Which solid rear pinion spacer: Trail Gear or ?

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07-05-2018, 11:35 AM

leid

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Which solid pinion spacer kit: Trail-Gear/ECGS/Low Range/Nitro-Gear/ or ?

Hey guys,
While I have the '97 V6 Tacoma 4X4 up on jack stands replacing axle bearings/seals, I might as well set the rear pinion up with a solid spacer. The Trail-Gear V6 solid spacer kit (140060-1-KIT) looks like a good one to me but thought I would ask before ordering it. Thoughts? TIA!

EDIT: I might as well consider installing a solid spacer on the front pinion if a kit is available. I don't see a Trail-Gear kit for the Tacoma 7.5" IFS front "clam-shell" diff. But it looks like Low Range (TDI-7.5-SPS), and maybe ECGS (SS-T7.5) & Nitro-Gear have kits for the front pinion. Anybody installed a solid spacer kit on the Tacoma front pinion? If so, what kit did you use? TIA!

Last edited by leid; 07-05-2018 at 05:59 PM.

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07-06-2018, 08:01 AM

fierohink

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Curious what your reasoning is behind switching to a solid spacer? I know they have less deflection and hold the pinion bearing preload spec longer as they aren’t intended to crush. Are you seeing signs of differential slop? Plus that’s a lot of tear down to get to for a rather benign part. You have to reshim everything to restore your depth pattern and set preload.

Read through some of the builds Zuk has done over at gearinstalls.com. I think he’ll install solid spacers on request or specified extreme duty applications. if this is a daily driver, I think you’re over engineering the wrong parts.

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07-06-2018, 09:35 AM

leid

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This Tacoma has seen 100 days a year off-road in an extremely muddy environment for almost 20 years now. It has been an excellent off-road truck compared to the Cheve/Dodge/Jeep 4x4s we have used in the same environment thru the decades. Retiring next week so will at least double my off-road time. The wet sand-mud environment at my place over in MS is unbelievably hard on the seals; one of the hardest environments I have seen on equipment this side of salt water. Xfer case seals are easy to change because they don't use a crush sleeve. Neither do the pinions on the older Toyota trucks some of my buddies have. Want to do away with the need to set pinion bearing pre-load when changing a seal. Truck is up on jack stands changing all the running gear seals & wheel/axle bearings now in preparation for increased usage. Machine shop just called and they finished pressing the new Koyo bearings into the knuckles. The inner seal leaked and quickly destroyed a wheel bearing during my last 30 consecutive day off-road adventure. It is a constant battle to prevent water/mud from getting past the seals. Should be pretty easy to set the pinion bearings up with solid spacers now. If all else fails, I can put in a new crush sleeve spacer I carry with spare pinion seals. Not my first rodeo but I know my limits. Zuk will get the nod when I need to rebuild the diffs. Thanks for posting!

EDIT: Nitro-Gear & Low-Range do have solid spacer kits for both the front & rear diffs on this '97 V6 Tacoma.

Last edited by leid; 07-06-2018 at 09:59 AM.

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07-06-2018, 11:32 AM

fierohink

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You have definitely posed a need. I think marlin may also sell a solid sleeve. Please don’t take my question as a slight. I hope you get your rig set-up for easy service and long use. I wanted to make sure you were doing the work and upgrade for a good cause and not because you read about them in a magazine.

Good luck on your rebuild. 👍🏼

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