2005 Tundra novice build - "The Rez"

[Kpack]

Time to tear into the front end! Life has been busy, so I haven't done much on the truck except listen to the vibration get worse. So now I'm going to start crossing potential problems off the list. First up is the notoriously bad needle bearing in the front differential. Apparently the tolerances are pretty bad and the CV can wobble all over the place. This seemed like a likely source of the vibration, especially since this is well documented among Tundra and Tacoma users alike.

I ordered a front diff bushing from ECGS, which is supposed to be a very precise fit and can last the lifetime of the truck: https://eastcoastgearsupply.com/c-1207130-toyota-clamshell-bushings-99-06-tundra.html

I wouldn't be surprised if my front CV axles were bad, especially the driver's side. I'm not hearing any clicking when I turn, but there is excessive play on both CV's, and with how long this vibration has been going on, I'm thinking that they might be pretty messed up. Since I'll be in there anyways I ordered two rebuilt axles from CVJ with hi-angle boots on the inner CV's.

I

CVJ is awesome by the way. I ordered them on Thursday, they built them on Friday, and they showed up on my doorstep today (Tuesday). Quality looks excellent.

 

[trailscape]

I might have to look into CVJ. They are local too. My boots have been leaking for a bit and I've been thinking about a rebuild/reboot.

 

[Kpack]

Getting this ECGS bushing swap done is royal pain. It took forever to get the old needle bearing out because the insert from ECGS that fits behind the bearing would not go in, no matter what I tried. I messed around with it for 30 minutes before I finally took a Dremel to it and shaved off a millimeter from one side. Finally got it in and the old bearing came out quickly afterward.

Now I can't get the new bushing in. I've rigged up some sockets to tap it in with, but i can't get it to go in at all. I'm leaving the bushing in the freezer overnight to see if that helps.

Any other ideas?

Once that thing is in I can put the new CV axle in and close up this side.

 

[Kpack]

OK, finally got that ECGS bushing in there. It was pretty much the worst thing ever. Freezing it overnight didn't help. For whatever reason the fit was SUPER tight going in....took nearly two hours of solid hammering to get it in there with a race driver....and I'm positive it was going in straight.

Anyways, a few notes. Here's the old vs. the new.....looking at the differences it seems like the old might not be OEM. The CVJ axles are remanufactured OEM. You can see the old one was leaking around the outer boot. Also, the inner CV joint could be easily pulled apart. The only thing holding it together was the boot.

The inner boot on the new axle looked like it had a small hole on part of the boot. I'm going to let it slide right now and see if it leaks at all. If so, back to CVJ it goes for a replacement. It's all documented here so they know it's an existing problem.

The axle can be changed without removing the caliper and rotor. Just undo the LBJ and swing the whole assembly off to the side. Support the rotor with a jack stand. It would've made it easier if I had removed the coilovers. If you are running stock or similar type shocks then no problem. But coilovers are much wider at the bottom due to the spring going down rather than up.

When installing the new axle I noticed this:

How would the axle cause scoring on the bearing like that?? I have no idea how long it has been like this. And this bearing was replaced about 6 months ago. I'm assuming this isn't normal???


Good news is that I got this side all back in, diff fluid topped off, and no signs of leaking fluid. Bad news is that the vibration is still there, rather unchanged. I will replace the passenger CV this week, then my next step is to drop the rear driveshaft and take it for eval and rebuild. Possible bad u-joint or carrier bearing?

 

[T-Rey1]

Pretty sure that boot will puke fluid

 

[Kpack]

Pretty sure that boot will puke fluid

That's certainly possible. So far so good, but it's only been 25 miles and no freeway yet. We'll see how it goes.


I replaced the passenger side CV axle last night, went smoothly with no issues. The noise/vibration is still there so my next step is to drop the rear driveshaft and have it inspected/overhauled. I guess it's possible that the carrier bearing is going out or maybe a u-joint. If not those, then perhaps the pinion bearing in the rear diff?

 

[Loubaru]

Bummer about the boot, do the ribs rub at all? I went through CVJ on my old 4Runner axles too. Almost went with the longer boots but read some stuff about them rubbing worst. The stock ones they used ended up rubbing a little but not bad. When I get around to lifting my Tundra I'm probably just going to re-boot my axles since they only have 130k easy miles and aren't currently leaking.

I'm sure you can figure this out on Google but from what I remember with the 4Runner your old axle actually looks like factory. Maybe the Tundra's use different inners though....

 

[High Country]

Enjoyed reading this. I sold my 2001 after 16 years of ownership and have been slowly getting my 2005 DC up to speed. Lots of good stuff on here!

 

[Kpack]

Bummer about the boot, do the ribs rub at all? I went through CVJ on my old 4Runner axles too. Almost went with the longer boots but read some stuff about them rubbing worst. The stock ones they used ended up rubbing a little but not bad. When I get around to lifting my Tundra I'm probably just going to re-boot my axles since they only have 130k easy miles and aren't currently leaking.

