Appreciate this writeup man, pictures are some of the best on any thread on Yotatech.
Just got my drivers side done this weekend, should have sprayed those six nuts connecting to the differential down before hand though....huge pain to get them out.
Lesson learned

 

Yup! I sprayed those days in advance. A good friend of mine who worked on Yotas for years told me it would be a GIANT headache if I didn't soak those days beforehand.
Thanks for the compliment!

 

Does anyone know the size of the big axle nut at the end of the half shaft. I would search but I am on my way to work and need to pick up the tool for tonight

 

I think it is 54mm?

 

54 mm.

 

thanks guys

 

Bump for a nice writeup, wish I'd found this before I did mine last summer.

I'll second the shims to hold the upper a-arm when lining up the BJ spacer, and a solid whack with a hammer on the outside of the hub right next to the cone washer will pop those things free and send them flying across the driveway to chip the paint on your wife's car.

 

Would anyone recommend replacing the steering center link while doing this?

 

great writeup... Helped me immensely

 

im going to bump this thread because this will help me a ton when i do my cvs this week. awesome write up man!!!

 

By the way folks, if you are bumping the thread so that it shows up on your subscribed list, you can skip that and just go the the 'thread tools' and select the option to add it to your subscribed list. "thread tools" is a link towards the top of the page, just under the page number, a bit to the left.

Cheers

 

hey man need yur help. Where did you get that new knuckle seal at? Remember the part number off hand? Was that a single piece that went in there or two pieces? Can't tell from the photo, but does that steel dust shield extend beyond the knuckle or sit flush with the hole?

 

"But then My post count doesnt go up"

This write up is godly-im doin my ball joints this afternoon after work and this writeup basically does the work for me awesome

 

 

Just wanted to thank you for the great write up. Perfect pics, I even followed the breakfast directions to a T! Just a few things that helped me out.

Removing the shock was key. I used a floor jack to get it in the air, then a bottle jack on the bottom of the brake disk area, not the disk per say, but under it. I struggled with getting the half shaft in until I got it up in the air enough to slide it in.

I locked the other hub and took it in and out of 4wheel to help the axle from spinning. I used pivoting sockets with a breaker bar and air to get it off of the differential.

Took about four hours to complete both sides with new shocks...my other shocks were so shot that it wouldn't even rebound! Caused a wobble at 65 to 70 mph. Now smooth as butter!

Thanks for the write up, directions and pictures, my ride hasn't felt better.

Pics to come.

 

Glad it helped!!

 

hey toyo. i'm replacing both of my CVs in my 86 4runner and got all the way to the part where the CV is ready to slide out. nuts off, snap ring and washer off, etc. however, i can't get the damn CV to slide out! the diff side of it is caught on those damn bolts. i jacked the lower control arm up so that there was no more travel in it and there is a lot of play in the CV but there doesn't seem to be any way that it will clear the diff lip and allow me to push it through. any suggestions?

 

I did it last night, you have to unscrew the lower ball joint and pop the knuckle off of it and that gives you enough space to slide it past. I had to pop three of The bolts on the side shaft side of the diff off to get it past them...used a 5 lb sledge and a few good wacks with my 1/5 in. Extensions. Good luck

 

Once you jack up the lower control arm it should come out (you might try jacking on the rotor instead of the control arm. It's the end of the half-shaft you're trying to move, and there is a little slack through the ball joints). Some folks have found they have to lift the opposite corner a little, in order to compress the suspension enough on the corner you're working on (I've never needed to do that.)

And no, you don't have to unscrew the ball joints or remove the knuckles. And you certainly don't have to take a sledge hammer to the differential flange. Seriously; why would one think that Toyota designed a vehicle that required that sort of destruction for a common maintenance task?

 

Yea...funny thing about that method, I tried exactly that and it didn't work. Nothing worked. I reasearched on here for hours trying to find the right way and finally settled on unscrewing the lower ball joint to cock the bottom of the hub out which was THE ONLY method that WORKED FOR ME. Think of it as a last resort.
Note: I have a 4 inch lift and removed my bump stops and sway bars too.