HOW TO: IRD Driveshaft oil seal renewal

As promised in my previous post I took some pics of how I set about changing my leaky drive shaft seal on the IRD unit.
Previous post with some handy discussions: http://www.landyzone.co.uk/lz/f9/changing-ird-drive-shaft-oil-seal-171292.html

1. Remove road wheel and have a little clean around, remove auxilary belts splash cover by undoing the 3 10mm bolts securing it to the chassis.


2. At this point you can see the two bolts you need to undo, the bottom ball joint and anti roll bar bush link (or drop link as some call it)


3. You can see how bad my leak is in the 3rd picture. Carefully unclip your ABS wire and remove the brake hose clip from your suspension strut as you will need plenty of slack for later.


4. First remove the drop link, you will need to insert an imperial allan key into the end of the thread to stop it spinning while you undo the nut


5. Next is the bottom ball joint, its on their tight folks. I found applying some sideways force helped me undo the bugger


6. Now, get on your knees facing the brake disc and push the disc in with your body while pushing down on the wishbone, the two should seperate and then you can pull the hub out of the way, make sure the bottom ball joint doent catch your CV boot! You can then get what ever is to hand (a crow bar in my case) and give the driveshaft a quick knock and it shouldpop free of the IRD


7. With the driveshaft lowered to one side out of the way you can now see your seal, mine was very sandy and mucky..the pay and play site full of sand dunes was probably the kiler for my seal!


8. Using a seal removal tool you can now prize out the old seal, have a catch pan ready as you will lose a little oil.


9. With the seal removed you can see your bearing race, have a good look inside to see if there is any damage to your IRD.


10. Get your new seal and lubricate it well on the inside with IRD oil, if you want you can apply some RTV sealant to the outer rubber where it joins the IRD but I didnt bother.

11. Tap home using whatever is available - make youre you keep it quare and tap evenly, I used a 3ft piece of 2x2" wood to drift it home.

12. Smear some oil on your driveshaft, make sure its all clean and pop it back in until you hear a click

13. Bottom ball joint on again (this requires some effort so dont damage yur ball joint threads!! Then your drop link, brake lines etc.

14. Remove IRD filler plug and top up with oil until it runs out of filler hole, plug in..job done!

Good work and thanks for sharing

I did the front crank oil seal on the 1.8 over the summer but never thought to photograph it

No problem, glad someone's read it :0)

maybe I should have embedded the pics, but that meant I would need to resize as they looked massive and out of place in a tutorial !

thanks for the how to....

mine ok for now but sure time will mean i'll have to look up your guide, good photos too, be worth embedding them for the future as the thread gets further into archives! shame to loose it, lots off info. thanks. :clap2:

Hi thats exactly how I did it!!! well done .. how long did it take you??? Haynes talks complete twadle at times!!!! Infact when I replaced IRD I took whole subframe off in under an hour ..... and access to IRD is great then. Great pics ...... good job mate.

D3savage said:

Hi thats exactly how I did it!!! well done .. how long did it take you??? Haynes talks complete twadle at times!!!! Infact when I replaced IRD I took whole subframe off in under an hour ..... and access to IRD is great then. Great pics ...... good job mate.

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All in all i guess 4 hours, I was quite pedantic getting new seal fully driven home as it was a biatch to get to with anything to get it in.

If I had to do one again then it could probably be done in 2-3hours..thanks for all your advice chaps, especially Jamesmartin and D3savage for your pointers!

Good job

You can also undo the two bolts for the coil/strut, saves mucking about with stubborn ball joints and links. Just let the hub swing on the ball joint

Northern Irelander said:

Good job

You can also undo the two bolts for the coil/strut, saves mucking about with stubborn ball joints and links. Just let the hub swing on the ball joint

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Interesting, i guess you could also access the outer cv joint by this method if hub nut undone also? I'm thinking of abs ring replacement....

good post joe,great pics, very helpfull ,
we need more like this

Thanks for the How To. I only needed to confirm how the drive shaft went back in (after an IRD rebuild). I'd used the removal of the top 2 bolts to give play on the drive shaft - works a treat. I know it sounds obvious with hind sight, but I found that before pushing the drive shaft back in to the IRD, the hub should be manouvered back near to its normal position.

