Troopy parts: not so widely available as I thought?

As you know, Australia is a big place and to expect major towns, or even a speck on the map like Coober Pedy to carry stock for a 4wd is asking a bit much.
Alice Springs, that has a Toyota dealer, MAY have had the part, but as it's probably not a common part that fails, why should they stock a part that may sit on their shelf for years ??

The hub seal retains the hub grease, there should not be any oil in the hub to leak out. The oil is in the diff. There is an oil seal in the end of the axle, at the back of the hub, its job is to keep the oil and grease separate. It sounds like it is this seal which has failed, allowing the diff oil to leak into the hub. With the hub apart you should replace the seal anyway. The other side is probably due to fail soon so be aware.

It's a rumour widely spread by the Toyota religious cult.... :-)

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Hi Candace,

It may well be an axle seal....BUT.... here's a tale of woe.

Several years ago we took our Troopy across the Anne Beadell Hwy to visit the Pilbara. Almost there and oil appeared dripping from the steering hub. First thought was an axle seal but it turned out to be a loose bearing cover below the knuckle. This is a solid forged plate about 100mm square attatched to the bottom of the hub by four studs. The plates also incorporate short arms which attach to the steering link arms to turn the hubs

Our problem was that three of the studs had sheared, leaving one solitary stud to retain the bearing and loosening enough to allow diff oil to escape!!!
Loss of the final stud would have resulted in immediate steering loss.

The stud failure was of course due to long term vibration stress and finalised by the Anne Beadell's notorious corrugations. Fortunately, it was able to be repaired at Pt Hedland promptly, but only after obtaining some components from a wrecker.

So, it may be a seal, but it may be prudent to closely examine the bearing retainer plate, or rather its securing studs. It can be difficult to observe easily because of all the oil accumulating over the bottom of the hub.

Hope you get it sorted promptly.

I don't think you can expect a town like CP would carry all types of parts , where as AS would most likely have seals as there's many spare part outlet's but if not they would only be 1 day away .
Hope you get going soon fingers crossed .

Candace
If it is actually differential oil, ie, smelly acrid smell, then the drive axle seal located in the actual axle tube is inboard of the swivel hub. People Referring to the swivel hub as the "hub" is misleading, there is a swivel hub, ie, steering related and a wheel hub. People advising should refer to which one it is they mean. I couldn't quite work out what they mean by reading it. If the axle tube/axle seal is worn and leaking diff oil into the swivel hub, if so, it will begin to drain out as there is no positive seal there, only wiper seals on the ball faces. There should be no oil in the swivel hub, only grease. The CV/Uni runs in grease. The actual wheel hub is lubricated by it's own grease in the rotating wheel hub along with the wheel bearings.
If the vehicle has free wheel hubs/devices, on the ends of the wheel hubs, then if set to FREE and the vehicle is in high range/2wdrive and the front differential is not turning the axles, the vehicle can be driven from CP to Alice Springs quite easily and safely. Even if all the oil was able to drain out it would not matter if the front drive/differential and axles aren't being rotated.

There are plenty of shops in Alice who can repair the issue apart from the Toyota dealer.

The problem with most businesses today is the pressure to keep parts stock levels low.
This is a money-saving approach pushed by bean counters, which works to some extent, where there's good parts supplies in warehouses nearby, and freight services are fast and frequent.

However, this approach doesn't work in remote areas, where it can take days to get a part.

The downside of keeping too many parts on hand for too long, however, is that corrosion sets in on machined and polished surfaces, and rubber components degrade rapidly with age.

It's a fine line that repair businesses have to walk, and sometimes they get it very wrong.
In addition, as years go by, parts and part numbers change frequently, with model upgrades and changes and engineering improvements. This makes it very hard for repairers to keep up.

Cheers, Ron.

I thought the reason why people bought Toyotas was because anybody can fix them, they have dealers everywhere and parts are always readily available at the nearest town. Oh and they NEVER breakdown! Well looks like their spare parts availability is no better than my Disco, and perhaps once again I hear of Toyotas breaking down!!! I will sit back with some pop corn and now watch all the Jap crap owners jump to their defence!!!

