I am such an idiot and should have known better....last night I was in the middle of changing my companion flange seal in my rear dif and was prying it out. Well this is where my idiocy comes into play I was using the input shaft of the differential as a point of leverage when I heard a rather loud pop Now the input shaft has tons of play in it, I dont know what actually broke yet I was to disgusted with myself last night to continue on. Today when I get off work I will break (no pun intended) the dif down to see what I actually broke....this is gonna be an expensive mistake I am sure and of course this is coming on the heels of my new born daughter being realesed from the NICU and has several health problems...the hospital stay alone (2 months and a surgery with more to follow) which has already exceded over $10,000 out of my pocket, all money I dont have....fun times for sure

 

You might have just messed up the crush sleeve or the bearing. But you will have to take it all apart to find out. I highly doubt you broke a pinion gear or the ring gear.

 

Thats a little reasuring if it is "just" the crush sleeve or bearing how hard is it to replace?
I have a chiltons and it leaves a little to be desired....I wish I had a factory service manual

 

That I don't know, I have only had to replace the pinion seal on the diff. You will just have to get in there and see. You might have to have someone press off the bearing IIRC.

Search around here for the FSM. I believe that "ocdropzone" has a link to the FSM on his sig. line. Just search for him in the the advanced search feature and go from there.

 

Sorry...umm "FSM"? whats that?...........duh lol I got it

 

Ok everything was fine in the dif....my problem is any of the links for the FSM for my 88 are down....I have a chiltons but it does not have any info for the torque values for the "carrier bearings" or any procedures for reinstalling the gear sets into the carrier housing...any info would be appreiciated

 

www.ncttora.com/fsm

 

you might have just loosened up the bearing on the pinion shaft causing the pinion to be able to fall into the diff a little bit, causing the bearing cone to no longer be tight in the race it will wiggle up down and a little in and out. if it was me i would put the nut on and try to set the bearings before you put a new seal in.

 

thatnks for the attempt but the link for the 1988 4 runner does not work.

 

Figured all that out and I am way beyond that point. I pulled the gear set out of the diff. to make sure all was well but I cannot find info for the torque values on the carrier bearings or info on properly "setting" or aligning the ring gear with the pinion gear. need help someone.........

 

All 8" diffs are the same so any fsm will work.

 

What Brian said!

 

Awesome found the info I needed..thx

 

Nothing broke......you just didn't tighten the pinion nut up enough. What happened is as you were pushing the pinion end (threaded end) in, The tight fit on the outer pinion bearing "gave a little" and that allowed the pinion to get sucked in closer to the case. No biggie. That's why the companion flange seems to slop around now. So tighten up the nut one more full revolution(I assume you tightened it to make the indentations match each other).

edit----I didn't read the most recent responses....seems you already figured out that you're ok.

 

Upoun closer inspection the outer pinion bearing was toast, that wiped out the seal. The yoke had quite a nasty seal groove worn into it. Had to tear it down so it had to go to the gear shop.....200 bones for a new/used yoke, pinion nut, outer pinion bearing, and labor cost's involved with setting the lash and bearing depth. The FSM calls for a tolerance of + or - .001 for pinion depth, bearings have a tolerance of + or - .010 so this wasnt something I could just slap back together and expect it to be good.