2.2 TD4 mystery rumbling noise with slight vibration 60-80Mph cured!

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bandit6sic6

Member
Posts
49
Location
Brechin, Scotland
My wife has had and loved her 07 TD4 for a few years now and theres been no real problems to speak of, its been a great car, but as is the way with these things it developed a hard to describe fault while i was away with work, so with the fear of breaking down, the wife abandoned her beloved freelander and knicked mine.

When i returned ashore, i got another vauge description from the wife of rumbling, vibrating booming noise at 60-80mph, so i took it for a spin, and the noise was low at first, and after 10-15 minutes would become annoying. hard to point its source from inside the car.

Got back home, into the garage and up on Axle stands, checked the obvious wheel bearings and had a listen to the car in gear at tickover, all seamed well, nothing obvious, so i did a bit of searching on here, and spoke to a local landrover specialist and had almost resigned myself to buying a new rear diff.

anyway in a last bid to trace the fault myself, i ordered up a mechanics stethoscope, and with the car well supported, off the ground, wheels off, ticking over in 3rd gear i listened to all the bearings, wheel,ird diff etc, the only one that seemed even slightly loud was the bearing halfway allong the O/S/F driveshaft where it is braced against the gearbox.

A quick call to landrover confirmed that the bearing is not available by its self and a whole new driveshaft is £320 ish. Bought a second hand set apparently off the same year and spec of car from ebay, thought i may aswell change out both as the vehicle thay had been removed from had only covered 40,000 Miles and ours has done nearly 90,000. fitted them no bother, re-assembled the whole car, started her up, threw it into gear and awesome, no drive!

Pulled the bastard apart agin, no big deal, until i go to remove the N/S/F drive shaft, stuck solid! increasing levels of violence were applied to no avail, with the "helpfull" comments from my wife driving me to crack open a case of stella and sit on the garage floor drinking them and listening to Metallica!

A trip to the Hire store the next day, and with the aid of a body repair jack, i was able to use specifically applied violence to squeeze out the shaft. with both the old and new driveshafts on the floor it was obvious there were a few differences between them, the N/S/F replacement was 10mm longer, hence it stuck, and the O/S/F was 10mm shorter, hence no drive, as it wasnt fully engaged.

I tried to source a new bearing for my old shafts, but its curved outer shell flummoxed my bearing specialist. After much head scratching i popped the bearing off the good shaft and installed it onto my originals, and swapped out the CV joints too, this time ensuring all new parts were identacle to the originals. Re-assembled the car, and with fingers crossed threw it in gear.

Success! she workes, off for a test drive, quiet as a mouse.

Anyway thats a long rant but the morral of the story is, double and tripple check replacement parts, even if at first glance they look the same, tape measure and callipers out! i was luck not to damage my transmission!

Also a stethoscope is an excellent LR diagnostic tool.

Thats been a couple of months and 4000 miles and all is quiet in the freelander, so it was a cheep repair. I took the opportunity to service it too, whichever designer sited the oil filter wants a swift kick to the bollocks too!

i will post some photos once i prise them from the Iphone.

Hope this rant helps out other frustrated fault finders.
 
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