Mechanics Special 05 DC Refresh

Yeah, I have a love hate relationship with these old Toyotas They do run forever, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need love here and there.

In my drive way (Toyota wise)
85’ pickup
88’ Runner
99’ Taco 3RZ
06’ Tundra
07’ Sequoia

 

Meme thief! (We're gonna ignore the fact I stole it from @Darkness, it's mine now.)

But yeah, I drive a 2nd gen for work. It's not bad, but I'd rather have my 1st gen any day.

 

New driveshaft was installed along with new, appropriate 66mm companion flange day before thanksgiving. Running smooth around town with no issues, picked up our Christmas tree with it the other day.

Ran truck up to Tallahassee ~300mi today for a "confidence run", all went well until getting off the exit and the freaking muffler fell out from under the thing when I was getting off my exit on i10.

Rode as smooth as can be expected from a 19yo truck with 255k miles, driveshaft/pinion flange worked well. Muffler pipe disconnected at the union/clamp between muffler and resonator. Clamp was nowhere to be found, guessing it fell off somewhere during the drive. Ordered cheapo resonator-back exhaust and clamp from the jungle website to be delivered later this week. Will be a long loud ass drive home tomorrow.

Now I'm not even pissed off, I'm just laughing at the situation and look at it like a challenge. Gonna fix all this stupid shit and not let it beat me.

Oh, also have a power steering fluid leak. Looks like it's up at the reservoir or its lines. Have added about 3/4qt in ~700mi. No drips or puddles on the ground. Have to chase that down. It has the stupid slotted screw clamps on the reservoir, clearly not OEM so I ordered some spring clamps to replace them today. Hoses look new so hoping thats it.

 

Stinks these new issues are popping up. The mechanic that “inspected it” for you may have been asleep at the wheel. A good attitude and willingness to repair these issues yourself will go along way. At least you got into it at a price point that some repairs are not driving you up beyond its value.

 

I have to upload some more pictures of the truck here just haven't taken enough, but the interior really is in great shape (better even than my wifes old 02 Florida-only Sequoia) and has all the Limited bells and whistles. Passenger side had some cheap body work and respray but still looks good from 20' away. The truck badly needs a level, which I plan on doing, and has a serious Tundra Lean, but other than that is a good looking truck.

I'm still under $7500 invested even after the exhaust purchase tonight and the $200 aftermarket rear bumper sitting in my garage waiting to be installed (OEM one on there has some bumps and bruises). I don't want to spend much more any time soon, but still feel OK about about where I'm at. Cherry Florida double cabs, even 2WD are asking 10k or more around me right now. I doubt they'll get it here, but they're asking.

There's a 1G 2wd double cab on marketplace in Clearwater right now with 77k original miles and the guy is asking 21k

If I tried to trade it in on a 200k mile 2nd gen right now I know I'd get 4k if I'm lucky and would have to come out of pocket 8-10, which is seriously motivating me to fix this stuff and keep it.

Takes a certain kind of mentality to buy 20 year old 250k trucks, but I do feel like the universe is challenging me more than usual here lol

 

I have pretty much the same thing you have on my truck now. I couldn't for the life of me get the wrap around OEM style clamp to work there, not sure if it's just the fitment of the Amazon (walker brand I believe) but I just got a universal u-bolt clamp for mine. Sealed decent, never really 100 percent though, didn't make any noise.

 

I’d take it to a muffler shop and have them weld some new exhaust parts in and check that one off.

Sorry, your situation reminds me of this scene.

 

I literally quoted this scene to my wife about the whole situation

 

Read around on some other threads regarding my power steering leak. I also have an intermittent billow of white smoke on cold starts that goes away after a few seconds, I thought might have been valve seals. Now I’m thinking I might have the power steering valve issue. Ordered a replacement that hopefully takes care of that, I’ve dumped a quart of ATF in the PS reservoir in under 1k miles.

