The transfer case is dead! Long live the transfer case!!!!

Lol, thank you, but this was done in the comfort of my garage. A trailslide case-splitting temporary repair…now *that* is an epic odyssey…especially since one would get home just to take the TC case off again lol.

It’s all part of the adventure though, isn’t it?

 

What's funny is it sounded like this just happened, and people (like me) were chiming in with questions and suggestions, and here it was all fixed and done (but not yet posted)...

Great job finding a replacement and getting it installed. I share your loathing of dealerships. Not only were they likely to deny the warranty repair for one reason or another, they most likely would have charged you to inspect it prior to telling you no.

My vote is for that one in a million part that wasn't up to snuff, and it ended up in your 4R.

 

It wouldn't hurt to report it, just in case they are finding a problem in a batch or a particular factory...

https://www.nhtsa.gov/report-a-safety-problem

 

Yeah, sorry about the order of postings. My phone crashes mid-post every once in a while, so I was posting it in various posts. Should have known that I couldnt spit out the next one before a response lol. Oh well, it reads more dramatic this way I guess.

I had considered posting this before I decided what to do to get input, but some things you just gotta get done. I had a perfect combination of time, motivation, and luck (a replacement TC only 45 min from my house for next to nothing).

Although I think I used up lots of my energy and motivation this summer. It caught up with me…now all I feel like doing is watching TV while scrolling

 

No worries. I posted early on today, then just came back in a little bit ago, and the whole story was there for the reading. I enjoyed hearing about it (but hope never to have to go through it). I think I'll be exercising my TC shifter in the dirt a bit more often...

 

What's great about this thread, not worrying about order of posts or anything, is that somebody who has this problem come up 2 years from now will find the thread and learn from it. It's like The akashic records for Toyota transfer cases.

 

Hopefully there’s something to learn, because I’m not sure yet. Well, besides not being lazy and leaving the transmission mount/crossmember on when changing a TC out lol.

I welcome any responses with some theories or direct knowledge on why that little bugger got loose and fell out the bottom, leading to my synchromesh to cease synchronizing.

The fact that I could shift into 4hi and 4lo when fully stopped, then drive normally, tells me it’s not a gear or chain problem, and the problem is likely limited to the the synchromesh assembly.

My gut tells me it was material defect, not anything I did….but I could be wrong. Some other reasonable possibilities are:

1. I play with my stick too much going too fast. And i just plumb wore out my synchro.

2. My oversized 280/70 K02s instantaneously blew up my transfer case (but oddly enough, just mine).

3. My decision to use “synchro-safe” RP synchromax oil, mostly because I liked the purple color of the oil.

Or maybe 4lo really is only for experts in emergency situations…. Ok seriously, I can spend most of the day at times in 4lo when off roading at the Tigerton ohv park. I stay in 4lo, with the transmission range limited to 2 to avoid the harsh shifting the tranny does in 4lo, with the idea that this will protect the torque converter from constantly heating up, since the prevents the need to slip. Should I not do this and stay in 4hi?

I have limited knowledge on operating an old school 4wd vehicle, beside the last couple of years since getting the 4runner. So I really don’t mind any thoughts that come from more experiene.

 

Great job on getting it done!

I'd bet that the used transfer case which you bought will last you the life of your 4R.

 

I use 4wd on the street to exercise the system quite often but I keep below the recommended shift speeds and off load. I did this for years on my 10 Tacoma and there were many, many supercharged 4wd launches both on the track and on the street (to get in front of an asshat probably making me the asshat) without a single issue. The Taco had Mobil 1 and them Amsoil 75/90 hear lube and I have Amsoil ready for the Runner.

https://youtu.be/kolLHEFxioo

https://youtu.be/sYq1C6ZTjUw

It could have just been a simple material failure.

 

Is the Royal Purple oil a GL-4 or a GL-5?

 

Doesn't Toyota require a GL 3 on something? It's been a while since I watched... https://youtu.be/3le9ZT5HUlk

 

Glad my TC is activated via a dial

 

I really hope it was just a random defect, assembled on a Friday type of situation. As you mentioned, you're very nice to it! OTOH, even if I'm not quite Pat or Jason, I've been pretty rough on mine at times. And, 103K miles, mostly on 285's and 295's without issues (excuse me while I find something wooden to knock on).

 

Technically, there’s no reason to think (at this time) the lever caused the problem. The mechanical parts are the same…except dial TC has the really expensive actuator that’s mounted to it that requires case-splitting to fix

 

I believe the bottle insinuates it’s gl-4?

 

I find it interesting that he doesn’t mention anything about the synchro in that vid, and only addresses the viscosity issue between straight 75w and more commonly available 75w90. Otherwise he says to use the same stuff in your diff as in your TC.

 

I know man, just joshin' ya

 

Me too.

