OFFICIAL 2nd gen 4x4 front differential bearing vibration thread

Dealer replaced mine with the ecgs bushing.

 

I watched the ECGS video and they show how the CV shaft where it connects to the transfer case has to much slop when you move it up or down. My truck has a ton of movement up and down as well. However, I can also pull the shaft out of the transfer case left to right almost 1/4 an inch. Is this normal? The passenger side has a little bit of side to side play, but not near as much. I have not done the ECGS fix for this issue yet. I am going to get this mod done at some point, I just don't want to have a catastrophic failue of the CV shaft and trans case driving down the road.

CorrosiveTendency - so your saying you did the mod and it did not fix your vibes?

 

correct. But it is still conciderably better than it was.

 

I don't have vibes yet and I want to keep it that way. About how long should it take a competent shop to swap the bushings? I'm having it lifted this week if all goes as planned. Which it probably wont.

 

I have a 2014 TRD OR and lifted it 2.5" last week with 5100s. Vibration immediately started when I test drive it. It has mellowed a bit but is still there.

For those who have installed the Bushing from ECGS, how many miles do you have on it now and has anyone pulled the axle to check the wearing to see if it is holding up?

I got the Platnium warranty and am trying to decide if I should have the differential replaced or move to the bushing.

 

Member qnyla has 54k on his bushing, no wear on cv axle. It's in this thread with pics too.

 

Dealer may not warranty it because of your lift, but if they will, have them replace and then you put the bushing in from ECGS

 

I don't know why he'd bother wasting down time getting a new diff (if they would even cover it with a lift) when the diff isn't the problem. The needle bearing is. Since the truck is fairly new, it should be easier to disassemble than it was for me with 9 year old rusted fasteners.

I'd bet he could get his truck apart, replace the bearing with the bushing, and put it back together in less than 4 hours.

Now, some of us have discovered that the passenger side needle bearing is also troublesome, but not to the degree the driver's side is/was. Sometimes I get the humming but most of the time it's gone. It was constant with the driver's side.

 

I thought the passenger side was a roller bearing...? Or something other than a needle bearing.

 

This quote^^^is from a couple pages back in March, where I stated I felt like my passenger side was doing the same thing my driver's side did. Taco '09 replaced both his bearings, they are the same, you just have to remove the ADD tube (where the axle rides) to get to the bearing.

Still up in the air if I'm going to do it, but I did notice my axle seal on the passenger side is seeping fluid, so now is the time if I replace the seal.

 

Hello all,

I am new to this site, and am very glad I found it. I recently had a broken leaf spring in the back and decided to replace with a 2" skyjacker lift kit. Never lifted a truck before so I was very upset to have this horrible vibration immediately after completing. In my quest to diagnose this vibration I had my drive shaft balanced, new center carrier bearing, new universal joints, replaced my driveshaft with a tom woods one piece drive shaft, and new front wheel bearings. The dealerships didn't want to look at my truck, and replacing expensive parts got old fast. Once I found this forum I was skeptic having already spent so much money on the issue. I started looking at selling it with only 120K on it. I finally broke down and replaced the needle bearing with the ECGS bushing and was blown away that it was finally gone. Couldn't be happier

 

Anyone who would like to purchase the ECGS bushing removal tool let me know, I will sell it to you cheaper than ECGS will.

Also, anyone looking for a like new two piece drive shaft let me know, I also have it listed on my local craigslist for sale.

The ECGS removal tool has been sold, anyone looking for a like new two piece drive shaft please message me.

 

Quick question guys. I just did this mod last night, and it appears as though it has not solved the problem. I'll have to drive it a bit more to confirm but here is my initial analysis.

To begin with, my truck has around 134,000 before the needle bearing was swapped out. It had the low growling noise from 30mph+. It almost sounded like a low pitched helicopter.

It didn't go away by activating 4x4, but it did go away with relatively long swept left hand turns. I also did not notice any vibes, but this could also be from the noise. It's very loud and on long trips (3+ hrs) it was just tiresome to listen to.

I thought replacing the bushing would help, especially since I have a 12 hr each way drive coming up soon, but on my drive home I noticed the humm again at around 20-25 and a slight vibration on the gas pedal.

I made sure everything was installed correctly and my cousin who was a Toyota dealer mechanic helped me. There wasn't any scaring on the axle and everything seemed to be in good shape.

1. Has this happened to anyone?
2. Is there a break in period for the bushing?
3. If the problem was not related to the needle bearing is the bushing going to cause a greater problem?
4. Or can I swap a needle bearing back in?

Thanks in advance guys! I really want to kill the loud noises, so hopefully the bushing has solved it.

 

Sounds like a wheel bearing to me.

 

^^ This is textbook wheel bearing.

 

Damn! So would is that the left bearing? Is the bushing going to mess things up now?

sorry for the thread jack now.

Edit: could the new vibration now be that I feel the wheel bearing, where before there was enough play to mask it in the needle bearing?

 

Dude, you didn't read the reports closely.. your symptom that doesn't go away with 4wd activation points to a different issue! wow that's a lot of effort for a none related repair. oh well, your truck would develop the front diff issue sooner or later so at least it's done!

 

You're telling me ywen!

 

^^ There is no absolute rule of thumb on which bearing is going, just statistics. In about 75% of the cases turning to the left and having the noise go away points to the left bearing. The reason being that a left turn places more load on the right and less on the left. Since bearings with greater load tend to make the most noise, the noise diminishes on the left.

However, your truck has a lot of miles on it. An SKF wheel bearing engineer told me the design life of our front bearings is 100k mi. So don't mess with this any further IMHO, you got to do the work anyway so do both sides.

 

Thanks Taco!

You're right, if ones out the other is not far behind. I'm going to order a set of these to save me some time.

http://www.tacomaworld.com/forum/2n...s-4x4-sale-complete-best-price-ever-save.html

A tough lesson learned, but at least if the bushing doesn't affect anything I could actually see an improvement once the wheel bearings are replaced.

I feel like such a newb! I learned a lot though. It took me around 3hrs to do the needle bearing, I think I can do both font wheels bearings in the same amount of time. The slowest part is removing the damn grease cap!