Pinpointed whinning/source.. Finally! (1 Viewer)

[atijerino]

My '94 LC has been having this whinning/humming noise for a while that has been driving me crazy, finally I took it to a local drivetrain specialist and they put it on a sling and run it at regular driving speeds and used a stestoscope to pinpoint the source of the noise to the front differential pinion bearings, they also removed the front driveline to confirm their findings.
Bottom line: About 6 hours of labor (about $400.00) and about $250.00 on parts. Theya re open to me ordering my own parts, they tried locating them locally, but they were not available.
I will wait until Cdan comes back from his CM trip and order parts from him.

One question that I have is:
How hard is it to remove the third member and take it to the drivetrain guy to repair it out of the truck? I figure half of the labor time is spent removing the front axles and if I remember well from the birf job, it took me about 3 hours to do each side last time I did this job.
Any special considerations if I decide to do this?
I just want to solve this problem and not break the bank in the process. (I admit it I AM CHEAP!)

Thanks,

Antonio

 

[Buckru]

Antonio,
You don't have to remove the third member to replace the pinion bearing. You remove the drive shaft, companion flange, pinion nut, washer, seal, crush sleeve and then the bearing IIRC. I dont have my fsm in front of me at the moment, but I believe thats it.

Buck

 

[Rookie2]

Someone correct me if I'm miss remembering, but isn't there something about measuring the preload before tearing into the pinion bearing?

 

[k5ryannc]

it depends on which bearing has gone bad the inner or the outer bearing
i perfer to do both at the same time because of the silver that comes off the bad bearing usually gets the the other because they share the same oil

follow the instrutions below if it has a crush sleeve if not please take it to a pro to set the bearing preload and go ahead and replace all the diff bearings while your in there

if you decide to do the outer only you can see where the pinion nut was steaked in the notch in the pinion

mark the pinion flange and the pinion with a permanent maker to make it that much more fool proof. (align the marks when you put it back together

then count how many turns it takes to take off the nut and write that # on the pinion flange too so you don't for get

drain the diff oil and leave the plug out!(clean the metal material off the magnetic drail plug as best you can)

follow buckru from there till you get it all apart and clean that sucker as best you can with what you can see and get to

put it back the exact same way

and when your done DON'T FORGET TO RESTEAK THE PINION NUT!!

put in the drain plug and fill with your favorite gear oil

i'm pretty anal about stuff and i would change the oil again in about a 1000 miles to get some more silver out

hope this helps
this board has tought me alot but i've been doing gears forever!
enjoy gettin dirty and sticky with that gear oil

ryan

 

[bluto]

I just bought my 95 cruiser 154k miles and I am hearing a noise similar to being in 1st gear in a manual trans when you slow down from it. But this noise can be heard when I am slowing down from 50 - 70 and it only disappears when I pick up speed again (also up or down a hill). I have heard this in many used cruisers I have looked at before buying mine. Liked to know so I know what I am dealing with. Thanks from a newbie.

 

[atijerino]

According to the drivetrain guy, both inner and outer bearings need to be replaced, as well as the crush sleve, pinion nut and seals. I asked him if this could be done with the third member in and he said that everything needed to be out. He is not a Toyota guy, but has done some Toyota mini-trucks and I don't know if they are much different.
I am not affraid of wreching this out, but it is the preload and the backslash settings that I don't feel comfortable doing.
Now, is $600.00 including parts a reasonable price for this job. Keep in mind that I am in Idaho and hourly rates around here maybe lower than other states.

Thanks,

Antonio

 

[davisdrafting]

That depends on what you think your times is worth, if done yourself
Adjusting the ring an pinion are fairly easy to adjust, unlike the 44 on my
Heep every thing was pressed on over shims, vary time consuming.

 

[IdahoDoug]

Antonio,

My brother in law (not on this forum) let the front diff gear oil get low and toasted his pinion bearings. Sounded exactly as someone above described - a manual gear box whine. Late in the game, his was at lower speeds too and really yowled unless coasting. In LA, this was going to cost about 1400 dollars to repair.

We discovered that Toyota sells the entire third member - backlash set and all - for around $720. So he bought the part and simply had his mechanic bolt it in. Cost him slightly less, but he also has a new front gearset. You might look into it and consider doing it yourself as at that point it's just a bolt in part, and you could toss in the birf repack for just the added parts as they have to come out already no matter what you're doing. I'm not sure the mechanic has that priced in here, BTW. The beauty of the "replace the whole part" strategy is you can then do it on your own time as any wear on the other gears doesn't matter as you're going to replace them. Could literally be 10,000 miles before the noise gets much worse as my bro in law aptly demonstrated. If you do this, KEEP THE FRONT DIFF - don't let the mechanic scrap it.


DougM

 

[atijerino]

Doug,

Now that you mention it, not a bad idea, it just makes a lot more sense. I will wait until CDAN comes back from Cruise Moab to see if he can locate me one for a decent price. I guess this is somehting I can do in my own garage on a rainy Saturday (Not that we get that many here is SW Idaho). Any special considerations? or is it just a matter a removing the old unit, cleaning and installing new unit?

Thanks for the suggestion...

Antonio

 

[Tools R Us]

Dan told me about $1200 for a new one. The old one is probably worth about $500 to someone that wants to regear and upgrade to the locker? Marlin has good prices on the mini truck ones, may check to see if he can get an 80 one?

http://www.marlincrawler.com/3rd_pickup.html

 

[atijerino]

Doug,

Do you have the name of the dealer that got you the 3rd member for $720.00?
I called around today and the cheapest that I found was the local Peterson Toyota for $1095.00 and they would not budge even a dime.
There are other places that want $1200.00. Don't know how much after discount from Cruiser Dan.
If you still have the info where you guys got yours, please let me know.

Thanks,

Antonio

 

[ranma21]

Try Brian at Toyota of Dallas, his #972-2433526. Tell him that Lim told you about him. He should be able to quote you a good price. Good luck