 

Curious how often you exercise 4wd? I typically have done 4H on roads the past (or first 3 years of life) just to exercise it because we don't have a lot of close trails here. 4L and locker has typically only been in the culdesac for exercise. Couple of weekends ago I was constantly going between 2wd, 4H, and 4L between different road/trail conditions and everything was spot on with every shift. Maybe I just haven't abused it enough with 285s. I'm going to lean towards this being an anomaly and not regular event

Edit: not how often you exercise, the OP. Would like an update on that locker though @Thatbassguy

 

These newer lubes are a little different. I tried this expensive Motul oil in my Gixxer. Right away I noticed it was not shifting correctly. Switched back to regular Honda GN4 and it cleaned up the shift right away. It’s not a transfer case but for example I would not use Royal Purple on anything I own.

 

During normal driving, I might engage 4wd on straight roads for a mile or two a few times a month, shifting a few times in that period. Less frequently for 4lo.

However, during the last few summers, it gets a fair share of actual use of 4hi and 4lo on gravel road travel and proper off-road “crawly” situations. By that, I mean maybe 1000 miles off road per summer off road (if I had to guess). During that time it’s going from 4hi to 2wd pretty regularly going back and forth from trails to paved surfaces. 4lo gets thrown in the mix occasionally when I’m traveling through national forest, or when we run into something like this:



When I go to the off-road park, it’s in 4lo all day…maybe 30 miles on the odo per trip…. That includes the occasional rock climb like this:



Basically, I use 4wd unapologetically on unpaved surfaces. I’m careful to go straight on paved surfaces when I’ purely exercise the system. You could also throw the occasional 90 degree turn off a trail where I forgot to put it back in 2wd. When I’m doing more crawly stuff, I never bounce my drivetrain, hardly ever bump, never send, and usually left foot brake to keep from things getting out of hand. Slow and smooth basically, nearly all traction climbs, and almost no use of momentum to get over rocks.

After seeing @whippersnapper02 drag videos, I’d say Im putting less stress on the TC than he was lol. That thing could scoot!!!

 

I’m thinking I agree more and more with this line of thought on lubes. I saw somewhere on line that the toyota liquid gold tested out with huge amounts of some element (potasium or phosphorous?) that others lubes didn’t even begin to approach. I can’t verify that, but the blackstone printouts that were posted made me think. Maybe the royal purple was “synchro safe”-and didn’t chemically attack the synchro material, but maybe it had different lube properties that made it respond differently to friction??? It didn’t feel like it shifted any different, but who knows.

It’s all guesses, but I have enough doubt about it now, that I’ll be buying liquid gold for this TC from here on out.

 

Dealerships I have been to put 75W-90 in the transfer case. It's more than twice the viscosity of plain 75W.

I had considered Ravenol at one point. Fortunately, I've got 29,000 miles to think about it now.

For my 2020, I put Ultra 1Plus in the transfer case and differentials. GL-5. It had 50k on the original fluids. I would say that my gas mileage went down a tick... 5%... Maybe. (Side note: I only put about 7,000 miles on it before it went back to the dealer.)

I will never use Ultra again. I found out their shelf life is rather short compared to bigger brand names. Something like 3 years instead of 5. If they're shelf life is shorter, their use life is undoubtedly shorter too.

 

What a great thread. Thanks for posting!

 

Take this for what it's worth: "Royal Purple: In our opinion one of the worst gear oils made"

https://eastcoastgearsupply.com/ft-2536-ecgs-gear-oil-recommendation.html

 

Makes me feel better about buying Supertech.

 

Break in rear differential change, plausible.

Definitely something to consider.

SuperTech went through a price increase for their 75W-90 from something like $7.50 a quart to just under $11 a quart. I am presuming that Warren Distribution makes their gear oil as well.

 

Interesting. If we supposed the oil was what caused my TC failure…then at least you could say Royal Purple is a “fast acting formula” lol.

Whether or not this oil grenaded my TC in less than 20k miles, it’s at the very least suspect in this application. Glad I was impatient enough to want to buy oil locally to finish the job without waiting for it to be shipped. Nobody around here carries redline, and I wasn’t sure about regular gear oil that wasnt synchro safe (which is why I went with RP maxgear in the first place). That only left toyota. It took 4 calls to different local dealers to finally find some liquid gold…I paid out the nose for it, but probably saved a ton of time trying to analyze which other oil I should go with.

 

Yeah, I doubt it's the cause of your failure. But for anyone facing the choice of what to use I would avoid this one because why take the risk.
And great job on the replacement!

 

I think someone else posted the Car Care Nut video on gear oils. My take away was ensuring that you use GL5 NOT GL4 gear oil.

He said GL4 gear oil will eat up the bronze synchros in the transfer case.