A few years ago I scrapped a truck and made a trailer from the frame and bed. I never went into the differential to make it a "free wheeling' trailer. Needless to say I've just been hauling around the rear end of a truck. My '85 five speed did not seem to have any trouble but my '96 Tacoma doesn't like the load.
I drained the gear oil and then removed the nuts and washers on the front of the diff but it won't turn loose so I can access the gears. Do I need to remove one of the axels to free the diff gears? Or is there something else I need to do?
Any help would be appreciated!

 

Your axle is not a full float. That's why you can not disconnect the axles from the diff. To remove the diff yes you need to pull both axleshafts.

 

Thanks for the reply!
So, I noticed that there is a plate with 4 bolts on each end of the diff body. Do I need to remove the bolts, slide the axels out and then remove the spyder gears?
After that, reassemble to make it "free wheeling".
If not, I would appreciate the process to make it free wheel.
Thanks in advance for your help.

 

That's a good question. I've never heard of anyone pulling the spider gears to make an axle FF.

You can buy a full float conversion, though..
http://frontrangeoffroadfab.com/nfos...c9537f5f56cae2

 

What plate?

 

Sounded like the flange on the end of the axle. The one that the hub bolts too.

 

Were you able to get the third broke loose from the housing? It should come loose without pulling the shafts but you can't remove it totally. Sometimes they really glue themselves to the housings. You only have to pull the shafts out about 3 inches to be able to pull the third clear out.

 

I haven't tried to pull the axles yet. I was out of town last weekend. The third came free from the rear housing with no problem but would only move away about 1/4 inch. That is why I assumed that something else had to be removed to free it completely. Fom the info I have received I am thinking that I may be able to remove some or all of the gears to make the rear end "free wheel". If that is not the case then perhaps I should just put it back together and live with the poor gas mileage when towing the trailer. Any more information/insight would be appreciated!

 

there are tons of truck bed trailers out there with the third in there still...if it is starting to cause your truck to drag, might be something going wrong in there with the third like bad bearings...it still needs 90W in there to lube the pinion etc.

The diff housing is still needed to support the inner axles. removing just the Ring gear would probably work to make the third move a little easier....just make sure you mark the carrier bearing sides to make sure you don't mix them up from left to right.

mark the carrier bearings on either side of the third L/R, remove the diff, undo the 8-10 bolts to remove the ring gear. reinstall the diff, making sure you don't cross thread the carrier bearings...

gearinstalls.com

 

Thanks for all of the advice.
I successfully removed the ring gear and after 2 busted knuckles in the process got it back together. I suppose there has to be at least one bolt that won't come loose.
Hopefully all is well. I made the mistake of removing the bearing yokes. After much aggrevation I was able to line up the threads and screw in the "bearing adjusters" (for lack of the proper term). I tightend them as evenly as possible to remove all of the slack in the spider assembly. I put about a quart and 4 ounces of gear oil in the diff but none is running out yet. I suppose I should buy another quart and add until it runs out of the fill plug hole. I could not find the amount of oil it was supposed to hold so I guess the "fill it till it runs out" process is the best way to determine how much to put in.
Again, thanks for all of the help and advice!

 

For next time, you're supposed to mark the bearing adjusters relative to the caps. Perhaps because there is no load you'll get away with it. I'd probably just leave the full third in there or buy a trailer tube axle.

Can't figure out why your '85 with 127 hp would be better at pulling than the lighter Tacoma with more power unless you've put larger tires than stock on the Taco. Otherwise, something is wrong with your Taco (like it being an automatic).

 

The axle should take about 3 quarts.