Hi, thread resurrected which I thought was better that start a new one
I have got an oil "weep" from the near side IRD drive shaft seal, i followed Joe's thread but in spite of having a selection of pry bars and tyre leavers, I cannot get access to give sufficient leverage on the CV joint to pop the shaft out. See photos for the only access that I can see The ..........295 jpg image is taken from underneath the car and there isn't much room
I would welcome comments of how this can be done without lowering the sub-frame.
Thanks

Border Boy said:

Hi, thread resurrected which I thought was better that start a new one
I have got an oil "weep" from the near side IRD drive shaft seal, i followed Joe's thread but in spite of having a selection of pry bars and tyre leavers, I cannot get access to give sufficient leverage on the CV joint to pop the shaft out. See photos for the only access that I can see The ..........295 jpg image is taken from underneath the car and there isn't much room
I would welcome comments of how this can be done without lowering the sub-frame.
Thanks

View attachment 154338 View attachment 154339

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You might be better off using a flat blade screw driver that you can fit in and the level the or 2 cms. You only need it the pop out a few mill then you can with draw it by hand

There's not much room to get behind the CV joint. It is possible with a large tyre lever or thin chisel. If you can get a thin chisel in, then tap the end with a hammer, rather than levering. Tapping will pop the C ring so the shaft can be withdrawn. How's the support bearing in the box? The normal reason for the seal to leak is the bearing allowing the CV to move sideways.

Back in 2013 when I removed the drive shaft it was on my '99 L Series and I didn't know what to expect having not done it before. As it turns out, the drive shaft popped out easily.

When I came to do it again a couple of years later with a 2001 K series, I was expecting an easy task.... but it turned out to be a right PITA and didn't want to budge. Persistence with various types and sizes of screw drivers and chisels eventually freed it up. Maybe the 2001 car had a stronger clip, or maybe I just got lucky with the tools I used and how I used them on the '99!

Thanks for replies
Nodge - I will persevere, jacking a bit higher will make it easier to use a hammer. There is a small amount of movement in the bearing, how much is too much?
G'gel - I will keep trying!
Is it worthwhile changing the seal??
The Freelander has done 115360 miles, 7400 miles since changing IRD oil. I drained the oil before starting the task and the amount drained is just over 0.75 litre so taking into account a small amount of spillage and the oil that hasn't drained off the gears it seems to me that not much oil has been lost and there are no oil marks on the drive but it is oily around the drive shaft.
What's your opinion?

Border Boy said:

The Freelander has done 115360 miles, 7400 miles since changing IRD oil. I drained the oil before starting the task and the amount drained is just over 0.75 litre so taking into account a small amount of spillage and the oil that hasn't drained off the gears it seems to me that not much oil has been lost and there are no oil marks on the drive but it is oily around the drive shaft.

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The nearside is gearbox oil, not IRD oil. You need to drain the gearbox if you want to avoid a huge gush of gear oil.

Doh............ Nodge thanks for advice
Luckily shaft hasn't been removed At least I can treat the IRD to an oil change!
I will now check gear box oil level and if there is only a small amount of oil to top up I'll leave the drive shaft seal renewal for another day

Border Boy said:

I will now check gear box oil level and if there is only a small amount of oil to top up I'll leave the drive shaft seal renewal for another day

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It doesn't look like it's spewing out, more just a slight creep. You'll probably find you'll not need much to top the box back up.

Thanks for all replies
As Nodge said very little oil to top up gearbox so everything back together and one less job to do

I recently replaced the nearside drive shaft and g'box oil seal due to a persistent oil weep that's been there since I got car in 2014. I did replace the seal in 2015 but the weep was still there. I concluded that the shaft itself may have a slight amount of wear right at the point of the seal's contact, hence replacing the seal again and the shaft. I hope I've 'nailed' it this time! Mines a K series 1.8 and I've not had much trouble getting the drive shafts out. Separating the drive shaft from the hub, now that's a different matter. I managed to bend a drive flange with a bearing puller Ah well we live and learn! A month ago I had to replace a inner CV boot on the off-side drive shaft. This time I left the hub assembly attached to the drive shaft to avoid any unpleasantness!