Some changes to my defender and a CLUNK !

Hi everyone, so I've bought my first real car... a defender 90 i bought it with all the mods thats you can see from the first pic, which was the bonus i wanted as i don't have to spend more on mods. Its a 1986 with a 200tdi leaky engine and its been tuned, when i say tuned i presume the fuel pump has been tweaked lmao.

So i drove it home and it had a clunk from the take up on acceleration. At first i thought it would be the prop ujs, so I've replaced the front and back ujs. After replacing them I've noticed i have a lot of extension on the props which i don't think is right for the lift thats on it.

Ive also made a video which shows the play on the rear prop to the rear diff. (the wheels are off the ground by the way)
Clunk on my defender 90 - YouTube
ANY IDEAS PLEASE GUYS ?

whilst I've had it off the ground I've dropped the diff oils and put fresh in, even though the oil was pretty clean. I have rock sliders fitted on mine but no tree sliders, soo i took mine off, which by the way were rusted solid in the pipe and took me an hour or more trying to bray it out. in the end i used a 1mm cutting disk and cut the outer pipe to get the rock slider pipe out. CONFUSED YET

once out i ground all the old paint off and prepped them for the sliders to be welded on. Now me I'm different to most people and go for thing out of the ordinary, so instead of the usual round bar bend sliders i choose to go 40x40x3mm box section, which I've had great results when i did one on a disco of mine. so here is a pic of the box welded in to the angle i decided to go with.


once prepped I've since welded them on to the rock sliders and have painted them with the new red oxide which contains no lead unfortunately and then painted black. I haven't got a pic of these yet as i was high of the fumes and forgot. will upload some tomorrow. i know its no trophy but it will do whats its intended to do.

That amount of play isn't a showstopper. I've seen worse and yours ain't too bad. I assume those are standard props? If so your suspension lift won't do them any favours and not only can it wear UJs out faster but can cause other problems too.
Have you checked the rear a frame ball joint? That makes a clunk when you take up power and sometimes when you let off the accelerator too if it's worn and on its way out. Most people either forget to replace it or just don't bother so it might be worthwhile doing.

Hint for ya, get yourself a Gwyn Lewis adjustable one, will last a lot longer.

hey, thanks for your input. i forgot to mention i have replaced the ball joint in the a frame already, i bought one for a disco many years ago and put it in that safe place and found it straight away. What a B*****D of a job also but with heavier hammers it will come out. unfortunately its not an adjustable one just a standard one, but now its done i can check if it was that or not.
regards to the props, yes they're standard props but wide angle props aint cheap and I've got an expensive holiday coming up in april that is taking all my funds

tcould also try taking the caps off and checking the drive shaft member wear

I think I have the same problem, does it clunk when you take the clutch off too fast too?

I'm wondering if setting the preload on the diff might solve the problem, though I have no idea what I am doing. Kind of waiting for warmer weather...

As time passes you'll learn to be gentler and you won't shock the drive train so much any more. You're probably used to driving light cars. A land rover needs much gentler hands and feet than one may be led to believe. Just give it some time. You'll get used to it.

reiny said:

As time passes you'll learn to be gentler and you won't shock the drive train so much any more. You're probably used to driving light cars. A land rover needs much gentler hands and feet than one may be led to believe. Just give it some time. You'll get used to it.

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I find this to be true, I used to get hung up on drivetrain knocks and clunks and yes, some were rather serious (LT77 mainshaft wear - might be worth looking into if it has an old LT77 in it?) but after getting to know the underneath of mine rather well I now take it as it is. A quick gear change or being rough with the clutch will make her bang a bit, but everything is in good order and most of the time it's all smooth. Clunks are very pronounced on Defenders as there really isn't much between you and all the moving parts, I drive a lot of pickup trucks of all sorts for work and they will all thud as the clutch re-engages but you don't hear it clank unless you stick your head out the window because of all the carpet and sound insulation.

Not saying they're all normal, just quite common with the permanent four-wheel drive system and it's multitude of shafts and gears. I have spoken to people who have done rebuilds with all-reconditioned or new parts and they still clunk, it's a rather mixed bag.