I'm sure you can figure this out on Google but from what I remember with the 4Runner your old axle actually looks like factory. Maybe the Tundra's use different inners though....

It doesn't look like they are rubbing at all. I took a look under the truck this morning and no grease is coming out of the small hole in the boot. However, it looks like my driver's side axle seal might be leaking. I'll dry it up and give it a few days to see if it gets wet again.

Enjoyed reading this. I sold my 2001 after 16 years of ownership and have been slowly getting my 2005 DC up to speed. Lots of good stuff on here!

Welcome to the DC club! Lots of room in these trucks. My updating has been far from smooth, but slowly I'm getting this truck into shape. Now if I could only figure out this vibration! Once I nail it down then this truck will be solid.

 

[Kpack]

I had a chance to get some wheeling time with a buddy of mine this morning. He brought his Jeep, and we headed into the mountains between us and Wenatchee (Naneum State Forest). It was mostly Forest Service and Green Dot roads. We aired down to 15 PSI, but even still the roads were incredibly rough....so rocky. When I get my shocks rebuilt I'm going to see about revalving to progressive rather than digressive. From what others have said that seems to help a lot with rough roads. Lots of rocks and washboard around here.

Nice views of the valley on the way up.

We climbed from 1500' to 3000' pretty rapidly, and I noticed that my tranny temp hit 200 degrees in 2WD. That doesn't seem normal to me....is it?? Seems like I might be getting a larger auxillary trans cooler and electric fan soon.

Trails were muddy, but not terrible. Nice views continued on our way up to Mission Ridge.

We eventually found the snow we were looking for around 5500'. That's as far as we could go, the road continuing up was fairly impassable.

The snow was still very deep in spots and very wet/slippery. Up to this point there were existing tracks in the snow that made it fairly easy to get through.

We then took a very roundabout way back down to the bottom, and found ourselves on a road that had been groomed all winter for snowmobiles, but which had yet to see any wheeled traffic. The snow was several feet deep at times, and very boggy. My buddy went first to blaze a trail (double locked on 35's) because his Jeep was much lighter, then I tried to follow his track. That worked most of the time, but every once in a while the truck would dive off on its own path. The Tundra is much heavier than the Jeep, so I was bogging down a lot. However, I only got stuck once and I'm not locked at all. 4LO really helped.

My friend used his kinetic rope to pop me out of the snow and we continued on. The road continued like this for nearly an hour because we could only go at a snail's pace. Steep drops off the left made it very sketchy in places....we erred far to the right side, choosing to slide into the ditch/hill on that side rather than dropping off the side of the mountain.

We had to pull a fallen tree out of the way at one point.

Eventually we got out of the snow and back to normal FS roads. Naneum Creek was a raging torrent from all the spring melt.

All in all it was a fun trip, and was great to get back out there after winter. With how rough the roads were I noticed a lot of rattling and squeaking. I'll have to pin down the sources. I also noticed that the vibration was significantly worse on the drive home....I didn't air the tires back up for the short drive (couple miles) so maybe that had something to do with it. I aired up after I got home and the vibration seemed to lessen again.

Lastly, somewhere in the Naneum State Forest is a GoPro Hero 3+....apparently the vibration was too much for the mount and the camera fell off somewhere. The mount itself broke....completely failed. I didn't notice until we had pulled up to the pavement again.

 

[toyotech]

Look into adding BBs in the tires. Air down and up can cause balance issues. Or if you have free balance. Than use that lol


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Kpack]

Never heard of the BB trick. How much would someone put in the tire?

 

[Kpack]

This also happened yesterday:

I bought 16" x 8 SCS F5's in dark bronze on a bit of an impulse buy. I've admired them for a while but they were always sold out. Well I happened to check a week or so ago and remarkably they still had stock even after it being a few days since the new inventory came in. Normally everything sells out in a matter of minutes. So a week later they showed up on my doorstep and I immediately had them mounted.

First thing I noticed when I got them out of the box was how light they were. Far lighter than my old Raceline wheels. And they are 106mm hub bore, as opposed to 108mm for the Raceline, making them hub-centric wheels.

And I'm really liking the dark bronze against the black truck!

 

[SportsmanJake]

Truck looks great. Thanks for sharing.

200 sounds a bit high. The highest I have ever hit was 160.
What was your engine water temp?

 

[Kpack]

Truck looks great. Thanks for sharing.

200 sounds a bit high. The highest I have ever hit was 160.
What was your engine water temp?

190 was engine temp. I've had problems in the past with overheating while towing, but didn't have a monitor hooked up at the time to check temps or engine or trans. The dash gauge would rise to above 3/4 when going uphill at all, towing a 3-4K lbs boat. I suspect that the transmission may have been part of the problem.....it must've gotten warm, then heated the engine as well. Probably time for me to have the fluid changed again.

I'm thinking a large cooler to replace the factory one, with an electric fan to come on once the temp reaches a certain point?