4RUNNERTMAN

I was at a light today when I heard a loud noise coming from the rear of my 4Runner and when I pressed on the gas it wold not move. Felt like a bump in he rear of the unit when it happened. I had a fella stop and help me out and he thinks it s the rear end that went out? rear differential or maybe the pinion gear broke or malfunctioned. He had me put it into 4wd low and I was able to drive it home about a mile or so which I am hoping did not do any further damage. He said the rear passenger side tire was wobbling. I tried awhile after I got home to move it intot he driveway and now the passenger rear tire is seized up and just drags. Any help with what you think it might be would be much appreciated and what the cost should be for fixing it if its the real diff or just the pinion gear etc. Thanks

I have a 97 Limited with 4wd and no abs on rear with 16inch tires.

Nelsonmd

That doesn't sound good. You could check the brakes to make sure they didn't just lock up, but that doesn't really sound like what you have. Assuming it's not the brakes, I would say pull the axles out and check for damage to the splines. If yes, then you know it was your diff, if no, then you have to keep looking. Either way, you should then pull the diff and take a look.

Jomoka

Sounds more like stuck brakes to me. Maybe a spring broke and a shoe is flopping against the drum and 'self engaging'.

Could be the diff too, a seized bearing. If the diff has been dry the bearings will self destruct. But the typical failure mode there isn't stiffness (they're roller bearings), but rather noisy grinding destruction. And as they do that they get lots of 'clearance', which can lead to destruction of the gear teeth. But noisy, clunking, grinding, popping.

In either case, first step toward taking the diff out is taking the drums off. Take those off, I suspect you'll see shens inside one of them.

4RUNNERTMAN

As I was driving it home the guy followed me and said the rear passenger side tire had a wobble in it that he could see from being behind me if that helps any? right now Its parked on the street in front of the house so not sure how I am going to move it into the driveway so I can get into this thing. Like I said the rear tire passenger side is now locked up and just slides on the asphalt when I tried to move it.

Jomoka

Ah, was that not in the original post? Changes the diagnosis some.

Sounds like a disintegrated wheel bearing now. At the very least. The drum may be riding up on the brake shoes and helping bind it.

When that happens, it's entirely possible for the whole wheel and axle to slide on out of the axle housing.

Still not likely to be the differential itself, just the bearing/brake (possibly), axle shaft (possibly) and worst case, axle housing itself.

Take the wheel and rum off, and take pics of the carnage.

Have you heard any rumbling from back there? The bearing may have been complaining for a bit before it let loose completely like that.

4RUNNERTMAN

Yes I have had some noise/clunking sound coming from the rear. What was happening is when I put it in gear (drive) it felt like the parking break was on, like something was holding it back. I would fiddle with it for a bit, going from park to drive and it either would release and be fine or make a clunking noise and then release. I thought it was coming from the drivers side rear and maybe was rear axle seal giving out and leaking oil onto the rear shoe and thus causing it to seize or freeze up as some other on here have described. I cleaned the whole brake assemble on that side which actually looked dry and just dusty/dirty and it seemed to stop so I thought all was good. Should have checked the other side it sounds like.

justin_4runner

when u say wobbling it makes me think that the bolts that hold the tire on came loose or u ur axle bearing has gone and letting the tire pull out of the 3rd member and this u have open diff and it would not move the car since one axle was not in the diff. if that makes since. jack up the car and start poking around

4RUNNERTMAN

Ok just backed it up into driveway in 4wd Low and the rear tire was not dragging. I took it out of 4wd low while in neutral and put it into 4wd high and then went to 2wd and when I put it into park made a weird loud noise kinda scared me! and in park will not hold, had to put on the parking brake of she would have rolled down the driveway. ??

Jomoka

Well that sounds downright bad. Sounds like an axle shaft has either pulled out of the diff, or has broken.

Is the wheel poking out notiecably?

Pull off the wobbling wheel and drum, see what the bearing retainer looks like.

Be prepared to take off the brake line (golf tee to plug the brake line to stop it from draining out is nice), and pulling off the backing plate and pulling out the whole axle shaft.

4RUNNERTMAN

Rear Diff is blown, bent axle, leaking, etc etc. Whole rear end needs replacing. UPdate: Maybe not!

Now trying to figure out what the gear ratio is. Anybody got any suggestions? I have seen on here a couple of different charts but members are claiming they are not accurate. Any tried and true way way to know for sure? Can't turn the rear wheel and count drive shaft rotations as the drive shaft is just spinning freely. Also got a price on a complete rear axel housing from a 2000 4runner with only 71000 miles on it for $500. Does that sound fair? It has the 4.30 gear ratio so I hope that is what I need. Thanks

justin_4runner

yeah u can spin the tire and count rotations, but u should also be able to look on the door sticker and it should have a code on there of what it was shipped out of the dealer with.

sebastianholmes

you gotta pull the axle anways so just open it up, count the teeth on the ring gear, and divide that by the teeth on the pinion to get your ratio

Jomoka

And take pics. It would be interesting to see what exactly happened.

4RUNNERTMAN

Here is what i found on or about door stickers:
I have AO3A code on my sticker so according to the chart below at
http://www.brian894x4.com/Gearratiosanddiffs.html
I have a 4.10 gear ratio but I also found this chart where I have model #
VZN185L-GKPZK on my door sticker
http://www.sonoransteel.com/includes...aGearRatio.pdf
which shows I have a 4.30 gear ratio because my 4Runner came with P265/70R16 the 16 inch tires, that's why its confusing


That's a good point providing the numerous fragments are countable!

Everyone loves to see a wreck , I guess that's why Nascar is so popular! I will try and get some so maybe we can see what happened and more importantly why!

Nelsonmd

Do this. You have to disassemble anyway.

And hence why I and others have repeatedly said, "don't go by axle code and online charts". Brian's site is very inaccurate.

Do yourself a favor and just take the diff out and count the teeth. It is so much better to be sure of what you are looking for than to have the lingering doubt when dropping $500.

4RUNNERTMAN

I have a really good mechanic on it and he almost got the chunk opened up tonight, just a nasty bolt on top hanging us up so a overnight soak in PBB and we should be able to get a look inside. He pulled the axles and said they look fine so maybe will not need a rear assembly after all. Thanks all for your help and will try and get some pics up asap!