2001 4Runner, e-locker

I had my rear wheel bearings/seals done about a month ago. Truck drove fine afterwards, then sat for a while. After finishing some front end work, I took it for a test drive and noticed a clicking sound coming from the left rear hub area.

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-Sound is somewhere between a click and a creak, like two pieces of metal sticking and unsticking.

-Clicking happens in forward and reverse, increasing with wheel speed. For the first few feet of movement at very low speed, there is often no clicking.

-Sound comes from somewhere between the hub and left side of the diff. It's much quieter when listening along the right side of the diff.

-No history of diff noise

-Diff fluid was changed when seals were done, but I haven't personally verified fill level.

Any ideas on how to diagnose this? I'm guessing next step is to pull the shaft and see if anything on it looks weird. I could drain the diff and peek inside with a scope, but because the sound is so biased toward the left I'd be surprised if it were a chipped tooth.

It seems odd that this would suddenly start up after having the truck sit for a couple months.

 

My guess is the ABS ring is in the wrong position, this read might help diagnose the problem. https://www.yotatech.com/forums/f2/9...l-help-232902/

 

or it could be the wheel bearing. most of the time, a defective wheel bearing will manifest itself via an oil seal failure, hence the oil leak. after a few hundred kilometers, the seal will leak again and the noise will become very pronounced.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'll pull the axle and see if there are any unusual or asymmetrical wear marks on anything. @KZN185W Wheel bearings were replaced with the seals, so it shouldn't be them.

Anybody know of a resource showing how far everything gets pressed onto the axle?

Is there a chance that the truck sitting caused something to get oil-starved or bound up? It's loud enough that I don't really want to try 'driving through it', haha.

 

You should be able to use the measurements in the link I provided, I noticed in that specific link he ground into the shaft on those pics to remove the retainer ring don't do that. Here is another link http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-ge...d-3rd-gen.html but it doesn't get into specific measurements for locating the retainer ring or ABS ring. Perhaps remove the ABS Sensor and look in to visually inspect the ABS rings location and listen feel if the ABS ring or bearing is the culprit. It is very possible the bearing was damaged on install if someone applied pressure to the outer race as oppose to inner race. What quality of bearing was installed, your options are really only Timken or Toyota.

 

Awesome, thanks for the tip on the ABS sensor. Wheel bearings were OEM.