First, please let me say... Thank you SBS! I just went through this procedure when replacing my bad engine. SBS is right, it's no big deal, and SBS tips really help. The only problem I had was visualizing what I needed to do before actually taking the transfer case apart. First, let me say that I don't have any miles on my transfer case reseal, so I may have messed it up. All the gaskets I needed were in gasket kit 04362-48010 (~$55).

A couple of comments about my situation: 153k 2008 with a "seep" on the bottom of the transfer case. When I pulled it apart, the RH bearing assembly weep hole was dry! I was leaking from the cover - hah!

OK, here are some adds:

Drain x-fer case, remove cover & eight bolts and drain (mine took 30 minutes, and still had gear lube in it). Remove RH bearing assembly (part 1, I used a dead blow hammer to turn one of the bolt "ears" and then tap it out until it was free). As above, remove LH lock sleeve (essentially opposite to the RH bearing assembly) shown as a splined collar, o-ring, and snap ring. You may want to support the ring gear assembly when you remove the LH lock sleeve, but you probably don't have to. Once the LH lock sleeve is out, you can Carefully pull out (just barely) the ring gear carrier assembly.

Here's the process that I followed: On the right hand side, pry out oil seal #3. I used a HF seal puller, but I ended up lightly scratching the seal bore, so be careful. Now, from the other side, using a wood dowel (I bought a 48x1/2" from HD and cut it down to size), insert your dowel through 9 & 8, and push on one side of the double oil seal 7 until it's turned sideways in the bore. Now you can insert your dowel through the other side (where 3 used to be) and tap on alternating sides of 8 to drive out bearing race 9 that's just pressed into assembly 1. Once 8 & 9 are out, you can reach in and easily pull out 7.

Careful, because 7 is three pieces. Two oil seals and a nylon spacer between them. When you assemble them, the ridges on the edge the oil seals are oriented away from the nylon spacer.

Important: fully lubricate all seals with gear oil before installing.

I ended up pressing all the seals in with sockets from a HF 3/4" metric socket set, but I did have access to a 20T HF press that I used to square up the parts. I used a dead blow hammer to knock off the tail shaft with alternating blows. I scratched the bore of the tail shaft output seal and had to sand it and lubricate it with grease before inserting the replacement seal.

You're going to need an accurate (<1mm) caliper to measure the depth of the seals.

I didn't check or reset the pinion pre-load since I didn't disturb any bearings, but do make sure bearing race 9 is fully seated.

 

Hi all,



Our 2008 Toyota Sienna with 170K miles started leaving a small drip on parking strip. Soon after noticing the drip, noticed bad smells in the van when warming up or stopped in traffic, not moving, engine running.



Mechanic's diagnostic noted that fluid is leaking from the transfer case directly onto the exhaust pipe (see photo) under the passenger's front seat causing the bad smell to enter the car when running, but not moving. The mechanic asked if they could drain the fluid to see how much metal was in it. No metal chunks came out, but when stirred the fluid is “sparkly” (photo attached), which to the mechanic indicated a complete failure of the transfer box. They didn’t clean up seeping transfer case or try to determine where the leak was coming from. They said the leaks weren’t worth sealing because the transfer case had completely failed as evidenced by the “sparkles” in the fluid.



The mechanic said the new transfer case would cost about $3800 just for the part, plus about 16 hours of labor, because both the engine and transmission would first have to be removed to replace the transmission case. They said our van wasn't worth fixing, as the fix exceeded $6000.



My brother, an airplane mechanic did a little thinking outside the box. He hypothesized that 170K of AWD miles could’ve added fine metals to the fluid transfer case fluid and might not indicate a failure. And he said, because the transfer case is leaking, but not low on fluids, it might be worth trying to replace the axle seal on the transfer case if that appears to be the source of leakage, or fixing other leaks. But, the car mechanic said if the transfer case valve was the source of the leakage, then engine and transmission would still need to be removed in order to fix the leakage.



Does anyone have recommendations? If the fluid is slowly leaking, is it worth trying to reseal things? Do the fine metal flecks really indicate the transfer case has failed even though it doesn’t make sounds and only has a slow leak? Has anyone had luck figuring out where the leak is actually comes from? If yes, how did you figure it out? Has anyone had luck adding sealant products to the fluid?



I really want to fix our van! I just put brand new tires on it, replaced the alternator and the tie rods ☹

 

Approaching the end of my transfer case saga and wanted to share some of my lessons learned.

This just covers what to do with the TC once you have it out of the vehicle. I've got another thread where I will add some other lessons learned about getting it out of the car:
Dropping engine


High level summary - there wasn't anything awful here. Getting the thing out of the car is the main battle. Some of it looks moderately bad based on reading the manual especially with all the SSTs, but it really isn't and they aren't needed.

Most-challenging thing was pressing the seals in because there are no backstops on any of these seals - you have to press them to a certain depth and keep them level and there's nothing in the design that helps you to do that. Very tedious - "dink" - measure - "dink" - measure....

If you have access to a machine shop or parts printer, I'd make some spacers to use to set the seals to the correct depth - that way you could use an oversized seal driver and just drive it until the driver is flush with the casing lip.



