4th Gen 4Runner E-Locker Axle Swap: First Update

My axle was delivered in all of it’s glory last week, and I managed to maneuver it into my garage and get it on jack stands.  The eBay seller’s description was “has surface rust”, and they are right, but it’s a lot!  Doesn’t look like the axle was ever cleaned off…Overall, it really wasn’t that bad though.  Nothing that can’t be refurbished.

Fist thing on the agenda was to get this bad boy broken down.  So I drained the pumpkin, took out the axles and removed the 3rd member.

As you can see, everything on the inside was in perfect condition — a big relief!  Even though I’m getting a solid pinion spacer rebuild, it was nice to see brown (not black, sludgy) diff fluid.  Gives me hope for the longevity of the rest of pieces like the bearings and axles.

Now that it’s all apart, I’m going to go through the tedious process of descaling the rust and brushing the surface so I can get some rust converter on it before encapsulating and painting.

I decided to change the plan a little, though, and I bought Corroseal Rust Converter.  The reason I decided to use Corroseal is because it claims that it can go over non-rusted surfaces, unlike many converters such as Eastwood’s.  Being that I’ve never used the product, I decided to do a test patch.  It didn’t go so well…

I cleaned the surface of any scale and I hit it with acetone to rid it of oils and dirt.  Unfortunately, it seems like I didn’t clean it good enough and got some splotchy curing.  I have a message into the company to see what they recommend for cleaning if a good dose of Acetone didn’t do the trick.

Before

During

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