Road trip also seemed to exacerbate my rear diff leak, had gear oil splattered on spare tire and rear bumper. Had to stop at harbor freight on the trip for a breaker bar to get diff fill off, and added 1qt of 7590, took the whole quart no issue so was definitely low. She will get the JB Weld treatment this week and a deeper inspection of her condition.

 

Is your little breather on top of the diff functional. May want to replace it as that can can pressure to build up in the diff.

 

where is the rear diff leaking from?

 

Backside on the bottom and up the left side slightly around the bottom of the welded on cover. No wetness on the front or bottom near the pinion flange/seal.

I took a picture today but it’s kind of useless after slinging the stuff around 600 miles of highway driving. Couldn’t work on it today but will clean off the housing really good with brakecleen and degreaser then watch for leaks again to pinpoint the holes.

I know jb weld is a hack job but several videos online of people doing it to housings that look worse than mine with decent results. I know I’ll have to drain the pumpkin completely and clean like crazy to remove all oil so epoxy will stick.

 

Photos don’t really do it justice. It was wet and splattered everywhere on the drive yesterday. And like I said, took a quart easily. The drip is slow parked in the driveway so looking forward to draining it tomorrow or day after to see how much I really lost. Read there should be 3.8 quarts in there.

 

More pics of truck for shits and gigs.

 

Whydoncha remove the spare tire, buy a bottle of Purple Power cleaner, head over to the local coin-op pressure washer, plug in some quarters and go after it. Then figure out exactly where that leak is coming from....or did i miss something from an earlier posting?

 

Yeah the post right above the photos, I’m planning on cleaning it off tomorrow and doing just that. Although I already have plenty of degreaser and a few pressure washers here at the house lol. Appreciate it

 

The last pro tip is to drive the rear tires up a pair of ramps (if you got them). That extra 8” makes all the difference when laying on your side in a pool of oily water mixture.

 

It looks like your sketchy seller may have gone to a lot of trouble to clean/paint the rear end, possibly to obscure a rust related leak. Also, check the mating surface where the 3 member meets the housing. Since he replaced the 3rd it may have been improperly sealed.

Usually when the rear is blowing oil the first thing to check is the breather valve. Just go ahead and replace while you're under there (~ 12 bucks as I recall).

Finally, did you replace the pinion seal when you replaced the flange?

 

There's no question he coated everything in rust converter. I was well aware at purchase. Have thoroughly checked the front mating surface and there's no leaks up there. Also did not replace the pinion seal when we did the flange, it was clean with no leaks from that area and for all intents and purposes looked like it was replaced when he rebuilt rear end, so saw no need to pull it.

I will definitely do breather valve, have seen recommended multiple times now.

Now that we've chased all these gremlins down, the reverse diagnosis kind of makes sense. Northern truck, rust got to the rear diff housing and started leaking oil thru pinholes. Previous owner probably just ignored it, ran rear diff dry which nuked the gears. When that locked up at speed probably did all kinds of hell to the drive shaft, broke it. Truck goes to auction, shitty mechanic buys it to flip, installs 2004 rear end parts and buys 2005 drive shaft, drills 4 holes freehand in pinion flange to make it fit. Good 'nuff for short test drives around town, sells it to a moron (me), everything goes to shit within 200 miles and my life goes to hell for a month

 

Maybe...pinhole leaks would just drip. Something is slinging it around. Pay particular attention tho the pinion area once you get it cleaned up. Just because the seal looked good doesn't mean it still is.

 

I guess I can't 100% say for certain as i haven't given it the up close and personal inspection. Parked it is a very slow drip, but I figured 65/70mph down the interstate was slinging those drips up on the spare. I'll update with better photos when I get under there.

Does anyone have the part number saved on their computer for the rear diff breather? My local dealership website doesn't have a schematic pic for it so can't 100% confirm Im looking at the right thing...
https://autoparts.toyota.com/products/product/plug-breather-90930a3001#popup-1

edit...there is A schematic pic on there but I'm not seeing what I *thought* was the rear diff breather.