Interesting replies. Hopefully this shop is good (a local yesterday assured me the mechanic there is very good) and they do a throrough check for other possible problems.

I'm wondering if the problem, whatever it turns out to be, could possibly be due to over-servicing?

When I got the vehicle, I noticed it looked a rather greasy/dirty in that same area. On both sides. I now wish I had taken some good pics at that time, for documentation and for comparison to how it now looks.

I have to admit, on a historical basis, I have fond memories of parts availability in Coober Pedy!

It was July 1969 and a 21 yr old year mate and 20 yr old myself, were doing a "big lap" of the Great Unknown Outback of Australia - Perth to Darwin to Adelaide and back to Perth - in a 1968 HK Holden ute. My own work ute, in fact.

It was my first great civilian adventure, before I was being forced to join the "Green Machine" as a national Serviceman, on 1st Oct that year.
We left Perth the 1st July '69, and headed North. We zig-zagged across the Wheatbelt and Murchison and Pilbara of W.A., on roads that would all be classed as ""4WD only" today, with appropriate warning signs.

There was little by way of road signs in those days. If you were lucky, the oil companies and the RAC had put up some road signs - and if you were very lucky, they were still standing.
Many had been ravaged by termites, fire and the elements.

The formed and sealed section of the North-West Coastal Highway ended at Barradale Roadhouse (long gone) on the Yannarie River, 200 kms N of Carnarvon.
After that, the NW Coastal Hwy was just two wheel ruts across the plains, punctuated by massive holes in the road, where some poor truckie had been bogged to the makers name by a big rain - and when he'd been pulled out (usually by a station grader), they never bothered to fill the hole in!

But the old Holden performed flawlessly, despite being pounded along at breakneck speed through washouts, deep bulldust and massive potholes by two over-eager youths.
We made it to Darwin after 2 weeks, and then set off to Adelaide.

But the Holden engine weakness was just waiting to strike. We'd just made about 30 or 50kms over the N.T./S.A. border, when disaster struck!
That weakness reared it's ugly head and laughed, as the fibre timing gear stripped!

There we were - broken down, and as far as we could get, from anything slightly resembling "civilisation", in the centre of Australia!
We had a good selection of tools onboard, and a range of spares - but NO TIMING GEAR!! What a bummer!

So we sat in gloom for a couple of hours, and then a truckie with a semi, arrived from the direction of Alice Springs - in an early 1950's, wooden-cab Foden!
He pulled up, and we told him our predicament, and we discussed what was best to do.

We were closer to Coober Pedy than Alice Springs, and there wasn't a lot of spares available in Alice Springs.
The truckie mentioned a new mechanical repair shop had just started up in Coober Pedy.
It was either Coober Pedy or Adelaide for a new timing gear, and it looked like Adelaide was going to be the only place we could get one.

I thought it would be a good idea if the truckie towed us, we could get the ute closer to civilisation that way.
So we hooked up to the semi with the chain we had on board, and off we went.

Despite the old Foden being flat out at around 60kmh, when being towed, we got showered constantly with gravel and rocks!
Then it got worse! One of the rocks smashed the windscreen!!
A short while afterwards, the truckie pulled up to see how we were getting on, and he was surprised to see we weren't faring too well at all!

So, we pushed the ute off the side of the "highway" and leaving my mate there alone in the wild and lonely Outback (I don't think he's ever forgiven me!), I jumped into the cab of the old Foden and off we went, Adelaide-bound.

The truckie drove all night, and neither of us slept, we just yarned away all night.
I reckon we averaged about 30 kms an hour, as we pounded our way through continuous corrugations, and what seemed like endless creek crossings.

We pulled into Coober Pedy about 7:00AM, and my heart sank. There was hardly a building in town! Just a small roadhouse, a few shacks - and a new shed up the far end of town!

The truckie pointed out the shed and said, "That's the new mechanic in town, walk up and see if he's got anything, and I'll order breakfast for us here at the roadhouse."

