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Pls Help with Diff Swap Hilux

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 12:55 pm
by siringo
Hi,

I've never done any work on the front of my 1984 LN65 Hilux, so I'm venturing into unknown waters here and I'm looking for some help.

I've just replaced my diff front and rear diff centres (3rd's). The rear was a breeze, but the front is causing me some problems. I've got everything back together and it all looks OK. I put the truck up on 4 floor stands and put her into 4WD, put it in gear, and started the motor to make sure the front wheels were engaging.

The passenger front is OK, it spins happily but the driver side front just floats around, you can actually spin it backwards. I put everything back together by the book and torqued everything up to the correct specs and everything looks OK, it's just this front wheel. When I was putting the axle back in I could never spin the axle and see the diff rotate and vice versa, when I span the diff centre, I could never see that front axle rotate. It's like it hasn't plugged into the diff properly.

Is this normal or have I stuffed something up? Everything looks like it's pushed in far enough, everything lines up fine.

Thanks for any help.

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 1:29 pm
by tojo_runner
could it just be that it is an open centre, makes sence, my hilux/4runner rear drivers side is the drive wheel, which would make the passengers front the opposing drive wheel. Id try holding the passengers front somehow and seeing if the other turns. Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about diffs, ive gotta work out how to do my front soon but haha. If my info is wrong, sorry, please feel free to correct me

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 3:44 pm
by brad 93hilux
sounds ok, try grabbing the wheel that spins and it should stop easily and the other should start spinning.

Thats how a open centre operates and you will only really ever get drive out of one wheel. Now if it had a diff lock and it was engauged in 4wd and diff lok locked in and you only had 1 wheel spinning then you would have a problem.

basically leave the rear jacked up, lower one side of the front so one wheel is touching the ground, now in 4wd (don't start the truck) the front one thats in the air should be able to be spun. Try this on the other front wheel and it should be the same.

Brad

Posted: Sun Mar 22, 2009 5:02 pm
by siringo
Thanks for the replies guys I really appreciate it. After I posted I went back out and ripped off the free wheeling hub. I think I had put it back on in such a way that it wasn't engaging properly. I sat down and had a real good look at how it all works and now know, so I guess it wasn't wasted time.

After putting it all back together again, I was able to stop both front wheels (one at a time) and the other kept spinning. So I'm pretty sure everything is OK.

Many thanks again.