Reference material you should read:

https://toyota.oemdtc.com/TSB/T-SB-0138-10.pdf
Toyota Sienna Service Manual: Disassembly - Transfer unit - Transfer
Toyota Sienna Service Manual: Reassembly - Transfer unit - Transfer
http://www.stevesalt.com/toyota-0138-10-tsb-transfer-case-inner-seal-highlander-sienna-rav4-2/



Parts needed (to replace all TC seals):

• extension seal...............national.....710319
• input shaft seal.............national.....710910
• output shaft seal, front.....national.....710870
• output shaft seal, rear......national.....710807
• o-ring.......................toyota.......90301-70002
• o-ring.......................toyota.......90301-11018
• gasket.......................toyota.......36141-21010
• o-ring.......................toyota.......90301-44003

The last one in the list is easy to overlook (I did) because it's not listed on the seals page of the catalog, but on the gears page. (#&^%!)



You also might want to get:

• drain & fill plug washers....toyota.......12157-10010 (qu=3)
• output bearing...............toyota.......90366-38020

The TSB calls for using only the race from this new bearing set. I was able to reuse my old race but I was sweating about damaging it during removal. Having the spare would save some stress.



I also recommend replacing the drain plug with a transmission drain plug. If you've ever tried to loosen the TC drain plug in-situ, you know why. The trans plug has an internal hex drive. However it doesn't have a magnet like the TC drain plug does.

• trans drain plug...toyota...90341-18016

Tools needed:

• torque wrenches
  - values range from 57 in-lb to 21 ft-lb
  
  
• seal drivers
  - I used the HF #63261. It's a nice tool, but the sizes weren't a good fit for this job. I suggest looking for a similar set that has all the sizes to match the above seals.
  
  
• brass drifts and/or hardwood drifts
  - I used an oak dowel.
  
  
• Snap-ring pliers
  
  
• Brass brush to clean mating surfaces

Chemicals needed:

• RTV for differential oil
  - I used permatex 81182
  
  
• Multipurpose grease #2
  
  
• Chemical to clean mating surfaces
  - I use lacquer thinner

Suggested sequence of disassembly & reassembly:

1. Remove cover plate
   
   
2. Remove RH bearing assembly
   
   
3. Remove LH lock sleeve
   - Leaving the RH out while you do the LH allows you to move stuff out of the way on the left side to remove and install the seal
   
   
4. Rebuild / install LH assembly
   
   
5. Rebuild / install RH assembly
   
   
6. Remove / rebuild / install tail housing
   
   
7. Install cover

Tips:

• To remove the RH bearing retainer, use a drift to rotate it a little until one of the ears is hanging over the edge where the cover plate fits, then beat on that ear to drive it out.
  
  
• On the RH bearing retainer, the manual shows pulling the bearing race and flat washer out. I drove them out from the other side instead. You have to first dislodge the oil seal enough that you can put your drift past it. I just got the oil seal rotated 90* in the tube and pulled it out after the other parts were out.
  
  
• To remove the "CTR DIFF LOCK SLEEVE" the manual shows using an internal puller. I fretted over this quite a bit, borrowed a slide hammer puller, discovered that it wouldn't fit because the inner diameter is too small, started to wonder if I was going to have to take this to a machine shop, then thought, "Why not just see if I can pry it from the outside with a screwdriver?" It comes right off - isn't even a press fit. Doh!
  
  
• There is no real need to check preload if you're just changing seals. The TSB specifically says to change only the bearing race not the bearing in order to not alter the preload.
  
  
• When reattaching the TC to the transmission, have the driveshaft handy - you may need to rotate the TC input shaft in order to align the splines with the transmission. Best way to do this is to slip on the driveshaft and use it to bump the gears.

Hi, I was all set to order a used transfer case from LKQ when we met a mechanic who wanted to do the job. He talked us into letting him order his own used tcase from his own supplier. The problem is, when I ageed to the transaction he said it was a transfer case from a crashed 2010 Sienna with 76K, which I later found out was not true. Soon after the part arrived, we got cold feet about the mechanic's abilities, so just paid him for his troubles and walked away with the part which still had the tags & VIN on it. Turns out the tc came from a 2004 toyota highlander which was last sold in 2014 with 149K on it. The autocheck report shows registration was renewed annually from 2014 up till 2022, when it was recycled in Eugene, Oregon, with no final odometer reading. So...who knows how many miles this tc has on it?!? Any experienced mechanics want to pitch in on this one? Is it even worth doing the TSB and replacing all the seals in such a high mileage tc? Or should I consider this one dead in the water?

 

The thing is, you need a transfer case. You have a transfer case. You have a van with 170k miles and a transfer case with 149k** miles. If you take a statistical approach, that means you can depend on 20k miles, minimum at a cost (from your previous post) of $2200. For reference, many use the estimate of 10k miles per year (normal usage), so, in a best case scenario, you'd expect a 2010 Sienna to have 120k miles on it. While it would have been nice to have a 2010/76k TC, and you might be able to return it under a misrepresentation condition (although, I doubt it) and execute your original plan of buying one from LKQ, having it refreshed and installed or just refresh what you have and install it.

At this point, if it were up to me, I would do an external and internal inspection. If the fluid is clean and the gears have no chips or other apparent damage, refresh it, get it installed and drive the van. However, if the van isn't worth another $2200 to you, retiring it is probably the answer. As one alternative option, you could always to the work and then sell the van into the used car market. You'd probably get $3-5k for it.

** - I would guess that 149k is accurate. The probably faced a repair bill they didn't want to pay and it sat in the driveway for years. I have a '97 Ford Ranger in my driveway in a similar situation for the last 13 years that I kept registered for at least 5 of those years.

 

In case anyone else decides to have a go with the transfer case it's really not that bad. I think I had it out in 6 hours and could probably do it again in 3. Knowing which wrench or socket to use next is the key. Hopefully these pictures will help.