Diamond in the rough
It's now a Diamond in the rough! I've completely rebuilt the differential cover on my 98' T4R. It looks great under Izzy's chassis, however, the rest of her cancerous chassis doesn't help to compliment her rear end.
A Little Background Info:
I got my T4R not too long ago. While it's been great, I can't just sit back looking at it. One day, I got under her and thought, geez there is a lot of rust on the diff cover, I should really do something about that. Out comes a flat blade screwdriver (* This is where everyone here starts to cringe* )
A few pokes and I figure ahh she looks a bit better. I can work with that. A day later, I have a look underneath and yes, as you all guessed. She is starting to slowly leak gear oil. Of course, I come to check out the forum and come to find out its a common issue on the older T4R's, my luck, and so Diamond in the rough begins.
Don't poke your rear end, don't look at it, don't think about it.....and you'll probably still have this leaking issue
Pulling the Rear End:
I got started removing the rear end. While there isn't a lot of work to get it out, there is a few concern area's where you can expect to have some bolts break. For example. I snapped 1 bolt for each sway bar mount. Some of the e-brake cable support bracket bolts broke and the upper shock bolts were both seized.
Jacked up and ready to go under the knife.
This is the start of the bolts breaking. This is just to the left (Drivers Side) of the diff cover. This is one of the e-brake cable support brackets.
I took some photos for reference. Due to the condition of this e-brake cable support bracket ill have to make a replacement.
These clips will need to be removed. This right side one was quite simple. The left side was seized and took a bit of work. These clips are the ends of the e-brake cable where they join the arm that goes into the rear brakes.
My initial intentions were to disconnect the rear brake line here for simplicity. Due to the condition of the line & block, I decided against it. I ended up removing the brake line which is located a good foot above the rear end above a chassis support piece.
Here you can see the bracket, just to the left of the container that holds the brake line. If I was to do this again I would probably look at replacing all of my brake lines from this bracket to the wheels. Mine is in rough shape. Its still working but I will be replacing it down the road.
I've got the brake line running into this container. I didn't have anything to plug this hard line with. I wish I did, however, I only lost about 3/8" worth of brake fluid which wasn't too bad at all from the reservoir.
I didn't want to piss around with the ABS sensor cables located up near the upper shock mounts. Instead, I removed them from the rear axle and hung them under the chassis out of the way. This will require removing the little clips. A few per sensor.
Lower shock bolts removed and shocks taken off the shaft.
End links disconnected. I got pretty lucky that I got both upper end links unbolted.
Drive shaft disconnected as well. I like putting bolts back where they came from for organization. I also just strapped the driveshaft out of the way with a ziptie. Keep it simple.
Panhard bar bolt removed. I ended up taking the bar right out of the truck to make things easier. This allowed me to inspect the bushings.
Trailing arms removed. I only took off the truck side of the trailing arm bolts. The rear end side was removed in the shop. Leaving the arms attached to the rear end housing actually helped in moving the housing.
I was a bit concerned with getting the rear springs out of the truck since I do not have a compression tool. Turns out I jacked up the chassis high enough that after letting the rear jack down. The springs were loose and I could pop them right out. Perfect!
Just about ready to come out. Next step was to lower the rear end. I left the upper trailing arm links attached. I used these to support the rear end and allow it to come down in an orderly fashion.
TOUCH DOWN! Rear end on the ground. Things were going pretty smooth up until this point. Things continued pretty smooth after this point although heavy manual labor was in my near future.....hmmm
Rear end removed.
Work smart. We put the rear end up on a garden cart and took it to the shop.
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