Freelander 1 Moving the car without drive shafts installed

I'm hoping to get the gearbox in the 'K' out this weekend. I'm wanting to remove the drive shafts because I know it was a pain leaving it attached to the hub when I removed the IRD on the 'L'.

With the drive shafts removed, is it OK/safe to push the car forwards and backwards a few feet to position it over the inspection pit at the right place to attack the different parts? I believe the drive shafts hold the hubs together - are the wheels likely to fall off? In fact re they likely to fall off with the drive shafts removed full stop really!

Good question...... don't forget the outer CV joint and associated hub nut hold the wheel bearing in place and together.
Personally speaking.... I wouldn't move the car more than half a revolution of a wheel without the driveshafts in.
But......
The wheel bearing could still collapse...
My honest reply to your question would be.
"be prepared to replace one or both front wheel bearings if you move it"
you could start to move the car, and the centre fall out of the bearing, causing additional damage to brakes / hubs etc.

Is it possible to take the gearbox orf without removing the IRD. I thought I saw a Video of some bloke doing it.

I don't mind taking the IRD off cos it will quite likely go back on the L Series. As a 4WD truck, who's main 4WD activities will be on sandy beaches and gravelly river beds, I think the L Series is a better option than the K. The Kay will then get the 2WD IRD from Elle.

Its a shame Freelanders aren't so common in breakers yards over her. If they were I might get a couple of cheap shafts and split them at the CV just to have something to hold the wheels on while I'm working on it!

But it looks like I'll be frigging around with the shafts still attached to the wheels, which means they will need to be jacked so the hubs can be swung back. I know the IRD can come out like that, hope the gearbox will as well with the passenger side shaft.

Alibro said:

Is it possible to take the gearbox orf without removing the IRD. I thought I saw a Video of some bloke doing it.

Click to expand...

No

L series might be better than K series as 2wd. Mine was horrible 2wd, wheel spinning and understeering everywhere. Admittedly my lousy driving might have had something to do with that but the light engine and 4wd design doesn't lend itself to being 2wd.

Freelaner said:

No

Click to expand...

Now don't beat about the bush my friend. Say what you mean.

The guy who made this video would disagree.



Perhaps you could explain why he is wrong.
BTW I'm not trying to be smart. Too stupid for that but also want some advice cause I will be doing it myself soon.

it would be interesting to see how easy he found it to put back on

He says if in Neutral not too bad.

He does admit it was a bollox to get out in this video



Might have been easier to remove the IRD first.

getting it back in would be harder its bad enough just aligning the g/box input shaft

Here is a video by a guy who took out the IRD. He had a duff IRD but it might be of some use to others doing the same job.



And the reinstall

At least it looks like he got the gearbox out without removing the drive shaft completely. Will probably make the job more fiddly though.

I think it was out of the IRD and hanging loose but no need to take the hub nut off.

Kay is a project and I'd heard so many wooses moaning about the hub nuts, I wanted to see what all those threads moaning about them was all about. So I have already loosened them.... and my moaning was appended to one of those threads

So I now need 2 new hub nuts!

That is unless Kay just becomes a doner for Elle.

Kay cost $1,000 - which is what the 4WD parts for Elle would have cost - so basically I got it for free. I can put the 2wd bits on it and I recon I can spend about $1,500 on it before it becomes uneconomic to put it back on the road. It needs a clutch - so that's $500 to start. It will also cost $500 to get it road registered and legal.

Have you nor got time to make a trolley to sit the car on s o you can remove driveshafts and hubs, but still move car, sounds like you would make use of it on both vehicles??!!

I wasn't beating about the bush it's possible but harder to do, so No.

freelance said:

Have you nor got time to make a trolley to sit the car on s o you can remove driveshafts and hubs, but still move car, sounds like you would make use of it on both vehicles??!!

Click to expand...

I don't think I could makes anything up easily/quickly - I'll just jack up each corner as necessary. The inspection pit makes access easy, but it does add complication for raising the car - ie where you can lift it.

Its enough of a ball-ache to get a gearbox to re-engage the splines into the clutch as you refit it on its own......the added hassle of also trying to line up and re-engage the splines of the IRD must be a nightmare....I dont see the point in making things difficult for the sake of not removing the IRD - its not hard to remove and refit it it on its own.

Sounds like taking short cuts is pointless then. In my case the clutch works but shudders and as the wife uses the car most of the time I keep putting it off.