Ok so it doesnt seem anyone has made a guide on how to do this, which was rather anoying considering how common it was to do! If a mod wants to sticky this that would be great to help everyone.
At first the thought of taking my gearbox apart put me right off, but then so did the prospect of paying a garage £120 to do it, thats money that could go to my Td04!
Anyway here is a step by step guide
If i was going to rate this job in terms of difficulty like Haynes spanners, i would rate it 3 out of 5, the only difficult part i found was removing two bolts inside when splitting it, other than that its very easy.
Tools required:
12mm Spanner
12mm Socket
Long reach extension
Rubber Mallet
Parts required:
Your replacement LSD, in this case a Quaife Helical
New diff bearings (its advisable to change these while there out, but if yours are not old dont bother) these are about £100 from toyota so not cheap.
Gearbox sealant, (instant gasket)
Ok, so you should have a gearbox like this one, you will obviously need this removed from your car first, like mine below.
You will need to start off by removing the 13, 12mm bolts which go around the whole middle of the gearbox.
Next you need to rotate the gearbox on its side to show the bell housing, inside will be 3, 12mm bolts, remove these.
You will next need to remove the bolt which is an allen key fitting on the side of the box, (mine is out already, its not the allen key one in the pic but the one above and to the right, inside there will be a cylinder (which you can see), spring and ball bearing, the cylinder can be a bit awkward to pull out, i put long nose plyers in the hole and pulled them apart to grip onto it, take these out also. (note i have removed it already and the spring inside has popped out.) If your having trouble getting this out, you can still remove the lid, then try. (dont worry the ball wont drop into the box)
Now that these are all out, the gearbox casing will be ready to split, although obvious its VERY IMPORTANT to split the case with the gears sitting on the floor, this way your gears do not spill out everywhere as shown in the pics below), so your diff will be at the top.
Get your rubber mallet (or in my case a hammer with a rag around it) and give a good few sharp taps to some blunt points on the case each side and you will slowly notice that box seal will break and start to come off, its sitting on dowls so you will need to keep tapping this until its ready to come off, dont whack it hard though as its aluminum so very delicate.
Your casing will only split and lift off about an inch or so as there are two final 12mm bolts which will need undoing on the inside (they are holding the bottom and top together). If your diff is on the right, these two bolts are upside down on the left side, pic below with the cover off completly shows you where they are. When you take these off, make a mental note of how the metal arm is attached to the gears before you remove it. (it sits in a groove)
Your gearbox casing will now lift off with those removed, it should look like this; (dont panic we dont need to touch hardly anything in here
)
Ok, so your standard diff is on the right hand side and this is where we want to be, dont touch anything else!
Lift the diff out its not attached, just be careful you dont drop it as its heavy, it will also come out with the large gear too, we want this as we will need to remove it from the standard diff to put on our new LSD before we fit it.
Your gearbox should now look like this
Here is the standard diff removed
You will need to undo all the bolts on the diff, (i think there are 8 of them), once these are off you can a split the gear ring off the diff as shown below. I had to put it in a vice to hold the gear, then i used a bar with a rag around it to tap it out.
Standard diff with gear removed
Here is the Quaife LSD i am fitting (note it already has the new diff bearings fitted on each end)
Get the gear, attach it back onto your new LSD and bolt it all back up the same way you took if off your standard diff. Once its all tight put it back carefully into the gearbox as show below.
I spoke directly to Quaife about shimming and they said it may need to be shimmed to get the tollerances correct (shimmed means fitting small metal spacers in so when you put it back together, you have no play between your diff and bearings when they sit in the gearbox, otherwise your gearbox diff could float sideways back and for. I spoke to 3 people who have fitted LSD, and they didnt shim them and they havent had any problems, i still wanted to check anyway to be sure, I have put it in and looks ok so far, but i need to test it with drive shafts in it first on my desk to check. (dont forget to check this).
Once its back in you need to put the reverse gear selector that you removed back on and then put those two bolts back on that you removed earlier. Remember to ensure that the arm sits in the groove correctly and then spend 30 mins trying to put those bolts back on, its really fiddly and i dropped the bolt at the bottom of the gearbox a few times trying!
Now that you have got it back on, get your instant gasket sealer and put a coat of it along the rim of the entire gearbox, ensure its fully covered and then lower your gearbox case back down.
Reattach the 13, 12mm bolts, the 3 bolts in the bell housing and dont forget to put back in the ball bearing and spring allen key bolt.
