How to have a very expensive time off road...

After a lovely hot day at the Billing show in my Disco 300tdi auto, I decided to go round the off road course. The disco was great off road, as was my previous 200tdi, so when it came to the mud run I thought 'why not? I went through there fine in my 200...'
Yep, got stuck. Muddy water was glooping its way into the car, my feet were starting to float, I was quickly reaching for the window switches to stop the mud flowing through the windows. Mild panic...
I continued around the off road course but noticed that my oil pressure light was flickering whenever I lifted off the accelerator. Stopped, checked the oil, coolant, etc but everything was as normal. I started my journey back to south London and managed to get about 2 miles before the disco was petering out going up a slight hill, and would not rev above 2,000 rpm. Rather than waiting for something to go BANG on the M1, I pulled over and called the AA. I got recovered back home (achieving excellent mpg on the back of a lorry...) and my neighbour's garage took the car in the next day.
The cause of the problem was a f*d turbo, which i kind of suspected. However, on deeper investigations my neighbour found that water had managed to get into the engine causing bits of big end to be fired in all directions and con rods bending etc.
Considering the good condition of the rest of the disco, (with it having minimal rust and a solid boot floor!) I decided to get the engine reconditioned. I sent mine off to a guy in Wales who reconditions engine, and the price was a lot more reasonable than the £2100 my garage quoted.
So after refitting it, sorting out a blowing exhaust and a propshaft gaiter, today the disco was finally ready to be picked up (five weeks after billing...). The garage mentioned that they found lots of water in the rear axle, so had emptied it and filled it with fresh oil.
I picked up the disco this evening, and although the engine sounds lovely and looks fantastic, the rear diff is making so much noise! It's especially noisy when I lift off the accelerator. I've taken it for a little drive tonight but couldn't bear the noise. I'm taking it back to the garage tomorrow for them to give it another axle oil change, the theory being that when it is emptied more of the crap in the axle n diff will be taken out. Supposed to be driving up to North Yorkshire on sunday...700 mile round trip...
Wish me luck!

Some pics...

bit foolish with no snorkle

Funny, the mechanic at the garage mentioned something along those lines as well....

Did your previous 200 have a snorkle?

Good luck with the rear axle - hope it's just a case of empty and refill again.

Diff.

Cheers Diff, yeah I hope so too. I imagine theres 18 years worth of muck and crud in there, on top of what got in at billing, so fingers crossed!
Nope, 200 was bog standard on what I would call road tyres, others would call slicks!
Josh

Aaaah that was you! I was sat on the bank watching you get towed in! Looked reet messy .

Make sure you take the floor up right through n dry out, or you won't have a good boot/footwells floor for too much longer. The sound proofing stuff is like a sponge and holds water.
Just saying incase you don't know...

i would say if its sat up for 5 weeks the water has put a little rust on the bearing or the bearing race either pinion or carrier bearings which would cause your noise cheers mike

i would say shagged pinion bearing, is there any play in the pinion/on the flange?

is the garage you are using used to Landies? if not they might not know too much about the agricultural diffs on a Landy and think an oil change will do the trick, i promise you if its the pinion bearing it doesnt matter how much oil you put through the thing once the play is in place it only gets worse, it may be nipped up for a while but i guarantee it will go sooner or later.

Watch out when mine went it took some teeth off the crown and pinion too because of the slack in the shaft once the bearing disintegrated, very messy and resulted in needing a fresh diff, which in my case was a pain as i have a detroit in there too so had to strip old one apart strip new one apart and fit the bits back together to get a decent working diff and locker again, for you it wont be so bad if its bog standard as its a simple swap.

get em to check the pinion 700 miles is a long way if you are doubting your motor.

Firstly, sorry to hear about your woes.

Secondly, I love the crisp waterline on the drivers side.

Thirdly, yep you hydrauliced it, amazing you made it that far.

Fourth, if the back diff has got muddy water in, the highest likelihood is that is will have pitted the drive faces of the gears and this is only fixable by recon.

As it happens it is cheaper to replace with a second hand unit.

Either way it is simply 5 bolts on each half shaft, 4 bolts on the propshaft and 10 nuts on the diff to pull it out for visual inspection, then you can see what's what.

You don't even have to jack the car up to do this!

Mr Noisy said:

Firstly, sorry to hear about your woes.

Secondly, I love the crisp waterline on the drivers side.

Thirdly, yep you hydrauliced it, amazing you made it that far.

Fourth, if the back diff has got muddy water in, the highest likelihood is that is will have pitted the drive faces of the gears and this is only fixable by recon.

As it happens it is cheaper to replace with a second hand unit.

Either way it is simply 5 bolts on each half shaft, 4 bolts on the propshaft and 10 nuts on the diff to pull it out for visual inspection, then you can see what's what.

You don't even have to jack the car up to do this!

Click to expand...

Yep-changed the oil a couple more times now, i'm thinking a 2nd hand unit off fleabay is the way forward. Especially if it's that easy!
I love the waterline as well-I was tempted to leave it on the car as a new styling decal lol

e4sanosh said:

Yep-changed the oil a couple more times now, i'm thinking a 2nd hand unit off fleabay is the way forward. Especially if it's that easy!
I love the waterline as well-I was tempted to leave it on the car as a new styling decal lol

Click to expand...

non of the units (axles ,transmission etc) are water tight ,taking a landy through stuff that deep is asking for trouble