Messed diff lock or axle, needing some advice.

It's my first post, but I've been a regular visitor here. So thanks to the ones who provide good information. Anyway I've got a problem and tried searching without any luck.

Other night I had my truck stuck in about 8 inches of snow. Couldn't get any traction so I enabled the diff lock. I could make it a few inches at a time before I had to reverse and hit it again... Then all of the sudden, the rear end started 'ticking' and doing strange things.

Anyway here's what my truck is doing:

1:

A loud popping sound coming from the rear end every few feet.
it's not as loud and rough if I engage the diff lock, but still it pops and shakes the truck. Without the diff lock engaged it's awful and act's like it's about to lock up.


2:

Sometimes the rear wheels won't turn at all and I have to turn the diff lock off and on before they start working again..




So what could be causing the rear end to do this....I've been studying the Tacoma Repair Manual but it doesn't mention any problems like this.

 

Sounds like you broke a rear pinion gear or ring gear which is common for our tacos

 

Broken gears for sure, broken spiders maybe

 

That would be my guess.

Doubt he broke spider gears since it is still messed up in a locked mode.

PK

 

Thanks everyone. I was kinda afraid that might be the what's wrong... I'm really surprised at how fragile the diff lock system is. I never would have thought slick snow could have messed it up.


Now I'm thinking about calling up some salvage yards and trying to find a complete rear end with just limited slip. Not done any research yet, but I'm thinking that would be better in the long run if it would work.

 

Thats what I am going to try to get. Should be easy to swap the entire housing.

 

Make sure new rear end has the same gears as your truck.

 

Good point. Wondering how many different gear ratios was offered from toyota.

 

i think TRD's came with 4.10's, non trd's came with 3.73 (?) or 3.90 (?), i could be wrong though

 

regular cabs came with 4.10s everything else 3.73s

 

He is a picture of my truck in the snow after it broke. You can see I didn't move very far at all!





He is the other side showing about how deep the snow was: