Freeway driveline failure + aftermath

[Lavender Steel]

Found a salvage yard tranny with 150k miles, including bellhousing, clutchfork, and wiring that was damaged. After pricing out a new bellhousing, input shaft, bearing, retainer plate, and labor to have a shop do the press work it was only a bit more to just buy the junk yard trans, and a lot less time on my part. Picked up a rear driveshaft at the same yard and got a warranty on both

I got a clutch kit and ujoints from Napa, and other bits from Toyota. Here's what I'm into this ordeal so far:

$95 Driveshaft Assy, Rear: Salvage (37110-3D300)
$550 Transmission (W59): Salvage (33030-3D420, Bellhousing 31111-35070)
$0 Clutch fork boot: Salvage (31126-26020)
$44 U-joints, Front: Napa (P285, 04371-35050)
$240 Clutch: Napa (NCF 1116090)
$28 Rear main seal: Toyota (90311-88003)
$49 Clutch Slave Cyl: Toyota (31470-35130)
$28 Flywheel bolts (10): Toyota (90910-02116)
$60 Redline MT90 trans/transfer fluid
$40 Oil change after rear main seal replacement
$42 Flywheel resurface
$1098 total (so far)

Picked up the new transmission, who says a 40 isn't practical?

Driveshafts match up

I managed to get the pilot bearing out with a 2" M8(?) bolt and a single end piece of whole grain bread, but YMMV

Definitely paying a shop to replace u joints next time, these were no where near as easy for me as they have been on older jeeps/cruisers

 

[Scramble]

Good to know. I have yet to read about anyone successfully doing this but good to know it can be done. Thanks. Any links to anyone who has had luck with it?

Because no one has done it successfully. If you look up the 3 big DC joint threads there's talk about getting the SS ball from someone's Mother's Great Aunts 1963 Corvair but no one has done it. LOL

Easiest way is to buy a custom shaft from Tom Woods or Highline & upgrade to 1310 (or larger) u-joints & then you can get the parts from any store if you need to re-build in the future. Tom Woods Gold u-joints are only $20 & guaranteed for life.

 

[MStudt]

Good to know. I have yet to read about anyone successfully doing this but good to know it can be done. Thanks. Any links to anyone who has had luck with it?

I've replaced DC many times in the past. There's an order to the pressing for it to work correctly. You can find some good videos on YouTube for it.

Mike

 

[Lavender Steel]

Update on the state of the DC joint. U joints appear fine. Ball appears to be ... less fine

 

[Unner]

Thanks for the inspiration to throw some grease on my driveshafts this weekend. I do mine frequently though, as I'm sure you will now too!

Sorry that it happened, at least you can fix it all yourself though. That'd be an expensive job at a shop.

 

[Lavender Steel]

My shifter bushing (right) vs the junkyard tranny (left). I wasn't experiencing any difficulty shifting but who knows how much longer that bushing had to live

If you're having trouble with your cheapo plastic clutch alignment tool, an easy fix is to violently break off the input shaft of your old transmission at highway speed and use that

 

[Chuckles89]

Holy crap! I finally got around to replacing my driveshaft with a Tom Woods several months ago after my OEM one vibrating and having everything loose (DC joint, slip yoke, and rear U-Joint) on it for about a year eep:

 

[revenantdead]

Pro tip of the year

If you're having trouble with your cheapo plastic clutch alignment tool, an easy fix is to violently break off the input shaft of your old transmission at highway speed and use that

 

[midcoma]

I'm also in this club. Happened to me about 7 years ago in my Tacoma. 2.7L 5spd. Truck had 227,026 miles on it with original driveshaft.

I was on the highway around 2am with the cruise control set at 70mph. Loud noise, obvious loss of power. Put the clutch to the floor and moved over to the shoulder. When I got there the clutch pedal stayed on the floor. Got out and looked above the skids and saw a huge crack in the bellhousing.

Luckily it happened 11 miles from a dealership. Had it towed there and took the skid plates off in their parking lot to speed things up in the morning. Slept in the standard cab (really sucked) until they opened. I was 2.5 hours from home and 3 hours from my current station, so I didn't have many options. Ended up having Toyota replace the transmission with a new unit. The good news is that mine was so damaged they didn't want it as a core.

My damage was slightly less than yours. Broken bellhousing and tail housing on the transmission. Was running a BudBuilt clocking ring at the time and that was also damaged. The internals of my transmission were fine and I've assembled them into a new case to test it and it still works perfectly. No damage to the engine mounting points.

I narrowed it down to the DC joint as well. When that seized all the torque had to go somewhere. Definitely an expensive lesson.

Good luck with the repairs.

 

[Lavender Steel]

Been a crazy couple of weeks. I got the junkyard driveshaft in and still had a noticeable vibration at 45+ mph. With the rear shaft out and the truck in 4WD the vibration was gone; no problem I thought, this shaft has 250K+ miles there's no reason the DC isn't failing in this one as well.

Luckily my "local drive line shop" happens to be Tom Wood's customs

Great service over there and they had my driveshaft ready for local pick-up next day!

Well I get the new $400 driveshaft in and my vibration is still there. Huh. I did something I should have done many steps ago and got under the truck and shook the holy hell out of the shaft to see if anything moves - sure enough there is noticeable play in the transfer case output...

Not exactly good news but I am way too far down this rabbit hole to be stopped by a transfer case. Looks like it's coming back out :frog: