Carrier Bearings

After 175K miles & 12 years, my '12 TRD OR access cab needed a new driveshaft carrier bearing. Not out of the ordinary, the main rubber sleave gets hard, brittle and breaks up over time in a harsh environment. So I purchased a Dorman brand, but had my local trusted mechanic do the install. (Also replaced the 3 u-joints with new Spicer just because it should be part of the job after 175K). Everything was back to normal for 13 months and about 10K miles. Then while traveling on the turnpike at speed, the rubber in the "new" carrier blew-out, it failed completely (made a pretty loud noise too).

As shown above, most of the rubber is gone, the actual bearing is perfectly fine and tight.

So this time I decided to do the install myself and look for any obvious mistakes. I found nothing loose or improper, only a blow-out carrier assembly. I suppose I'll have to assume I just got a bad one (Dorman). For my next replacement, I choose a Spicer (the OEM brand of driveshaft & original carrier bearing). The new one has Spicer on one side and Toyota on the other. See photos;



I took a few hours solo in my driveway, but I'm back in service and I saved $575 in mechanic labor. Maybe the OEM Spicer brand is better than Dorman, but they both appeared to be identical when new. Time will tell I suppose. BTW, this is the only wear-related repair ever needed on my old 2nd gen, believe it or not.

 

Wow.... Surprised the wheel bearings have last this long,... Was it easy to install the new carrier bearing?

 

Not really an easy solo install laying on your back on a sloping driveway, but not difficult either. You have to drop the entire drive shaft and sort of wrestle it back in place after bearing replacement. There are many youtube videos available.

 

I replaced the OE Spicer with another Spicer at like 130K due to Floppy Rubber Syndrome. I pumped in some clear silicone in the replacement and no issues after 70K miles.

 

I really disliked the part where you have to torque the carrier bearing nut to a high torque-spec, then re-torque again. It's really hard because I don't really have something to grab the drive shaft as it wants to rotate..

Good stuff though. I went through the same ordeal buying a dorman and then replacing it with a spicer one. It's been more than a year since and all good!

I will say though that for me the trick for it to not really wobble around was to position it by hand in such a way that felt "tight".. Like if I tried to position it perfectly at the center when putting it back up.. it would have play.. I kind of had to force mines back more so that it didn't have play when I tried to wobble it hard up and down by hand..