So I set off on foot to the far end of town, to the fancy new shed, and walked into it. The bloke had just opened up for business for the day, and when I glanced around, my heart sank.
The shed was virtually empty! It looked like a trip to Adelaide was going to be on the cards!

I walked up to the owner and asked casually, "You wouldn't happen to have a timing gear for a red Holden motor, would you, mate?"
He thought for a second and said, "Actually, I think I do!"

He walked over to the corner of the shed, where there was an open-topped 200 litre drum.
He reached into that drum and rummaged around and pulled out a red Holden engine timing gear!!

You know those times when you could kiss a bloke? That was one of them!!
Over the moon, I paid him for it, and set off back to the roadhouse, where breakfast was just being served.

The truckie was quite amazed that I'd acquired the gear - so we ate breakfast together, we shook hands and I thanked him, we parted company, and I walked North out of town, hitching a ride, while he set off for Adelaide.

It actually didn't take long to get back to the ute. I hitched a ride with a big group of Aboriginals riding on an 8 tonne truck for a start!
That was an interesting ride, as they passed flagons of wine around, and asked if I wanted a drink! - at 8 o'clock in the morning!!

They dropped me off about 50kms out, as they turned off the highway, and it wasn't long before I got a ride with a bloke in a car going to Darwin by himself.

I arrived back at the ute well before lunchtime, much to my mates surprise! - as he expected I'd be gone for a week!
I'd even brought back some fresh bread from Coober Pedy - sheer luxury in the wilderness of the Australian Outback!!

We set to, and ripped the timing gear off in a pretty crude manner - just chiselling the old one off and hammering the new one on! We weren't in the mood for proper replacement techniques!

We got the ute going again by late afternoon, and we were on the road again, heading for Adelaide!
We made it back to Perth at the end of July, where the old ute had to undergo some serious further repair to fix all the damage we had endured, and to fix the leaking timing cover gasket that we hadn't managed to seal properly!

But I've never forgotten the luck we had in the Outback of Australia, and our greatest parts find in virtually the most remote town in Australia!

But those were the days when Holden parts could be acquired in the most far-flung places, and people kept spares on hand, as supplies were infrequent, freight was slow and irregular, and weather events governed whether you got freight or not, on time.

Cheers, Ron.

Landcruiser rigid front axle oil seals are a dime a dozen but Coober Pedy is an interesting place! But for future reference, your front wheel bearings are still well lubricated with diff oil mixed in with the grease, so you would have been fine driving to Alice Springs and with the hubs unlocked the diff would not be turning.
Hope you are on your way again!

Just a comment on availability of parts.
Coober Pedy is mainly an opal mining town.
Not many miners have the wherewithal to buy Land Cruisers.
If you were in a place where there were a lot of cattle stations around you would be able to get cruiser parts.
There is a mechanic in Mataranka who almost exclusively works on Land Cruisers and I reckon would have lots of parts, judging by the number of engines etc lying around. He was quite dismissive of my Range Rover until he had a look underneath and commented on the strength of the chassis. I only had a fuel blockage , but had an interesting discussion with the locals who swore by the electronic 6 cylinder turbo diesel and reckoned that the new fangled V8 diesel was not half as good, a sentiment echoed by the RACQ bloke in Laura who had just done a $13 K job on the fuel system of one.

It is logistically unrealistic and would be at extremely high cost to have parts for most manufacturers, as well as the model variants within, as well as the MY variants within each model. Warehousing would be huge, and someone has to buy all that capital to 'maybe' on-sell it within a year, or 10? (remember their 'year' is really only a few months within the season.

I for one can fully understand why parts have to be ordered even for popular vehicles.

CJ

It is all just a smoke screen.

Toyota nicotine addiction

Ultimately, to fix my leaky hire vehicle, he replaced the axle seals and bearings at both ends of the front axle. Plus the front shocks.

While all this was going on, Apollo dispatched a newer and less-battered replacement vehicle.

But... I checked the tyre pressures the following morning, and found the left front and spare only had 25 psi! Much worse, I later realized those two tyres were a different size than the other three!!! So back to Bridgestone and Apollo had to buy me two new tyres of the correct size.