driving with no front diff housing installed?

SO my front diff on my 2001 v6 4x4 is on its way out, it pops and studders every so often when driving.
replace both cv axles, checked the u joints and it still does it.

The more I drive the worse it gets, and I have to drive nearly everyday.
currently dont have money for new, and haven't been able to find one used.

so can I pull the front diff out and drive around and be ok?
Is the diff used for anything structural? holding any other parts on or anything like that?

also will a diff from a older tacoma work? they have different part numbers from toyota, so I'm guessing not, but you never know, I've had other cars where parts with different numbers have worked

Thanks in advance

 

pretty sure you need the cvs in to help hold hub together.

 

You need to leave the out cv in place so you'll need to either take your cv apart or buy some more and take turn apart so you don't burn up the wheel bearings

 

Yep, or have the hub come apart.
Man hub folks can do it, not ADD.

 

Eesh, shitty position to be in, I feel you on the diff going out, been there.

The answer is no, you can't drive without cv's in a add hub Tacoma. The Cv nut torqued to 170 ft/lbs helps hold the wheel bearing assembly together. You will damage your wheel bearings and those need to be pressed out and new ones in so you're looking at a few more hundred dollars and a possible really bad situation while driving.

One solution requires you destroy/dismantle a couple cv's. Take the hub side/outer part of a cv and separate/cut off the shaft at the joint.

Then take the outer cv and bolt it into the hub and torque the nut to 170 ft lbs, pain in the ass no doubt and cost you at least $100 for parts store remanufactured cv's

Other idea is maybe see if you can pick up some prerunner spindles/knuckles, then you'd have no worries

 

"The Cv nut torqued to 170 ft/lbs helps hold the wheel bearing assembly together." That's only found on ADD hubs, man hubs have a giant threaded lock ring and can be run with no CV.

 

Would it be possible to take the differential itself out? And put the housing back together. The splined in board ends of the CVs would rotate freely? Or is the diff required to hold the CVs in place?

 

thanks everybody, im on the look for some junk CVs

 

Wouldn't work. In short the diff carrier assembly/side gear supports the driver side CV end. While the passenger side CV resides in intermediate shaft #2, the other end of the intermediate shaft assembly (#1 and #2) would be flopping around.

 

Makes sense. I was hoping they would ride in bearings or something. (I don't know much about our trucks. Still learning. Thanks for the info)

 

I went back and read my post and realize I wrote manual hub by mistake

Correct as stated, there is no nut at the end of the cv on a manual hub, meant to say add.

Maybe dirty pool can comment, unsure if you have to pull apart the entire locking hub on a manual hub assembly to get the cv out, know you have to swapping one, but only did manual hub cv's once and that was a while ago, and it was a pain in the ass. The cone washers alone make it worth it to me to stick with add, never understood why people were switching to manual hubs, add shafts are beefier anyway.