Thats it, well done job done!!
At first the thought of taking my gearbox apart put me right off, but then so did the prospect of paying a garage £120 to do it, thats money that could go to my Td04!
Anyway here is a step by step guide
If i was going to rate this job in terms of difficulty like Haynes spanners, i would rate it 3 out of 5, the only difficult part i found was removing two bolts inside when splitting it, other than that its very easy.
Tools required:
12mm Spanner
12mm Socket
Long reach extension
Rubber Mallet
Parts required:
Your replacement LSD, in this case a Quaife Helical
New diff bearings (its advisable to change these while there out, but if yours are not old dont bother) these are about £100 from toyota so not cheap.
Gearbox sealant, (instant gasket)
Ok, so you should have a gearbox like this one, you will obviously need this removed from your car first, like mine below.
You will need to start off by removing the 13, 12mm bolts which go around the whole middle of the gearbox.
Next you need to rotate the gearbox on its side to show the bell housing, inside will be 3, 12mm bolts, remove these.
You will next need to remove the bolt which is an allen key fitting on the side of the box, (mine is out already, its not the allen key one in the pic but the one above and to the right, inside there will be a cylinder (which you can see), spring and ball bearing, the cylinder can be a bit awkward to pull out, i put long nose plyers in the hole and pulled them apart to grip onto it, take these out also. (note i have removed it already and the spring inside has popped out.) If your having trouble getting this out, you can still remove the lid, then try. (dont worry the ball wont drop into the box)
Now that these are all out, the gearbox casing will be ready to split, although obvious its VERY IMPORTANT to split the case with the gears sitting on the floor, this way your gears do not spill out everywhere as shown in the pics below), so your diff will be at the top.
Get your rubber mallet (or in my case a hammer with a rag around it) and give a good few sharp taps to some blunt points on the case each side and you will slowly notice that box seal will break and start to come off, its sitting on dowls so you will need to keep tapping this until its ready to come off, dont whack it hard though as its aluminum so very delicate.
Your casing will only split and lift off about an inch or so as there are two final 12mm bolts which will need undoing on the inside (they are holding the bottom and top together). If your diff is on the right, these two bolts are upside down on the left side, pic below with the cover off completly shows you where they are. When you take these off, make a mental note of how the metal arm is attached to the gears before you remove it. (it sits in a groove)
Your gearbox casing will now lift off with those removed, it should look like this; (dont panic we dont need to touch hardly anything in here
)Ok, so your standard diff is on the right hand side and this is where we want to be, dont touch anything else!
Lift the diff out its not attached, just be careful you dont drop it as its heavy, it will also come out with the large gear too, we want this as we will need to remove it from the standard diff to put on our new LSD before we fit it.
Your gearbox should now look like this
Here is the standard diff removed
You will need to undo all the bolts on the diff, (i think there are 8 of them), once these are off you can a split the gear ring off the diff as shown below. I had to put it in a vice to hold the gear, then i used a bar with a rag around it to tap it out.
Standard diff with gear removed
Here is the Quaife LSD i am fitting (note it already has the new diff bearings fitted on each end)
Get the gear, attach it back onto your new LSD and bolt it all back up the same way you took if off your standard diff. Once its all tight put it back carefully into the gearbox as show below.
I spoke directly to Quaife about shimming and they said it may need to be shimmed to get the tollerances correct (shimmed means fitting small metal spacers in so when you put it back together, you have no play between your diff and bearings when they sit in the gearbox, otherwise your gearbox diff could float sideways back and for. I spoke to 3 people who have fitted LSD, and they didnt shim them and they havent had any problems, i still wanted to check anyway to be sure, I have put it in and looks ok so far, but i need to test it with drive shafts in it first on my desk to check. (dont forget to check this).
Once its back in you need to put the reverse gear selector that you removed back on and then put those two bolts back on that you removed earlier. Remember to ensure that the arm sits in the groove correctly and then spend 30 mins trying to put those bolts back on, its really fiddly and i dropped the bolt at the bottom of the gearbox a few times trying!
Now that you have got it back on, get your instant gasket sealer and put a coat of it along the rim of the entire gearbox, ensure its fully covered and then lower your gearbox case back down.
Reattach the 13, 12mm bolts, the 3 bolts in the bell housing and dont forget to put back in the ball bearing and spring allen key bolt.
Thats it, well done job done!!
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