Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hey having a few dramas with my rear diff all started when i bent my tailshaft and had to drive home with it badly bent.

Replaced that then noticed the pinion was leaking, now its leaking to the point where all underneith my 4x4 is covered in oil from diff back.

Then my pinion flange was loose, alot of up down side to side movement so i tightened the flange bolt fairly easily turned 1/4 of a turn now it seems ok

but im sure i wasnt supposed to be able to do that and now its fairly noisy.

Also it has a detroit locker in it just wondering if its a good idea to rebuild them after a few years of off road use?

The vibrations would have damaged the pinion bearing, allowing you to tighten the pinion nut up, which has changed the alignment of the pinion/crown etc, i'd remove it before you have bigger problems than replacing bearings. Get it fully rebuilt before it goes bang in the middle of nowhere, should cost around 400-500 if you remove the 3rd member.

When you take the 3rd member out, id say you'll find metal shavings in the bottom of the housing.

Check your uni's also.

4RUNNER_01 wrote:Hey having a few dramas with my rear diff all started when i bent my tailshaft and had to drive home with it badly bent.

Replaced that then noticed the pinion was leaking, now its leaking to the point where all underneith my 4x4 is covered in oil from diff back.

Then my pinion flange was loose, alot of up down side to side movement so i tightened the flange bolt fairly easily turned 1/4 of a turn now it seems ok

but im sure i wasnt supposed to be able to do that and now its fairly noisy.

Also it has a detroit locker in it just wondering if its a good idea to rebuild them after a few years of off road use?

hey mate, i didn't bend my tailshaft badly but i did knock it enough to break the pinion seal, it was only leaking slowly then it started to puddle so i got it rebuilt, the pinion bearing was farked and i had my gearsets relapped as apposed to new gearsets. ended up costing me a bit cause while it was in there i got a new clutch as well an some other stuff done.

i would get it redone, i had a lot of issues after that with vibrations, so i was in and out of driveline services for a few weeks, ended up with new splines, new uni's, new centre bearing and still had issues, turns out it was dodgy uni.

hope this helps

last tail shaft i smashed it the rear actually flexed the pinion into the crownwheel and shattered a few teeth on the crown wheel...

If you ever do it again, remove the tailshaft and drive home in 4wd (or frontwheel drive) as if you didn't damage the crownwheel/pinion it may have saved you the cost of the rebuild....

Brad