Could be slag from the welding process. What did the metal shavings you found look like?

You didnt know it was welded?

 

That’s your issue right there for sure, welded/locked diff. The chattering sensation was your L/R tires skipping on the ground trying to keep up with the opposite side when turning, most noticeable at low speeds while making sharp turns. My 4wd truck has a LockRight in the rear and I still get this on occasion when it doesn’t unlock. I believe you can technically just swap out the carrier for something else (open carrier, locker, etc) and still use the diff.

 

Yeah I had no idea it was welded. The truck always drove like shit but I initially attributed it to the ball joints, tie rods, etc.. Once I got those fixed I realized the shaking must be something else. My commute is pretty much a couple miles in a straight line so not a lot of tight turning. I just assumed it was supposed to drive sketchy af.

 

Hey curious if you know the spline count on the rear axles?

I’m wondering so I can see if a Tacoma 3rd member will be a drop-in on our Hilux trucks - so I can get 3.73 gearing instead of 4.10

 

30 on the rear axles.

I gave up on trying to drill the flange. I think I'll just move the good gears from new housing into the original on. I may have to have a shop do it. I dont have any way to check the backlash.

 

Sweet, thanks. Sounds like a Taco diff will be relatively drop-in then.

This guy "ZUK" does gear installs and documents a lot of it online. Have read through a bunch of his stuff on YotaTech over the years and have seen some DIY tips. Worth a look: http://www.gearinstalls.com/

 

I found a guy down the street that will swap the carriers for 75 bucks but after looking at the diffs they have different gear ratios. The welded diff is a 4.1 and the open diff is a 3.07. I'd much rather have the 3.07 gears on my truck over the 4.1.

Either I need to swap the 3.07 gears into the 4.1 housing or swap the flanges (which I think would be cheaper). I'm gonna take em in on Monday.

Did get my rear axles rebuilt so thats cool.

 

Painted up the backing plate on my axels.

 

3.07 gears? Wow that's high gearing. I think those only came in 2wd trucks that didn't have the 7.5" R&P, which I believe is limited to the 1ton with an auto trans or something like that - so a relatively uncommon find you have there! Kinda seems like too high of gearing but perhaps not with small diameter tires, I'm definitely curious about the outcome!

 

Thats cool! I ran the gears through a calculator and with my 14's it should be cruising @ 65 nicely. I got the rear diff in, axles on and brakes back together last night. I'm gonna try to finish up tonight. Still need to set the brakes and bleed em as well as torque everything to spec

 

OK, got the diff back. 100 bucks for them to swap the flange and reset the gears. New diff is in and we are rolling. New gearing is really nice. I can actually cruise in 3rd now and as an added bonus my speedo is working consistently now. Still more shit to do but I'm getting close to focusing on cosmetics.