Project: Domino Effect ('94)

[Kabanstva]

Started working on painting a tiny LandCruiser for my son. The resemblance is uncanny.
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Before driving it back home initially I had bought a VAF off of amazon to see if it fixed some of my issues. At the time it didn't And I was still have a bunch of the same issues. So before winter really got here, I pulled apart the old VAF and cleaned it, and also installed new O2 BOSCH sensors. One of those two things fixed my CEL.
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Then all of the sudden we got snow in Louisiana, I needed something from work, and I was the only idiot to drive in. I know this isn't SNOW SNOW compared to the rest of the country, but if Texas or Louisiana get snow like this, all hell breaks loose. This was Jan 2024, for a time reference.
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good info. what exactly do you need to clean inside the VAF? Is that picture a before or after cleaning?

 

[Bigtoepfer]

good info. what exactly do you need to clean inside the VAF? Is that picture a before or after cleaning?

Likely after. You need a razer blade to cut the silicon that seals the cap on. If you are old school then a pencil eraser.

Alcohol and cotton swabs. Honestly I treated it like the inside of an old NES cartridge. I cleaned the contacts that the armiture rides on. You can see the black jagged silicon contact? It's a little worn? It's definitely not going to last 100 years. Another 10-20 maybe. I hope.

But I cleaned that surface with the cotton swab that had alcohol on it.

The copper arm that slides on it I cleaned the bottom of it with the pencil eraser.

Then Reassembled. New silicon to reseal the plastic lid.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

So passenger side rear is 130-133* after 65-70mph and 3+hours on the highway, some braking and then coming to a stop at the house. Drivers side is ~120* I'm a little concerned about the 10* difference, but it might be negligible. Wondering if maybe I put too much grease in the hub cavity, or maybe too much preload on the bearings. Gonna check the mpg numbers tonight not that they will be super accurate due to the mountain roads. Probably come back and edit this.

I will say the output on the T-case was 200*. I'm not sure if that is too hot or not. The t-case itself is like 130-155 depending where you measure it. Seems hot for the output though at least to me. Recently before redoing the wheel bearings I measured it at 170*, 155*, and 193* after different trips. The 193* was after 3hr of 70mph driving. So its not like its drastically changed from before. I meant to check it when stopping for gas in the mountains in Oklahoma and kept forgetting.

At the moment not SUPER concerned about the hubs, but would definitely like to sort the noise out and starting to narrow it down to the pinion or output of t-case. I really don't feel like removing the driveshaft though.

 

[Bigtoepfer]

My bearing preload can't be THAT bad. Coming back from Oklahoma, driving over the mountains and trying to maintain 60mph going up the mountains in 3rd or even 2nd gear sometimes it seemed like.
I was expecting closer to 12 considering I'm running at ~6400lb. But I averaged over the trip 12-14mpg across 3 fill ups.