98 Toyota 4 Runner Question about rear end?

IRUNULTRAS · 15 Jul 2010, 04:15 am

My daughter has a 98 4 runner limited. She was driving it and it just all of a sudden made a loud clunk/bang and stopped moving. I took a look at it and found that the drive shaft was turning but the truck wouldn't move. I also found that I could put it in 4 wheel high and it would drive via front end. Is there a mechanism that would prevent the rear differential from engaging in these trucks like a solenoid or ?

Is there a way to determine if the rear end is blown easily. It had not been making any noise previous to this. It has always ran like a top. It almost acts like the rear end is stuck out of gear and the 4 wheel drive shift lever is in neutral.

Im pretty mechanical with stuff and would like to take a stab at it before I run to the dealer

Any help would be very very much appreciated

Chad F · 15 Jul 2010, 04:28 am

First thing I would do is drain the fluid out of the rear end and see how much metal there is in it.

Could have busted a spider gear or worse a axle, Maby not a axle as that would keep making noise.

I bet the spider gears are gone.

98 Toyota 4 Runner Question about rear end?

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