millball

If it's still got play, it's probably gonna give you trouble, sooner than later.

If it was mine, I'd continue to tighten it by dribs and drabs til the play was just gone, and try to run it to see what happens, but I wouldn't be optimistic.

I wouldnt take a road trip with it. Good luck.

coryc85

artemyk - read this: https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f120.../#post52188520

You can probably do exactly what millball says, just tighten a bit at a time to see if you can get that play out of there. According to ZUK, re-crushing the crush sleeve is fine, but you need to slowly do and make sure you can turn the pinion each time. Normally of course ZUK does it with the third member out, so when it's installed in the truck I really have no idea how you would know by feel when you are even close to the right preload. I think at this point you can't hurt things worse than they already are, so try to snug it up slowly and see how it goes.

artemyk

So I might be able to fix it by tightening the pinion flange more?

millball

MIGHT is the operative word. You have nothing to lose.

Charchee

I have almost no doubt you wrecked that bearing when that happened. How could it not have been damaged when you tried to pole vault your runner. If you have driven it a few miles, pull your magnetic plug and I bet you find some shinies. Are you running your old shaft. If so, find or order a new one. That shaft is 30 years old and you just stressed it to an unreal degree. Your u-joints took a beating as well. If you didn't change them, you are going to. Believe me. I have spent over $8000 of the boss's money replacing u-joints (five times), gearbox, and parking brake assembly on a tree cutter that had a shaft drop a year ago. It looks absolutely fine but there is zero doubt that it is the reason every component attached to it has failed since. He doesn't agree but he writes the checks.

Sounds like you are game to dive in and work on your rig so you can do that pinion bearing but it's not necessarily a beginner level project. Changing the third member itself out with a used one is not a bad chore. You just have to be sure you get one with the same gear ratio. Toyota used that same third for many, many years so it won't be hard to find but, like I said, get one with the same gears. You can likely find one for a couple hundred. I sold the complete rears, all the way to the drums, from of my parts trucks for $150 and $225. Let us know if you aren't sure how to tell which gears you have.

As others have stated, you got real lucky. If you trashed your whole rear end, you still got lucky. I've got an 8 year old little boy that loves to ride in mine so I just went out and put a lock out tag on both my 4Runner's steering wheels with a note to check my drive shaft bolts. I've had all four of my shafts out in the last six months and haven't re-torqued the bolts yet.

Charchee

Seems I missed the second page of this thread. If your rear end seal wasn't leaking before the vault, then it's leaking because the bearing gave way and allowed the seal to be crushed/deformed by the impact. If you are feeling vibration back there with a new shaft installed, you MUST stop and inspect that bearing or at least the rear end oil. Tightening the yoke, in this case, is only going to load up that bad bearing and create a ton of heat/debris/additional issues with your rear axle assembly as a whole.

artemyk

A quick update --- I removed the drive shaft and took a look at my pinion nut. The pinion nut was completely loose, I could have removed it by hand probably. It turns out my torque wrench was way off (tested it with some cinder blocks on a lug nut), so it was not torqued to spec... and the staking did not hold it in place either. I'm buying a new torque wrench, will retighten everything, stake the hell out of it, and hope there is no vibration on the highway.

I did change my rear diff oil and I did not see any metallic stuff in the oil. Unfortunately forgot to look carefully at the drain plug.

@Charchee, unfortunately I only now saw your last two posts, but that is very useful. Thanks greatly. BTW, I'm working with a new-to-me (but used) drive shaft I got off ebay. Seems to be in pretty good shape, the u-joints especially.