I've been reading up on replacing the halfshafts in the front of my 92 4runner, and IIRC, this can be done with the steering knuckle & brakes left fully attached, and by basically removing the 6 bolts at the diff and the circ- clip on the outer end of the shaft, as long as the suspension angle is correct, everything should slide right out. Now my questions are these-

1.) assuming the circ clip is off, could this be done with the wheel on the vehicle and NOT jacked up, or would the 54mm nut and washer behind it need to come out too if I'm not planning on redoing the bearings?

2.) I can only guess that the purpose of everything being lined up would be to ease removal of the bolts from the diff side?

I know this is well worn territory, but i've seen everything from (more or less) doing it like I'm talking about, to removing everything aft of the knuckle, to removing the knuckle as well.

Any practical help or suggestions would be appreciated.

 

I myself would want the wheel off your going to need the room

Disconnect the sway bar or remove it if your doing both sides

Your going to need to support your differential I am not sure if you can get the driveshaft out with jacking the differential up I always do.

Jack up the lower control arm.

I have the vehicle supported by jack stands on the frame

 

ok, so all of that is pretty straight forward, I just replaced the shift solenoids and had the sway bar out for that, so it should be cooperative. What about the 54mm nut? there are no threads on the end of the new half shaft, so i'm lead to beleive that has nothing to do with actually retaining the shaft.

 

Correct, you just have worry about the gold bolt, some spacers/washers, and the snapring under the hub

 

The 54mm nut does NOT come out. Once the circlip is off and the nuts holding the tulip end to the diff flange are off, you can pull the half-shaft out. http://personal.utulsa.edu/~nathan-b...15componen.pdf

You don't NEED to remove the stabilizer (sway) bar, but it will give you a lot more room and it's pretty easy to remove. Not like messing with the ball joints, etc.

The trick with removing the half-shaft with the wheels still on is removing the "flange." If you have alloy wheels, the flange is recessed into the wheel hub. If you're very lucky, you'll remove the nuts holding the flange, the cone washers will just wiggle right out, and then you can pull out the flange (you need to do this to get to the circlip). If you're as lucky as everyone else, you'll need to tap the side of the flange with a plastic-head hammer to get the cone washers loose, and you can't do that with the wheel still on.

(PS before you tap the flange to loosen the cone washers, put the nuts back on two turns. Otherwise, the washers will shoot out at the muzzle velocity of a Glock .45)

I can't tell you the engineering reason for the need to line everything up, but I can assure you that it is a requirement. Put the truck up on jack stands, and use a jack to move the rotor up and down -- you'll see for yourself.

Have fun!

 

nice. lol

Seems I've got what i need, Thanks guys!

 

Why not just remove 4 more 14mm bolts on each side to disconnect the lower ball joint? .....

 

Also to make life easier, once you have the cv shafts out knock out the studs on the differential (use an air hammer). Then either grind the splines off of them or replace with grade 8 bolts and lock nuts. This will allow you to swap an axle in about 20-30min on the trail, maybe less if you are good.

I did this on my first Runner and will do on this one once I get to it.