Rear Diff coupler bearing disintegrating. ADVICE APPRECIATED

[StuVelly]

Hi all,

 

Well, after a little wet patch under the rear 4wd diff coupler on my 2011 vellfire, I had it in yesterday to have the suspected inner seal done. When the coupler was removed, there was no seal left only the metal ring from it. The coupler inner bearing has about 10 balls missing and a pile of metal fell out of the oil between the coupler and the diff itself. Worst time for a big bill :(. My options are: -

- Get a bearing and seal kit and have a new bearing put in the coupler and flush the diff out as much as possible and then refill with oil.

 

- get a second hand diff and coupler so there is no metal fragments in the diff. Or am I being too ridiculous there?

 

What would you people do? I rarely use 4wd only when towing and bad weather but the rear diff is always free moving anyway isnt it?

 

FYI there was/is zero noise from the unit even now with all the balls missing and no noise. I crawled home 4 miles onto the drive until I work out what the hell im gonna do! Pretty gutted on such a young machine at 63,000 miles

 

Thanks for reading.

[Quimbasher]

If it was mine, it would depend on how big the metal fragments were that came out. If you think the internals are still in good shape id go down the route of a flush and new bearing. Are there any indications as to why it failed?  Is is a common problem on the 4wd models?  

[StuVelly]

3 hours ago, Quimbasher said:

If it was mine, it would depend on how big the metal fragments were that came out. If you think the internals are still in good shape id go down the route of a flush and new bearing. Are there any indications as to why it failed?  Is is a common problem on the 4wd models?  

Thanks Harry. I’ve come to that Sam conclusion. I have managed to buy a repair kit from a guy in Canada using Toyota parts for £165. It is more common than I expected surprisingly. This is purely by chance that I opened the coupling up due to a tiny oil weep on the bottom of the coupler. There’s was no noise. As a gearbox specialist said to me, diffs will always have the grey gritted oil even mega low mileage ones as it metal onto metal. Flush it and fit new bearings. Then flush again in 500 miles. Definitely something I’d look out for on them. 

[Beata]

have you managed to replace bearing 
by any chance have you noted the bearing spec as 165GBP seems to be excessive and locally we should be able to source cheaper 

 

Regards,

Beata

[StuVelly]

Yes thank you. It took 8 weeks being off road but £160 for parts and £220 to for including new diff oil. Can’t grumble at that. Thanks though. 

[Beata]

Glad you sorted this out 
Im going to recondition entire rear diff 

Problem is Toyota does not allow to repair ELECTRO MAGNETIC CONTROL element therefore does not display parts for it 

I've managed to reverse engineer and from Japanese forums 

All parts in total will cost me 250GBP  imported this will rebuilt and replace all necessary elements  total 15  to make rear diff as new 

cannot wait -- it is like lego so easy to drop it and remove from car and all work done on bench 

 

 

Yes the main front fails often and  nobody is talking about it in UK -- but in Japan this is on the most common list to do.

 

I hope you change side seals same time if not please monitor if you see any sweating dont wait 

 

normally OEM 90311-42046  and after 2014-on:    90311-42062

 

But im sure you know how to find correct part numbers 

 

All the best 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 30 by Beata