Differential Protection

BogusBlake

2006 Expedition Trophy Champion
There's some chat in the Completed trips section about diff protection on Toyota axles, so I thought I'd start up a thread in the tech section where it belongs.

I used an 8" weldable pipe cap cut in half on the axles of my '85 and it works great. The cap is probably 1/4 inch thick and fits perfectly. I think if I do this again, Ill shave down the open end so it doesn't stick out as much. The cap cost less than $20 and it makes two diff guards (duh). It comes with some kind of green rust preventer- I ground it off where I needed to weld and painted it after it was on there.

I just went out and measured the diff cover of my Taco and it's the same as the '85, so this would work there too. That leads me to belive all the other diff guards made for older axles will probably work on the Tacos (I can't say for sure though).

It looks like All-pro has one made out of bent plate (for $70 :Wow1: ), so does Trail-gear (looks just like AP's but for $30).
 
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knuth

New member
It seems like a nice little fix, except I don't have globs of melted metal laying around! But I'll look into that, it is better than spending three times as much money on the same thing. Thanks
 

crawler#976

Expedition Leader
...the pipe caps work well.

One thing to be aware of is trapped dirt - I cut three 3/8 x 2" long steps in the cap to allow dirt and moisture to get outta the bottom and sides.

Also, you MUST be very careful not to overheat the diff when welding. Even after draining the gear oil, there is a chance for burning oil. I chose to install my caps when the housing were empty while doing a gear ratio change and they were clean and dry.

Mark
 

BogusBlake

2006 Expedition Trophy Champion
crawler#976 said:
One thing to be aware of is trapped dirt - I cut three 3/8 x 2" long steps in the cap to allow dirt and moisture to get outta the bottom and sides.

Yeah, I forgot to mention that :D I did something similar.
 

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