No-elocker to deal with for me. Great write up, I should be able to handle it.

I’m going to change the fluid in the next week or so and will look hard for metal glitter.

Thanks!

Drove the truck today, turning hard right and left to diagnose whether or not wheel bearing, no change. Pulled wheels and wiggled, also wiggled driveshaft, couldn’t feel any play. Changed fluid to Lucas 85W-140 per ECGS; was a few small flakes and some sludge on drain plug magnet, probably about a bb worth of material total (see pic), and could see a little glitter in the oil drain pan (this after 20,000 miles since last change with Mobil 1 75W-90LS). No change in whine with the heavier oil. Guess we will run it until it gets worse.

Took a few pics of the differential for when I need to order new third member; I think driveshaft connection is different from my 4WD 4Runner...

Dropbox - CJ 2006 4Runner RWD Differential - Simplify your life

The flange on a 2WD diff is different than that on a 4WD, on the 2WD it has sorta a harmonic balancer on it, which the 4WD doesn't.

Just curious as I'm no expert on differentials...Would putting it in neutral while driving change anything? The rear end is still rotating.

Yea I have no clue if it is from the differential. It actually goes away in 4wd which is also strange.


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Put the rear of the vehicle on jack stands. Let it idle in drive. Take a mechanics stethoscope and touch it to the axle housing under the wheel bearings and the pinion gear and other points too. You should be able to hear where the noise is coming from. Ours was unfortunately the differential bad.

Replaced the third member with a rebuilt from ECGS yesterday. Easy with the above linked instructions. Hardest was getting the new unit lined up and supported - heavy! And, unlike the above linked instructions, I disconnected the brake line and bled afterwards - easy and no problem pulling axles out enough.

And the best part - quiet as a church mouse now! I’ll follow their break instructions to ensure longevity. I can’t see any damage or wear on any of the old components, hopefully ECGS will let me know the cause to satisfy my curiosity...

Glad to hear you got it fixed, I'm guessing it's the pinion bearing that was causing your whine, I have a very similar whine as well but I'm going to wait until it gets worst to swap mine out, it's been about the same ever since I bought it almost 3 years ago.

I will be interested in hearing what they say is the actual issue on your old 3rd member, what did you end up paying, if you don't mind me asking?

That being said I hope you didn't use the 27 ft. lbs. for the torque on the axle backing plate nuts, I'm not sure what the actual proper torque is but if you read all the replies in that writeup you would have seen where he was questioned on this, and he thinks it's different for disk brakes and he has drum brakes, might want to check on that if you haven't already because from I read it could be much, much higher torque, around 97 ft. lbs. possibly.

Yeah, I went back through the service manual printouts and see 48 and 91 ftlbs from two different pages for the torque on the axle backing plate nuts. I think I torqued to 48 and added blue loctite. I think I’ll go back and redo to 91 ftlbs to be on the safe side...

I would do more research before retorquing, it's just as bad to over torque to much, in this case as you're saying almost twice the torque at 91 ft. lbs. and the backing plate bolts may not handle that much torque, if that's incorrect and it's actully 48 ft. lbs. you risk the bolts breaking under stress.

I'm not sure why you would find 2 different torque values out of a Toyota shop manual, something isn't quite right there.