Broken Axles? Front diff?

Hey all. My 04 has developed a pulsating clunk around 15-20 mph that I can feel in the drivers floorboard. There is also a roar around 35-40 that I can feel in the steering wheel. Just crawled under the truck and there is a bunch of slop on the inside of both axles where they meet the diff. The axles dont have any vertical play in the shafts and haven't exploded or anything, and there is nothing leaking from the diff itself.
Front end has billstein 5100s and OME 881 springs.
Anyone have any ideas/have seen this before? Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

Pictures would help a lot here

 

I will snap some pics /video tomorrow when its not dark

 

Pull both CV's out and go for a drive.

 

Can yoy do that on a tacoma? I always thought the wheelbearing will fail rather quickly if it didn't have the torque on the axle nut

 

Uh, that's a good point.

 

I think you make a good point, and I would do the same


But only if I had the outboard shaft section to keep the wheelbearing in the spindle (which I do, just for this possibility )

 

Yeah the wheel bearing is set in by the torque of the axle nut, if you remove the CV axles you won't get out of the driveway before the wheel bearings fail. Don't do that lol.

What you describe sounds like a bad carrier bearing to me. The slop with the CV axles might be it's own issue (needle bearing?) But those driveline vibes sound like a bad carrier bearing

 

I know my carrier bearing has been in rough shape for a while cause I have a pulsating vibration in the seat around 55mph. These vibrations and the clunk have developed over the last couple weeks. I probably should have noted that the low speed clunk gets substantially worse when the wheel is turned left.

 

It's fairly safe to say that the boots on both sides are toast given your description. The diff doesn't do anything until 4x4 is actuated but the CV shaft still spins in the diff with ADD. It's possible that the inner bearing on the diff is toast due to excessive wear. It could be just CV's or both or rear drive line CB mentioned above.

 

The vibes from a bad carrier bearing will get worse as it deteriorates more but the fact that it's worse when turning make me think you might be needing new lower and/or upper ball joints.... How many miles on the ball joints? You can check them by jacking up the front end and using a pry bar leveraged against them to see if there's play. Any visible play in the ball joints means they need replacing. The lower ball joints in particular on these trucks are known to fail in dramatic fashion.

 

Clunking when turning is usually CV related.

 

It could be a lot of things, CVs, ball joints, tie rods, bad bushings in the control arms or shock mounts.... Detailed pics would help, it sounds like it might just need to be gone over with a fine tooth comb.

Since you know the carrier bearing is bad I would start there and see if that helps, then branch out

 

Upper and lower ball joints and tie rods were done <20k ago. LBJs are oem toyota. I will get some pics of the front end in the morning

 

I got a couple pictures and a video this morning.
This is the drivers side from the front.
This is the passengers side from the front.
The video I took is of both front axles where they meet the diff. There is a lot of play and an audible knock from the left side when you apply any force up or down on the inner joint.
I don't know how to get the video on here. Do people usually post to youtube and link it?