 

Should be 90930-A3001

 

Took a break from work this afternoon, immediately grabbed the toilet brush out from the master bathroom and went to town on the diff. Engine degreaser and scrub job cleaned it up plenty. I'm almost disappointed in a weird way, the back cover looks way cleaner and less rusty than I thought it would be...some of the carnage that was still running ive seen on youtube and pics on here make mine look like childs play.

No clear and obvious drips after drying for an hour. Will take for a short spin later to see if I can make some oil show up...but there is no clear/obvious penetration or pinhole to slap JB Weld on. There is obviously some sort of hack job/RTV/Gasket in a tube stuff between the front housing and main axle (sorry if I'm messing up terminology). When I feel around I'm not getting any obvious oil residue on my fingers, but it is just a bit slicker on that goopy dried seal deal. It would stand to reason the breather may be clogged and forcing lube out from the bottom of that, which sucks because slapping JB weld on the back of the pumpkin would have been easier than taking the drive shaft back off and the whole thing apart to re-do that seal.

I would really like to be able to drive this truck 650 miles to hunt camp next week in Alabama. Not sure what I'll do if it's obvious the oil leak is coming from that RTV looking seal. I'll probably drain it and refill no matter what, if for nothing else than to verify how much lube is in there and how much I lost in my 1k miles of driving it (minus the quart I dumped in there).

Oil spray on spare




Degreaser on rear




Cleaned rear pics

 

Didja clear the vent?

 

I went ahead and renamed the thread because this is turning in to basically an account of a refresh on the truck, and we're past the drive shaft at this point. Although it seems a lot of symptoms are related.

Sliding around under the truck today revealed some other things I'd be interested in the boards opinion on. Looks like the muffler failure kicked up and put a hole through the side of one of my rear shocks. I was planning on throwing a level spacer up front (the truck will not see more wheeling than a dirt road to a deer stand), but I wonder now if it wouldn't make more sense to buy a set of 4 strut/shocks and redo them all? The truck rides fine and is still planted over speedbumps etc but the bushings on the rears look pretty worn as well. If I'm going to take the time to remove all the stuff from the front to put spacers on, would it make sense to throw new parts on now?

Also curious about my bumper situation. I have a new black bumper I am planning to paint and install along with a curt trailer hitch, but based on what I see under the truck the bumper is somehow integrated in to a big bracket that interferes with where my hitch would mount? Is there some other bumper support I will need to purchase to mount up my bumper if I remove this crusty mess under there now??

Thanks for all the help guys

 

Haven't removed it yet. When I pull it do I just shoot brakeen through it or something? Never messed with one before. I ordered a new one from my dealer site today, 9 bucks. Not sure if it will be in tomorrow or monday.

 

For clearing the vents, i could twist the cap back and forth a bunch of times with a pair of channel locks. Then once it’s removed from the housing, then chase the vent hole with a drill bit. But first before all of that, i’d want to remove the vent before doing any sort of work to it and inspect it 10000% to see if it is clogged, and therefore the culprit.

Each manufacturer probably used a different size diameter vent hole, but some of them are a tiny 1/8” hole, which are VERY prone to clogging.

 

So of you're just planning a spacer lift this (LINK) is a good choice though it shows out of stock.

I'm confused exactly what is going on with your hitch situation. You have a 7 pin trailer plug back there and it also looks like you have the mount for the factory receiver mount and someone has taken just the receiver mount off of it. I wanna say that the area in the pic I have circled is where it should mount but I don't have any pics of my own truck and I'm not home at the moment.


This may be a good thing as that support bar rots out quite a bit. I do believe you can remove that whole rear bar and replace it with a standard style hitch but I'm not for sure on that.

 

The factory configuration is both the trailer hitch AND the bumper mount. The rusty bumper often belies a rusted bumper mount/hitch underneath. I replaced my bumper and used this kit (or one like it) from ebay:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353159860699

I used an aftermarket "paint to match" bumper, and painted it with rattle cans (Toyota black is very easy to match). Finally I installed a new Draw-Tite hitch