...presto! This photo shows why the push/twist motion is required (there is a spring beneath the clip)...



EASY...don't f*** up your truck anybody!

 

[4xphoenix]

The inch-lb torque wrench arrived today so I continued with the pinion gear setup. An interesting issue arose during this effort, which I will describe below. First, I installed the 0.020 inch spacer under the inner (large) pinion bearing as discussed above and lubricated the bearing with 90w oil. I then installed the outer bearing with the solid spacer (see previous posts), along with the oil slinger (deflector actually), flange, washer and old locknut (don't want to ruin the new nuts). I torqued the nut to ~125 ft-lbs and the preload, measured with my new beam-type torque wrench, was 10 inch-lbs. I tightened the nut to 130 ft-lbs and the preload jumped to 27 inch-lbs.

Nitro's installation guide for the R&P calls for 10-15 inch-lbs for new bearings, but the Toyota FSM calls for 16.5-22.3 inch-lbs; neither is even close to what I got. Furthermore, Nitro calls for 160 ft-lbs on the pinion nut and the FSM requires 144-158 ft-lbs. I am going to mull this over a bit and review my previous posts...

 

[4xphoenix]

It looks like I need to add shims beneath the outer (smaller) pinion bearing so, considering that the preload more than doubled with a 5 ft-lb increase on the pinion nut, I will try it next with the thinnest shim I received from Nitro, ~0.012 inch, installed under the solid spacer, and hope for the best...

 

[4xphoenix]

The thin shim was too thick, i.e., Nitro doesn't supply correct shims to adjust pinion depth and preload separately. This is a complex assembly so I made a drawing that I am using to get the shims correct. This schematic should explain the difficulties when these two critical dimensions cannot be separately set...

The dichotomy is that Shims IR and IB determine the pinion depth, while shims SS and IR determine the pinion preload. If shim IR can be neglected, the two dimensions are separate; however, shim SS, which came with the Nitro solid spacer in a number of thicknesses, cannot account for a precise fit to (unknown) dimension A. Dimension A is the result of casting the housing and mass-production methods. Shim IB uses the same set of shims as SS, but IR is a Toyota part, which I have acquired in thicknesses of 0.3, 0.35, 0.4, and 0.45 mm (installed long ago). It is difficult to match dimensions A and B with different shims from different sources; this is unavoidable in my real world; dimension C would collapse to A if sufficient shims SS and IB were available...oh well!

To deal with this real-world, I have created a table of shim combinations to try and match dimensions A and B. With the OEM shim (IR = 0.45 mm), and with a IB = 0.0, dimension B was off (see previous posts), i.e., pinion too shallow. There were no thicker OEM bearings for shim IR, so that is that. I would have to use Nitro shims to match both dimensions A and B (and of course C).

As the best solution, I would neglect IR and use the supplied Nirto shims to individually match A and B. To this end, I removed the OEM bearing shim (i.e. IR = 0) to see if I could neglect dimension C; with IB = 0.51 mm and SS = 0 mm, the preload was 27 inch-lbs, i.e., the 2.17 inch spacer doesn't exactly match the OEM housing (no surprise). When I used the thinnest Nitro shim SS (0.28 mm), I had no preload, so the sweet spot is with the difference between IR and SS (for preload only) being less than 0.28 mm...

I did the next fit today but I will report on it tomorrow...

 

[4xphoenix]

This post reports on the first systematic shim placement for the pinion gear as discussed in the previous post. I installed shim IR (under the inner bearing outer race) with a thickness of 0.3 mm; shim IB under the inner pinion bearing was 0.51 mm thick; and shim SS under the solid spacer was 0.4 mm. The thickness of IB was just to avoid pulling the inner bearing with the modified HF separator. The result was a pinion preload of 2-6 inch-lbs (yes, it varied) and the following pinion depths, which are quite deep (i.e. the shims IR + IB are too thick)...



This is an easily recognized example of the pinion depth being too deep. This is not surprising because the OEM value for IR was 0.45 mm and this increased it to 0.81 mm. I will report the next test tomorrow...

