hosh

I was driving down the turnpike when i suddenly lost power to the rear wheels.

I had to put it in 4wheel drive. (Front wheel drive!?) To get off the turnpike.

In 2 wheel drive and in first it wont move but will register speed. It will only move in 4wheel drive. It made a grinding noise for a lttle bit after the loss of power.
Could this be an output shaft or is the transfer case toast?


Edit: found the problem. Its the diff.

MudHippy

Not if the VSS is still working. And/or you still have power transmission to the front axle in 4WD.

Have you bothered to stick your head under there and have a look see?

Sounds to me like you've got a rear prop shaft problem. As in, you sheared the splines that connect the front section to the center bearing/flange. Or something to that effect. Like maybe the center bearing grenaded/seized? Anyway, what you're looking to check for is a solid connection between the front and rear sections of the rear prop shaft(driveshaft). And I guess to see if the front section is still connected to the t-case rear output flange. In theory, those bolts(studs actually) could have sheared.

donomite49

transfer case or rear diff.

MudHippy

Ummm...how? Care to explain?

Because right now, that makes almost no sense at all(if any). Let's try and help this guy shall we? And not jump straight to a bunch of half-ass conclusions based on little to no knowledge of how the drivetrain in his vehicle actually functions.

hosh

Actually, after i posted i went out and moved it and listened to where the noise was coming from and it is the diff.

I will post a pick in a min. The pinion is at a weird angle. So at the very least its a bad bearing.

At the time it gave i was doing 70 mph down the highway.

hosh

MudHippy

Sheared the pinion is more like it.

Not a very common occurance. Never heard of such a thing happening myself. But judging from the lack of gear oil dripping from the rear 3rd member/axle housing, I'm going to conclude that there wasn't ANY in there. Which would more than explain how it happened.

But whos fault might that be?

hosh

Most definitely mine. I haven't checked it in months. I've been watching the rear main seal leak on the engine. So the whole underside has been soaked.

I cleaned the undercarriage a couple of weeks ago and haven't really seen much oil at the back.
Guess it was already empty.

MudHippy

Had to quench my curiosity. So I searched the terms "sheared pinion". Got 17 posts total with those terms present(out of how many posts on this site? We're @ over a million now in case you don't know). Out of those 17, there's 2 posts with the author stating having sheared all the teeth off of the pinion gear in the rear diff, and 3 posts with the author stating having actually sheared the pinion gear in the rear diff(as in the shaft presumably). 1 of the 3 pinion gear shafts sheared that are mentioned wasn't even an OEM/Toyota pinion gear, but a Richmond.

So, that tends to support it being a VERY uncommon event in a Toyota rear diff/axle. And in fact, is practically unheard of.

Kind of thing happens to J**ps on a daily basis though...

And that's no joke.

Sooooo...good guess there donomite49!!! And a VERY lucky one at that!!! Maybe you should go buy a lotto ticket before the luck wears off?

Having driven my rig home in FWD only on 2 seperate occasions due to rear prop shaft failure...I had to place my bets where they had a reasonable chance of paying off. But, like I said, a transfer case failure WAS NEVER EVEN in the game. That much was totally obvious.

ThatGuy1295

I wonder how far it went with no oil..

I once blew up my honda 110 by putting rocks, salt, pepsi, water, sand, and glue in the engine case and duct taping the throttle pined in neutral. It ran for 2 hours at 9,000 rpms then it EXPLODED, not kidding BOOM!!

Not sure why I did that,,,

ThatGuy1295

What is a donomite49

Is it like a harbor freight version of dinomight?

hosh

A little better lighting. Not as dry as it looked.

Luvmeye22re

Well at least you have an FJ40 to romp around in.... Rear diffs aren't too hard to come by, keep your eyes peeled on CL, some people have no clue what the stuff is worth and sell it for cheap, some want gold.

Props on the FJ40, I had an FJ60 a while back and it was a tank with a 2" lift and 33's. Wish I could afford a 40 but the only ones in my price range are usually found in a desolate field somewhere and have no quick hope of running

hosh

The fj40 has no engine or drive shafts. It fell in my price range and is my future project.