2004 tundra double cab rear axle

I need to replace my whole rear axle on 04 tundra double cab 2wd. What is compatible with it?

 

The whole rear axle from another 2WD 2004 Tundra DoubleCab*.

 

I could be wrong but you can probably go with any rear axle from 2000-2006

 

Ultimately, with it being 2WD and thus no need to match rear gearing to front gearing, OP could go with anything that would (A) mate nicely with the current driveshaft and (B) have the same general end-to-end width and have compatible braking stuff, and lug pattern.

It just struck me as an odd question - hence the sarcastic reply - because, if you don't realize this, I suspect you may not know enough about rear ends to do the work, and should probably just stick in the ballpark you're already playing.

Plenty of salvage yards within a 1hr-ish radius of most of us will have a matching-year 2WD complete rear-end.

 

As funny as it is, it's probably the most sound advice and will get him back on the road quicker. Others that have swapped 2WD/4WD rear axles report the pinion flanges need to be swapped out.

04 DCs also come with a 4.10 gear ratio compared to 3.91 on the 05-06, so he might lose a little pep with one of those.

AC axles are about 2" narrower too.

 

Im having a hard time finding the same yr truck to do the swap and wondered if I could use the rear end off a 2wd Tacoma or sequoia and if so what years would match?

 

If you can weld, you should be able to use a sequoia rear, but i dont know about the pinion flange.

 

As stated before the DC trucks have a wider axle that I believe is specific just to them. Sequoia axles have coil springs instead of leaf springs so you have to weld the leaf spring mounts to it.

Good thing is you have 2wd so you don't have to worry about matching front and rear axle ratios.

What's the reasoning for replacing? Rust or is the differential making noise?

 

Grab a photo of the diff flange. I’m pretty sure the diffs have a different flange if 2wd.

 

What's the reason for replacing? If it's because the diff is blown out or making noise, you can swap out just the differential. Junk yards might refer to the part you need as the carrier assembly or third member.

Swapping out just the differential will be a bit less labor. When swapping a whole axle, you'll have to think about bleeding the brakes, buying new u-bolts, maybe replacing axle seals, stuff like that.

 

Can you use a 2004 access cab rear end axle for the 2004 double cab rear?

 

The back started making a noise. Found out I need to change the bearings . Then the seals I guess broke and leaked everywhere. So need to change the whole thing.

 

The outboard wheel bearings? I actually had this exact same thing happen. What might have happened is your inner axle seals blew and the gear oil got into the wheel bearings. The bearings are sealed, but gear oil can still work it's way in and break down the bearing grease and destroy the bearings. It doesn't warrant a full complete replacement of the axle, but I could understand why you might do it.

If it's just the wheel bearings that were destroyed, your differential and axle is still okay. There's ways to go about remedying this with out replacing the whole axle.

 

How hard was it to get the bearings off and back on? Originally that’s the route I was going for but seemed like doing the bearings on the the tundra was more tricky then other trucks…

 

So that's where going to a machine shop will come in. Unless you have a shop press yourself, there are some shade-tree mechanic ways on YouTube that look a bit tricky. The axle shaft will need to be completely separated from the wheel hub.

I pulled the axles out of the truck myself, took my own parts to the machine shop and they disassembled and reassembled everything for me. At home, I cleaned the axle housing, drained the fluid, changed the inner seals, then put the axles back in once the machine shop had them ready.

One of the things that makes pressing the bearings tricky is that the ABS tone ring has to be pressed on to a certain specification. The machine shop I went to was familiar with it.

 

I feel like @bmf4069 had a sketch situation with this one, and that was possibly the kicker? The place that pressed the bearings wasn't familiar and did it incorrectly. I feel like PHM had a similar stupid issue.

Anyway, point being, @des2mtn is on point as usual, heed his advice. Some parts of this aren't too difficult, but for the pressing part, find a shop that's familiar with it, you don't want to be like others who didn't know that memo was there to miss.

 

Access cab axle is not wide enough.

This is what we did with my FIL's 1st gen AC when it needed a new axle housing due to rust. Took the axles out then took new bearings and backing plates to an auto shop in town and they pressed on new. His truck doesn't have ABS though and I know that's one of the main issues is getting it put back on in the right spot.

Really depends on how much work you can do on your own. If you can do most the work and just take the axles somewhere then it would be more cost effective to just do that. I can also see how a new axle entirely would be less work but maybe more money. Really just depends if you can find a double cab axle.

 

Thank you all! New to the thread so not sure how to tag. I’ll try take the bearings to the shop unless I can find the right axle before then.

 

Yeah, I'm having to do it again.

I'd recommend buying your own press and doing it yourself. Timmy the toolman has an excellent video on it.

 

Not to mention, if you buy a complete axle assembly and you just swap it out without using your old parts or new ones all together, you might be dealing with someone else's questionable axle or shoddy parts. The replacement axle could have a worn diff or wheel bearings that are just as bad.

 

Make sure it's LSD as well, I had to get mine done and it took several days of driveshaft speciality shop searching online for decent one, ended up getting a used one shipped from AZ to LA with 60k on it, for around $400 I think, was a decade ago ,final bill with labor was around $750. Now 10 years later it would be nowhere near that cheap. If the price of goods keep going up with inflation they should start thinking about printing $500 and $1000 dollar bills at some point

 

Most LSDs at this point are near useless, at least the factory clutch style, The clutches wear out with time. Most everyone I know that has the LSD has never bothered to service and replace the clutch pack in them, since the parts are expensive.