HomerTaco's big old bucket o’ bolts build

Just pull the front diff and you can wheel with the Prerunners.

 

join me Craig.

 

Bummer, good luck with the repairs man!

 

You could ride down with Ant and Hunter..

 

The three gringos

 

So there's not too much I can do about it - unless there is Divine intervention I doubt I'll make the VA meet this coming weekend. My Father in laws shop is crazy busy right now and he wasn't able to even look at it until late this afternoon. Seems my JB Weld patch did good but was not a cure-all and there is still some oil seeping out. He's going to try and get the time to pull the diff tomorrow just to be able to get to the pan & attempt to repair it. There's a shot that the broken mount can be welded back on but he'll have to get another local shop to take that on as his is not set up for it. I've got a spare but it's the stock 3.73 gears not the 4.56 - swapping the gears and locker to the old diff housing is an option but I'd have to send them to ECGS.
Very frustrating... I was really looking forward to this meet.

 

Could have been much worse. All of the oil cold have leaked out and the engine could have been toast as well. I know that has already been thought of, I am just saying it. I am glad you guys caught the issue before it became a major problem.

Minor compared to what it could have been.

Although as many times as I have done an engine swap, that would be easier for me than diff and oil pan drops. Lol.

 

Screw welding old cast metal when you have a spare. Swap the gears/locker and be done. No need to send it back to ECGS either. Any competent 4x shop should be able to work on gears. Maybe ask ECGS if they have a reputable vendor in the area they sell gears to.?.

I would always fear the cast would crack again if I put it back in after being welded.

 

I dont see an issue with welding the cast back together as long as its super clean before you weld it

 

The broken loop on the diff collar is not the main problem. As far as welding it, it's being done by a local heavy machinery shop that knows what they are doing.
This is the issue:



The pan is shot. The trail repair got me home but there is still a dime sized hole in that pan. As you can see it was not a 100% cure as it is seeping even with all the oil removed.
It got me home - that's the important part.

Sourcing a new pan now. Unforutunately my chances of making the meet have gone from very slim to none.

 

ouch...

 

Atleast you aren't having it fixed at a dealer lol can you imagine what they would charge hahaha

 

you got that right!

On a positive note - FIL called and said he found a replacement pan.

 

so there's still hope?

 

Not really - there's no guarantee that the diff will be back in time and swapping out the pan requires more time than they have currently.

 

Diff mount repaired:

 

Well 1 thing down now you have 24 hours or 48 to get a pan and get it on. Is the pan local?