TL;DR - My driver side alignment got messed up again for the third time. I'm not sure if there's something wrong with the hardware, but I'll be monitoring.
Thank goodness for Firestone lifetime alignment packages.
For 25 years, I've had no real problems with my alignment. While other 1st gen Tacoma owners - including my buddies - have lamented the flimsy steel tabs that secure the alignment cams, welding on gussets or upgrading them altogether, I haven't really seen the need to change anything.
Thinking that perhaps I was doing something wrong, for the last 5 years I've used a paint pen to mark the position of the alignment cams relative to the frame, and until a trip to Roam Around Capitol Reef earlier this year, I'd never seen any movement.
It was there - after running a relatively tame trail - that I could tell that something was wrong. As I was driving - straight - along a stretch of paved road, I could hear my tires squealing. After radioing ahead, I got out to take a quick look, and things were not good.
Buck-toothed Taco.
As usual, everyone rallied to get the situation sorted. Our conclusion: the rear alignment cam on the front, driver-side, hadn't been fully tightened the last time I'd gotten an alignment at Firestone, and it'd finally loosened "just enough" so that it was jolted out of position on the trail. With the witness marks, it was easy to return to a reasonably good alignment, and with that, Monte @Blackdawg added a few ugga-duggas with extended wrenches to prevent the situation from happening again.
Everything seemed to be fine for the next six months.
Then - after all my summer maintenance was done and before I was going to drive the Tacoma back down to Las Vegas - I got another alignment. Suspecting that the tech at Firestone may not have tightened everything enough the previous time, I pulled out the extended wrenches and gave things a bit of ugga-dugga myself when the job was complete. I got a good half-to-full turn of each cam, so I figured that it was good that I'd double checked their work!
And then, on the first day of my Sierra - Nevada trip, when I was climbing on a couple of rocks to level out the truck, I felt as though something "moved wrong" in the front end. Sure enough, a quick look at the witness marks showed that the same driver-side rear cam was misaligned. Were my ugga-duggas not as ugga-dugga as I thought? I quickly booked an alignment for the morning I'd arrive in Las Vegas, and then proceeded to enjoy the remainder of the trip.
Up on the lift in Las Vegas, as I showed the witness marks to the alignment tech, I noticed that the driver-side rear cam was covered in oil. I knew immediately what it was - gear oil from the front diff breather, which notoriously burps stinky goo in all 1st gen Tacomas - and found myself wondering if the oil lubricated everything enough to cause the cam to loosen.
I always thought the burping front diff breather was innocuous, but maybe not.
It's too soon to tell for sure, but we got everything sorted and the cam tightened down again. I'll be monitoring the situation, and I may add a small oil catch-can to the breather if the alignment goes out again and the cam is still oily.
And, maybe it'll finally be time to add some of those cam tab gussets.
In this Series
I plan on upgrading the cam tabs on my 3rd gen 4Runner. I had already upgraded the cams and bolts to the ones from KPOffroad but after my recent trip to sand hollow one of my cam tabs got bent flat so it's time to upgrade so I don't have to worry about that again.
I also have the burping breather on my front diff. I use Lucas 85W-140 because that's what ECGS recommends with my 4.88 gears. My guess is the thicker oil likes to climb more because I never had issues before using synthetic 75w-90.
I was wondering about using some of those upgraded cams and bolts; sounds like I'll just be adding some tab reinforcements.
The burping front diff has been the case for me ever since I moved to 4.88s with the ARB locker up front (which was not long after I started using the truck for adventures), so I've never really known life without a bit of gear oil running down the inner fender. It doesn't really bother me... unless it's causing other problems like this, hahaha!
(thanks for weighing in, always nice to hear other folks experience as I try to figure a path forward)
I busted off a front alignment cam on my Tacoma somehow. ended up having the shop weld on some super beefy aftermarket ones.
How high up does the diff breather go? The factory one on my Cruiser goes to just below the hood. Also the smaller the hose the more capillary action, I replaced my rear diff hose with a clear 1/2" hose to reduce capillary action and to be able to monitor it. Haven't seen any issues with it since. Needed some brass fittings from Ace.
My diff breather is attached to the top-ish of the inner fender, so I'd say, just under the height of the engine bay fuse box. The hose is probably a 1/4" ID, so capillary action could be in play. A catch can would solve that, so we'll see...