Rear Diff Question

[ttora4runner]

damn dude you're having some major bad luck with your truck it sounds..

Ya, no kidding in the last year my credit card debit went from about 300 to close to 4800 on this thing. It's been one thng after another. My 96 didn't have this many problems.

[BruceTS]

It's very rare for a bearing to go out in a diff, the gears are usually the first to go. However with an E-locker the bolts to the carrier can come loose and make some funky sounds. The first thing to do is drain the oil and inspect for excessive metal debri. If the old is dark grey, then there is definately problems. If the oil is still amber in color, then you may be just fine. There's no way to determine the problem until it is torn down...hehe you can say I'm a bit of an expert on e-locker breakage, I've gone thru a few already and have 4 pumpkins in my garage. One had the carrier bolts come loose, 2 others from a friends that had a spider gear break, another that the spider gear wore the housing out due to a bent axle housing and another that I broke my 4.88 gear set.

If your at all mechanically inclined, I'd pull the pumpkin and if it has a problem, just bring that to the shop for repair and not the stealership or buy a used one from a junkyard.

Other issues that can occur is the ring that you adjust the bearing end play could have came loose, but from the list of parts mentioned, the tech is saying that the pinion gear bearings have a problem. This can easily be checked, simply by grabbing the driveshaft at the diff end and try moving it in and out, then side to side....there should be next to no play at all. I've never seen these bearing go out first, unless the seal was leaking and the oil ran out, then they usually freeze up. If those bearings are in fact bad, then most likely there are more internal issues as well and all the bearing would need replacement.

[ttora4runner]

Changed out the diff fluid and didn't notice any metal shavings in it but I did notice that there as a building up of some sort on the drain plug and just inside.

Is that normal? Fluid was still an amber color but it was on the darker side.

[4x4mike]

It might be fine metal shavings. I guess those would be better than chunks of metal. Were you able to peek up in the drain hole? If so how did things look? If it's still drained I'd jack up the rear, put it in neutral and turns the wheels or drive shaft. Doing this you might be able to see the ring gear and hear anything amiss. Of course block the wheels, use jack stands, etc.

[Robinhood4x4]

Did the buildup look like a black sludge? That's ok, that's just the fine metal particles that comes from normal wear.

[BruceTS]

sound about normal, the magnetic plug will always have some sludge on it, oil being amber in color means I doubt there is anything major wrong.

[ttora4runner]

Ya, for now I'm going to leave it alone. I haven't heard any wierd sounds, leaks or anything strange.

I have other problems that I need to focus on now.