Remove the differential drop on your 05+ Tacoma

Grab a beer, pull up a chair, and let your helpful uncle Mike tell you a story.

Once there was a guy who didn't take his own advice and left a differential drop kit on his 2006 Tacoma 4x4. He put lots of time, effort, and cash into modifying his skidplates to work with the kit that he never should have installed, He did it to protect his precious CV boots.

Then he went offroad, after which he could no longer drive his truck. The end.

When told that the diff drop does nothing but pivot the front differential, there are always a pile of people that say "Even if it only helps CV angles just a little, I'm going to use it." They can kiss my ass. (that's probably the beer talking but the sentiment is not that far off )

This is not a debate. Remove those spacers.

My truck looked like this:


Then I hit a rock because the differential mount was sticking too low. My truck then looked like this:




Let's pull that skidplate and see what we've got...


^ Note that the passenger side is no longer lower than it would have been had I left it alone. It's right where it should have been all along.

It got that high by pushing through the cross member.


It didn't just push up either. It pushed backwards, and the differential became intimate with my oil pan.




The bottom end on my engine is playing peek-a-boo:


And to those that swear these things actually help, look at where the dropped mount is relative to where the front axle inserts into the front differential:


Pretty nice looking mount too, huh?

So...how much of a pain is it REALLY to replace a CV boot?

 

I've broken worse. This'll be fixed and made better. It's just frustrating because if it weren't for that $20 kit I most likely would have finished the race.

 

My jaw hit the ground when I crawled under the truck.

I'll be in touch to discuss some bulletproof armor in the next few months.

 

Correct, Mike....err.r....Uncle Mike....??........The "Diff Drops" drop teh FRONT of the diff 1", but the drive shafts go into the diff further back. Lets say that it dropps the point at which the drive shafts enter the diff 1/2" (best case).....That is only about 1* change in the angle of the CV joints. Nothing that will do any good. The side affects however, can be worse. ASide from what Uncle Mike mentioned, vibes can be increased, and if the diff is moved slightly from the installation of this Drop, welp......your gonna get the wobbles....

 

Without the drop the bottom of the truck would have been smooth and I would have slid over the rock. Even if I had gotten caught, the rock would have had less leverage on the bolt and differential and would not have pushed the whole assembly back into the engine.

 

^This.

^ And this.

 

Smart man.

It'd be a damn long drive to find that rock. I'll just make sure I drive past it at next year's Primm 300.