Drive shaft play rotational play

thank you for the intelligent response. First of all, I understand everything you are saying, and Im hoping thats the case (no issues), but why do some trucks have slop like mine and others are tight? I have a few friends who are helping me diagnose this as well, and their tacomas have no rotational play. again, i understand what you are saying, but just concerned that some trucks are tight with little slop, and some like mine that seem to be well worn down.
thank you again for that long post

 

well said, ty

 

Could be set up to the loose side of tolerance. Could be worn.

At the TC side there is a lot of moving parts until you hit the immovable one which most likely is the parking pin in the transmission (auto) or until all of the slop between each gear is taken up in a stick. So many possibilities to guess at. So either completely rebuild the rear end and the TC if it bothers you so much or wait until you actually have an issue.

Realistically until you repair your carrier bearing and all of the joints who knows if the clunk was those or the TC or rear end. I would fix the obvious, drive the truck and forget about it until it it appears again.

 

That is normal. The reason is backlash or commonly known as lash. This is due to the clearance between the teeth in the gears. If they were tight it would not last very long, and it would damage the gears. What you described sounds about right.

https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-backlash-in-gears-How-is-it-advantageous-or-disadvantageous

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0NsMzdFcZg

 

I'm just confused as to why some tacos have no play and some do. You'd think if they need space then all of them would have play.

 

Two motors built to the same tolerances will NEVER make the same HP or torque. Small differences will cause this to be so.

Same with gears, TC’s, transmissions and so on. It is part and parcel of mass production and even hand built one off’s will be the same. So either accept it as the way it is or make yourself crazy trying to wrap your head around it.

Years ago a friend was racing in a super sport class that had very restrictive rules regarding modifications. He said he could get cylinder heads from the junk yard and the best to the worst of STOCK cylinder heads had a 20% difference in flow. These all were stock unmodified. At the same time I would build my motors to one end of the spec on different areas to maximize HP. Built right to the specs you can get differing results.

One last example. At work we rebuild a machine and two parts go together perfectly. The next exact same machine and we have to modify one part or another to make it assemble correctly. All of the parts are within spec but if one part is to the tighter tolerance in one dimension and another mating part is to the looser tolerance they either have slop or are very tight. So we either swap parts around until they all work well or modify one or another to make it work. If we send the part for re-inspection it come back as within tolerance. So we can fight and fight or just make it work. That is likely what is the case with your truck. Either through wear or the mating of parts with combinations that are at differing ends of tolerances yours has some slop.

So either spend the money to start rebuilding something that may be perfectly fine or leave it alone. Your call. But by continually asking the same question after it has been addressed many times already in your own thread you will chase away anyone who might reply and explain it to you. I know I have given just about as comprehensive an explanation as I can come up with to explain it to you. I really can’t say anything that hasn’t been said already. So your understanding of the issue comes down to you and not the information or explanation at this point. Read. Read it again. Read it some more. Goggle it. Google it again.

Now my last effort at explaining it to you is this:

https://www.amazon.com/Differential...4/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

 

Thanks bro. I was just trying to get some solid info and assurance I'm not about to blow my diff up. Thanks for the detailed responses.

 

Just drive it. If after the DS fixes it still has issues then take it one step at a time. When we diagnose things at work we make an assessment and replace one part at a time. Unless other parts are 100% fubar’d they are left alone.

 

Having the exact same issue in my truck from what you describe. 2001 tacoma with 120,000 miles. I had the ujoints checked last week and came across the warn out carrier bearing. We got the carrier bearing changed monday but the problem still exist. Does anyone have anything else I need to check besides the carrier bearing and ujoints?

 

Read this thread, all of it. There is good information to be had here.

Short answer - It is normal backlash between the gears.

 

These trucks seem too have a lot of backlash,mine has it also and it causes the truck too clunk in mine when at speed either letting off or applying the gas.I talked too Toyota about it and they wont do anything about as they say its normal,which they always say.

 

That is because it is normal. I have been driving stick shifts since I was 14 years old. I am now 62 years old every vehicle I have ever driven has backlash in the drive train enough to make a "clunk" sound. Some you can hear and feel more than others. It is normal.

 

That depends on how much backlash you have,no truck or car for that matter should have so much lash that it clunk's,its a sign that your pinion gear is more worn than it should be.

 

Normal.

You are entitled to your opinion. It also depends on your definition of what a "clunk" is. It also doesn't have to be tied to wear of a pinion gear. You could cause a huge clunk or slop simply by setting the lash too loose in the differential which would in turn cause excessive wear of the gear sets.

Take any standard shift vehicle. Park it on level ground so that it doesn't have weight on the differential and crawl under and move the drive shaft by hand.

 

My truck is an automatic.Took it too a pro driveline shop and the said the truck has way more backlash than it should have.And since jimmy posted that he is 62,if you want too know I am 55,age has nothing too do with having more knowledge than say a guy that's 25.

 

You should hear my manual tranny drive line lash holy hell

 

Lol,just saying Toyota could do a lot better job of putting the Tacoma rear ends together.

 

every stick I drove in past 30 years has clunked to some degree, autos do it too depending on the shift and my taco dos it when going to 5th at times if I let off the throttle a bit

 

Mine clunks when I switch directions and apply the brakes. I'm not sure if that is what you are experiencing but thought I would throw it out there, I think my issue is brake related but does sound like a metal on metal coupling clunk of some sort.

 

If it didn't have that play it would be an issue