Rear axle compatibility?

The friend of mine who has been looking for a unicorn Tacoma for a few years has almost given up finding the Sport with a manual tranny and has found a nice 2010 Prerunner with TRD off road package and manual trans. He has asked me what the difficulty would be in swapping out the rear locker for an LSD, and I read about 50 threads here but still confused. So far, this is what I gathered:

Rear locker is an 8 inch rear end, all others are 8.4.

The swap would require an all new axle which is fairly straight forward

Prior to 09 the LSD was mechanical, 09+ was controlled by the brakes and has VSC.

The 4x4 axle would be different.

So if he were to get the truck, what is the possibility of swapping the locker for an LSD. Would the new axle have to come from a manual trans truck or would an automatic work? Would the older mechanical axle fit and not throw off the ECU?

Edit: Easier to read

 

You should be able to just swap the entire axle assembly. I can't say if the missing e-locker would cause any lights on the dash or not. I also don't know if OR packages came with Auto-LSD, and how it could be disabled. I don't think auto or manual trans matters

 

This truck definitely has the auto LSD, that's why I am thinking the donor axle would have to come from a 2009 or 2010.

 

If he just wants a mechanical LSD, he should be able to get a 3rd member for an old (pre-Taco) V6 with one in it. That might work out well as he could just sell the E-locker 3rd member.

If he wants to do the whole axle, I don't believe it'll matter what year it's from... although I'm not 100%. The "auto LSD" is just reading individual rear wheel sensors and applying brakes to individual rear wheels when it sees slip, AFAIK all 2nd gens have an ABS sensor on each rear wheel (as opposed to one reading a tone wheel on the diff carrier that'll only see a locked up rear end) and a brake hose from the ABS pump to each wheel cylinder. Only thing it should affect using a mechanical LSD on an auto-LSD truck is that it'll see the rear wheels spinning less often... it should be "dumb" to the mechanical aspect, same as having one with an open diff but never breaking traction.

 

I did that swap and had no issues for the few weeks I drove around before it got regeared. About your points:

TRD Off-Road e-locker rear axle is 8", non-e-locker rear axles from 6 lugs are 8.4.

Disconnect U-bolts, disconnect e-brake cable, unplug e-locker harness, disconnect brake lines(easier to remove soft lines than hard lines). The longest part was getting the brake lines figured out, they kept leaking. Make sure you have the proper brake line wrenches and just buy new flexible lines from one of the many sources around. Make sure both trucks have all the bolts ready to come off.

Most SR5's and TRD Sports from '05-'08 had the LSD rear, but you would need to run the VIN or look for the "LSD oil only" sticker to be sure. '09+ has the Auto-LSD.

I don't know of any differences between a 4WD and RWD rear axle, there shouldn't be any major differences as far as I've seen. Only the 5-lug rear axle is wildly different.

Pretty easy. Either should work, but with the prerunner you won't have concerns about matching the gear ratio front to rear but it might be a concern for the donor truck. I had already bypassed my ECU when I swapped so I didn't pay attention to that. With a prerunner that was only for the locker so it wouldn't even matter.

I swapped the e-locker axle out of my '11 OR for an 8.4 LSD SR5 axle from @rpkole '06. It's a pretty simple swap. You might be able to find someone willing to trade their LSD axle for the E-locker axle. There is a simple kit available to make the E-locker work away form the ECU.

 

Awesome information man, thank you! I spent 2 hours reading old threads here last night and was/still am confused. Someone had said the manual tranny driveshaft was slightly longer so that it may not work, but again I don't know if that's true.

Did you swap with a member here? Was it pretty much bolt on? Curious why you swapped, since most people want it the other way around. my homie is just wants the Sport rear end and has zero use for a locker.

Too bad EXT is in Texas, otherwise I would ask about his sweet axle swappin shop.

 

The drive shaft is a different size but the axle is in the same spot. Prerunners also have different size axles driveshafts due to the lack of a transfer case.

Yeah, I swapped with a local member when I was in TX. Nothing to complicated if you know your way around a wrench. We used a shop at work that had one lift and a pallet jack, both which made the job easier, but it could be done with jack stands and sweat. I swapped to get the larger rear end before I regeared and added Harrop E-lockers front and rear.

I'd recommend he post up in the most active local thread to him and see if he can find a taker. The pool is shrinking as those trucks are 10+ years old now but someone is around wishing they had a locker.

 

Just to clarify the only difference in a driveshaft for a manual tranny (talking v6 and 6 speed here) is the forward half of the driveshaft. The back half is the same length. The foward half differs by an inch or two.

Not relevant to this particular convo but wanted to share.

 

Both the 8.0 and the 8.4 have the same ring size. The 8.4 is not bigger. The "8.4" is not a size, but a designation that Toyota assigned to a version of the axle that has an internal brace that ties the bearing caps together. In theory it reduces bearing deflection under load, so it should be stronger. The best axle swap though is a Ford 9 inch.

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does that mean the length of the driveshaft doesn't matter, or does?
i was just thinking that also, these trucks are getting up there in age. So I assume the 2012-2015 axles would be different then as well.

 

So that means the axle from an auto should fit without modification?

 

Yeah

 

Driveshaft doesn't matter at all, should stay on the original truck.

 

Is the pre-tacoma the same size axle housing or something?