What the #%^$ happened to my truck?

ok so stop keeping us in suspense

 

Dealer will probley have you to come back with 900 lbs of cement bags in the bed so he can assess the problem Doc

 

Oh you have the same dealer as me for sure ! Good luck with the rear !

 

Pass the bishes

 

Verdict is in -- getting new rear end. Parts ordered for Tuesday and under warranty. Asked about the cause -- service guy said the technicians would know more when they start to tear it apart. Any questions to ask them?

Finally, thank you everyone for your thoughts and suggestions!
-Sean

 

I would like to say I wasn't, but I suspect was. Generally, I'm pretty good about it.

 

I think he meant any questions for the dealer. My guess is you know the answer anyway.

 

I had a clunking like that in my Firebird once... Busted the locker pin in the diff. It's about 2" in Diameter. No, I wasn't f**king around!!!

....Somehow got it covered under warranty too!

good luck with the new rear-end man.

 

I for one know I'm miserable when my Taco baby is broke or not feeling well, we will all be praying for a speedy and complete recovery.

 

Motorworld?!

 

OP, that sucks that happened, but glad its being covered. Bet you won't be backing down your driveway in 4-Lo anymore! Keep us updated.

 

Absolutley !!

 

Tell them you want to see/keep the old parts and snap pictures. Have them check the axle splines for twist(they should anyways), that kind of breakage can do more that just shear teeth off of the ring and pinion, sometimes it can translate forward and cause transfer case damage if it is violent enough. Keep all paper work, of course.

 

You bet..... I take it to motorworld for for TSB stuff cuz of convience IMBY. I buy all my stuff at Toyota of Scranton because I get way better deals up there.

 

You need to ask them these questions:

1) What the hell in fact broke (specifically, ring gear? pinion gear? splines on the shaft? left shaft? right shaft? pins from the locker? the locker itself? The axle housing??, what???)
2) What the hell (likely) caused it?
3) Do they, as a dealer, see this happen frequently? If so, what is Toyota doing about it?
4) What can you do to prevent it in the future?
5) What specifically are they replacing? re-using on your setup?


Not sure about you, but I LOVE to have a working knowledge of all my machinery in my head. I like to know specifically how pins shift a locker together, how/when the transfer case shifts.... etc. Somehow gives me more driving confidence to avoid breaking stuff like this.

Lil off topic, but in my old Z-71, GM used to make the front axle actuators be heat driven. So when you shift into 4x4, it "heats up" and expands, pushing the pin into 4x4. Well, knowing this helped when I was stuck in mud once (Go GM engineering...) the damn mud made the actuator too cold to push the 4x4 pin.... Lucky for me, i knew IMMEDIATELY what the problem was. I jumped in front of the truck, unscrewed (with my hand) the actuator off the axle, pushed the pin in with my own fingers, and drove out of the stuck mud. The pin stayed put just long enough to get unstuck. If anybody owned a 88-95 GM, you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. In 96, they made them electric and solved the problem.

Point is, if you know having your locker locked does A, B and C, then you can inherently know not to turn on pavement etc... while in locked mode. You get the point. Interview the $#!T out of the tech, they are usually helpful.

 

I bought my truck at Scranton and they have only seen it 3 times since. Free oil change, rear leaf tsb, and new spark plugs. I buy my accessories at motorworld and haggle them down to come close to internet prices. I see you're in WB, I'm just down in Nanticoke.

 

Update: Picked-up truck today. I didn’t get a lot of information from Toyota other than teeth were missing from both the ring and pinion gears. They don’t know what caused the problem, though they offered it may have been a shift from forward to reverse (or vice versa) without coming to a complete stop. I obviously didn’t do this on purpose, but may not have been paying enough attention. I would feel better if it was user-error vs. a faulty/defective part.

Warranty covered it, but they said it would have been an $1,800 +tax repair if I had to pay for it. The replacement part was “Differential Carrier Assy R&R”, part number 41110-35A20, plus the gasket and oil. I learned my lesson. A google search didn’t get me much on the part number. Thanks again for the input.

 

That would have to be really crappy diff to explode under that circumstance You are not the first one to shift with truck rolling backwards and not the last one. Most likely diff was crap they just won't admit it.

 

Reads like they put a whole new NIB assembled carrier unit in, which is what they should have done under warranty. Kudos to them.