The rotational play on your rear prop looks OK, suspension may be worth checking has it been lifted properly with castor correction and all that?

reiny said:

As time passes you'll learn to be gentler and you won't shock the drive train so much any more. You're probably used to driving light cars. A land rover needs much gentler hands and feet than one may be led to believe. Just give it some time. You'll get used to it.

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I couldn't agree more.

I have always driven a LR and I have been driven in LR's by others who make a real meal out of it. Clunk clunk clunk, then I drive it and it's silent.

After I passed my test I was given some driving lessons by a friend who is a former military transport officer/road haulage driver. Some of the things he told me have stuck in my head for all these years and started a habit all these years ago - be gentle with the drivetrain.

Get rolling in 1st with as little throttle as possible, get it into 2nd before giving it any real power, only apply power when the clutch is fully engaged stuff like that. I drive like this all the time, in the LR or car and often leave the traffic lights before everyone else - I'm usually paying attention too - so it's not even a case of being slow, just gentle. I'm also probably in a higher gear than anyone else is by the time I am across a junction and can apply max power if I want and be off up the rev range to a good speed while others are still thinking about going into 2nd. I don't claim to be a better driver, what I do claim is that this works for me and my vehicles benefit from it I am sure. Over the many 10's of thousands of miles traveled my drivetrain has never really needed anything. I know people who seem to eat UJ's and half shafts driving on the road....

Clutch changes should be smooth and gentle (that doesn't need to mean slow), try not to drive on throttle then just lift your foot quickly off the throttle, I know that driving with muppets on the road doesn't always permit this relaxed approach but I do my best not to shock the transmission in any car I drive. Likewise if you have to back off on the motorway then want to accelerate again try to refrain from just punching the throttle to the deck, the whole system will be spinning the engine, not the engine driving the vehicle, so to then apply power the whole system from engine to road wheels needs to change it's operation, take up the backlash and start driving all the splines, gears and shafts from the engine, if you think about it, there is a LOT of play from engine to road wheel, which will all very suddenly get a harsh slam if engine drive is picked up.

reiny said:

As time passes you'll learn to be gentler and you won't shock the drive train so much any more. You're probably used to driving light cars. A land rover needs much gentler hands and feet than one may be led to believe. Just give it some time. You'll get used to it.

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^^ Best advice ever. My bet is that 3 months from now this "problem" will disappear.

Glad to have been of assistance . That's 18 years of Series and Defender driving experience (ever since I was 17)

well thank you all for the input you've provided especially how to driver... even better hehe :cheer2:
so today after a week of the defender been on axle stands doing everything i think and have been told that could cause the clunk has been done. GUESS WHAT ??? the clunk has GONE!!! i took it for a drive this morning and it drives like a totally different car now. Again smooth gear changes as its more low down power with these 200tdi units, well especially mine, in 4th gear going from 30 to say 50 (because it takes a day to get to 70 lmao) no vibration what so ever, whereas before it used to shake the whole car so bad your eyes would shake in your head. Prop uj's I've put that to and when i took the props off all bolts were loose so that wouldn't have helped. Im definitely a lot more happy with it now. i will post pics tomorrow of the new and improved rock/tree sliders i made. THANKS YA'LL

So as promised the new slider pics, a little late I'm sorry I've been busy with converting a horse box trailer into a flat bed trailer.
So unlike the conventional tree sliders with the round tubing i went down the box section route, and boy i love em. Look so much better to me than tubed sliders IMO. So what i did was take the rock sliders off, which were a pain as the tube that goes in the other tube was rusted solid in there. Ground all the old paint of the rock sliders and marked it ready for welding the tree sliders onto.
I had a long piece of board that i drew the slider onto and made the angles the same and then measuring the pieces of box was easy then. I used 40x40x3mm box section.
Then i welded them all together, red oxide painted then black hammerite and then a final spray of black paint and wa la. I blew me welder up in the process also. so will need to buy a welder now, damn you clarke welders.
Any way heres some pics