 

[4xphoenix]

Today, I reassembled the differential with the following shims (refer to diagram above): IR = 0.35 mm; IB = 0.28 mm; and SS = 0.41 mm. The result is a preload (at 130 ft-lbs nut torque) of 9 inch-lbs. This could reach 10 inch-lbs (required) at a the final nut torque of 150-160 ft-lbs; however, the pinion depth is still much too deep:



The critical dimensions are A and B (also C when using three shims, see diagram), which are unknown but constant except for the shims. Thus, A depends only on shim SS and can be met if the correct shim thicknesses are available; B is dependent on the sum of shims IB and IR, which push the pinion gear towards the axle center line; finally, C is dependent on the difference between shims SS and IR (negative values, i.e., IR > SS, will produce no pinion preload as discussed in previous posts), so SS must be thicker than IR by at least 0.28 mm because a previous test with SS = 0.28 mm (thinnest shim available) was loose whereas SS=0.0 was much too tight.

I don't have the right shims to get these dimensions correct. I am now contacting shim suppliers to see if they are available. An alternative is to get the solid spacer cut to match my shims, but this is patently stupid since I don't know what length to make it (I can only estimate) and I could wind up looking for shims anyway...

FYI, the best estimate of the required thicknesses for the shims to get both preload and pinion depth in the "ball park" are: IR + IB = 0.50 mm and SS - IR = 0.05 mm, but these are estimates only.

 

[Bang Bang]

This has to be one of the most technical build threads I have ever seen.

 

[4xphoenix]

When I finish, I will summarize the correct way to do it so that we don't have to find someone "willing" to do it...

 

[4xphoenix]

I guess I am "patently stupid" because I am going to install the pinion with a 0.51 mm shim for IB (under the inner bearing) and use the 0.28 mm shim for SS (beneath the solid spacer), and neglect shim IR (under the inner bearing outer race). I will have 0.23 mm removed from the solid spacer by a machine shop, which will be equivalent to decreasing shim SS to 0.05 mm (note that I got 9 inch-lbs preload with 0.06 mm)...the target is 12-15 inch-lbs. Others have complained of having to trim the solid spacer; I think this is because dimensions A and B (see diagram) are unknown and Toytota used shims but in a completely different configuration.

Meanwhile, I removed the transmission/t-case today with the HF transmission jack...no problemo! The t-case was leaking like a sieve with very little lubricant in it but the transmission looks pretty good so far. However, there is a lot of oil leaking from the side and top plates of the transmission...and oil everywhere else, probably from the well-known leakage from F engines...

 

[4xphoenix]

I installed the aforementioned shim configuration and the preload is 14 lb-inches, but the pinion depth is too deep as seen in these photos of the drive side...



The coast side was similar. This was only a 0.06 mm increase, so this gear set (4.56:1) is more sensitive (Toyota only supplied these shims in 0.05 mm increments). I had no luck with Phoenix Specialties...they are probably all laughing in the mail room over my 2-shim order! I have contacted Nitro...

Meanwhile, I found a vintage engine rebuilder here in Slidell (who'd have thought!). They cannot get enough parts to rebuild the F engine but they can do the 2F for $2700...I am thus looking for a non-running, but not left in the weather, 2F...they are looking too...

We are a go for the next phase (ASAP)...

 

[4xphoenix]

I began to suspect anomalous preload readings on the pinion, and ordered the "Master Rebuild" kit from Cruiser Parts for the rear...I borrowed the outer bearing from this kit and installed it, thus verifying that my inconsistent preload measurements were caused by a warped (me...factory...don't know) outer bearing.

The kit included the shims I am referring to as IR (see diagram above), but all way too thick for use! I installed the unmolested solid spacer I purchased along with the parts for the rear diff, and the outer bearing, and got 18-20 inch-lbs of preload very consistently. The other new bearing (same brand, Koyo) could be seen to wobble in the race, leading to the anomalous readings. With the available shims from Nitro (both the first solid spacer and new solid spacer kits), the preload length (shim SS) cannot be adjusted to less than 0.001 inches...the 0.009" cut spacer with a nominal 0.010 shim only produced 9 inch-lbs of preload, so I am going with the unmolested solid spacer and the 0.018 inch shim IB for final assembly.

All of the apparent confusion in these posts was due to the lack of available shims and a bad bearing! The experience comes in knowing when to compromise...the experts at Custom Transmission shared this knowledge with me when I took the transmission (H42) in to get it "refreshened"...So, the preload is 18-20 (FSM says 16.5-22.5 vs 12-15 inch-lbs from Nitro) and the pinion depth will be a little shallow at 0.018 inch shim IB (0.019 inch shim IB is not available and 0.02 inch was binding). All of the shims that came with the install kit were useless, as were those from the solid spacer kits...The folks at Custom Built Transmission dug through their collection of shims and found a shim IB = 0.018 inch.

Now I get to deal with the adjuster nuts...the ARB nut is now binding...sigh!