Outdoor Adventure USA

Within weeks of purchasing my 1997 Land Cruiser in May of 2008, I had larger tires installed. Immediately I knew that the gearing needed to be changed to something lower. Over the last nine months I've been collecting the parts needed to re-gear the differentials and service the axles.

So this month I had the time to get this done and a Land Cruiser expert that was available to re-gear the differentials to 4.88.

In this version of the Land Cruiser it is recommended that the front axle be serviced every 60,000 miles. Primarily for Birfields (steering CV) to check their wear, replace seals, bearings and go through all the other items.

Here's the driver's side with spindle removed:


Here it is out of the truck. There is visible wear from a seal on the right side:


Here are the differentials back from the shop in the buckets waiting for installation:


Clean up in process before install:


Front diff installed:


Rear diff installed:


This would have been impossible for me without the help of my little friend from Harbor Freight Tools:

Frank:

What should the 60K service include? Fluid exchange - complete disassembly?

Next the remaining front axle parts were removed for cleaning.

Old trunnion bearing races removed:


New Marlin Crawler seals and trunnion bearing races installed.


This Bearing Race and Seal Driver Set made easy work of installing seals and bearing races.

So far, I've used up over 300 blue shop paper towels. This is a very messy greasy job.

Early tomorrow morning, I'll start the reassemble of the axles. So if all goes well I should be done tomorrow.

DaveK wrote:Frank:

What should the 60K service include? Fluid exchange - complete disassembly?

Basically, disassembly down to the Birfields. Replace seals, inspect bearings, spindle and races. Replace as needed. New fluids and grease.

A good time to do brakes, calipers and check tie-rods while this is being done.

That seems like a very major service for not a lot of miles. Is that normal?

Very informative thread Frank. Good stuff.

DaveK wrote:That seems like a very major service for not a lot of miles. Is that normal?

It's recommended mostly as preventative maintenance when the vehicle is often used off road.

I need to do mine. It has almost 220k and I'm not sure if they have ever been done.

How are the new gears? I wish mine had 4.88 gears, or maybe 4.56.

Looks Great, I need to do mine as well.

Putting it back together:






All done!