Hi, I haven't posted much at all in the while I have been a member here, but I thought I would share this.. and maybe learn from the forum as well.

This is a 200 TDi 1991 HiCap.

It was my truck for nearly 20 years and has been an absolute workhorse throughout my time as a tree surgeon. I decided to show it some love recently with a new chassis, bulkhead and engine rebuild done by Tim Cameron at South West Landys in Cornwall who has done a superb job. It was sitting in a barn for 5 years immobile before the chassis and engine renovation. I decided not to ask him to refurb the lower end / running gear as I wanted to save money on things I can do myself. When I got originally it the front end was really bad..steering slop about a quarter turn of the steering wheel, suspension turret tops sheared of from rust.. it was bad but I rebuilt it all and then some as time went by, so I am no stranger to rusty bolts and moly grease.

Tim delivered it to me pulling like a train and with new chassis and an MOT to drive it to Germany where I live now, but to pass German vehicle inspections the whole of the running gear has to be pretty much perfect, so it is now in a barn for the next month or so getting sorted out. New brakes, new shock absorbers, new bushes and ball joints, seals, new paint, everything.

One thing I am curious about is a 'take up klonk' that has been present somewhere in the drive train since I bought it. It has not got any worse for all the abuse I have given it over the years but I would like to get that gone. I have been inside the front diff once about 14 years ago but did not see much of a smoking gun. Perhaps this refurb might get to the bottom of that..

Day 1.

Day 2.

This is 800 miles and 8 months since UK MOT.

Just wow!



Gotta be 20,000 miles left in the pads at least!

Front axle is off..

Over next week I will start to strip it and assess the innards. Then it is off to the blasters.. I still have some black epoxy paint for both axles.

I will update this thread as the work progresses.. but a major reason for posting this thread is to learn from the hive mind here. I know Defenders are most of the time straight forward tractors, and although I have a reasonable mechanical aptitude there are gaps and limits in my knowledge to do with tolerances and wear and what is acceptable and what needs replacing, and how to know the difference. I would really appreciate guidance and advice from you all, so please sing out!

I am hoping to get an order in for most parts in the UK as soon as possible, then drive over to pick it all up and reassemble it all mid / end January '25. Any help here on what to look out for would be very much appreciated.

Cheers,

Martin.

My 110 had a whole load of power take up clonk...

It failed it's last MOT on the a frame ball. I changed that, and a while load of the slack was gone.

The power take up had been bad for years and it only just failed on the ball, so it must have actually been bad for a long time, but the testers passed it anyway.

However, it wasn't all gone, just a whole load bettet.

I then replaced the rear half shafts and drive flanges, and that made another improvement. Not as light and day as the a frame joint, but noticable.

When I get around to it, I'm going to do the cvs on the front, but, really, currently, there's no noticable slack anyway.

lupus said:

One thing I am curious about is a 'take up klonk' that has been present somewhere in the drive train since I bought it.

Click to expand...

julianf said:

I then replaced the rear half shafts and drive flanges, and that made another improvement. Not as light and day as the a frame joint, but noticable.

Click to expand...

Drive flanges are the immidate quick cheap And easy change if there slack in the drive train. They wear to a point and end up with slack between themselves and the half shaft. It will not fix it but they are the easiest to swap for a quick improvement. Next would be half shafts and props (if there is slack in the splines joint, uj slack needs immediate attention!), then it is diffs and gearboxes which are more involved.

The slack is likely to be cumulative so a little bit in everything. From the gearbox to the wheel And even in perfect form I would still expect about 1/8th of a turn of slack in the drive train.

dag019 said:

Drive flanges are the immidate quick cheap And easy change if there slack in the drive train. They wear to a point and end up with slack between themselves and the half shaft. It will not fix it but they are the easiest to swap for a quick improvement. Next would be half shafts and props (if there is slack in the splines joint, uj slack needs immediate attention!), then it is diffs and gearboxes which are more involved.

The slack is likely to be cumulative so a little bit in everything. From the gearbox to the wheel And even in perfect form I would still expect about 1/8th of a turn of slack in the drive train.

Click to expand...

I probably shouldn't have mentioned the flanges, as it was the shafts that were the issue -




I had done the "cheap fix" of the flanges the year before and it made a total of "zero" difference! : )

I understand that its normally the flanges that go before the shaft, but, i guess, someone must have done the flanges before me, and then i did them again...


The only reason i did them AGAIN was to fit the "wet" ones (taking out the axel seal, and running gear oil up to the flange, rather than grease)

Thank you all for your replies.. good info! I will report back very soon once i have the axles disassembled.. I have never heard of removing the axle seal, or even that it is a 'thing'. Surely wrong lubricant for the stub axles?

When I first bought it the previous owner had removed the axles completely, tipped them so the filler was at the top and filled them completely with gear oil, then re-mounted them. Obviously this blew the axle seals once the oil became warm and expanded a little.. so that was the first job I did.. albeit 20 odd years ago. They will be getting replaced for sure along with just about everything else.

Series Landy's and early Ninety and One ten models had their hubs lubricated by oil that migrated from the diff housing. On later models extra seals were added and hub bearings lubricated by grease. Some remove a seal that then allows oil to migrate to hub.
My 1990 Ninety has the older method and in 185k I have not had to renew a hub bearing or drive flange.
If say renewing a hub outer seal [ the one nearest the diff] then some grease is applied to bearings to ensure they are lubed until some oil makes its way down the axle shaft, of coarse it pays to keep diff topped up.

lupus said:

Thank you all for your replies.. good info! I will report back very soon once i have the axles disassembled.. I have never heard of removing the axle seal, or even that it is a 'thing'. Surely wrong lubricant for the stub axles?

Click to expand...

I've not looked to see what this part is for, but the text is the same in all cases anyway -

Please note the original later drive flanges are designed to run in a ‘dry, non-lubricated’ condition and because of this they are prone to the spline wearing from ‘fretting / corrosion’ leading to failure. We believe they benefit from regular inspection and lubrication. If fitting on the rear we recommend you remove the oil seal on the halfshaft to aid lubrication.

Click to expand...

Ps. I did not use the Ashcroft parts, I'm just linking to the text on their site.

I used the britpart "HD" half shafts (about £120 each, ish, iirc) and terrafirma flanges.

I hear bad things about terra firma, but plenty of people seem to use their flanges, and they were confirmed to work with my alloy rims, so I went with them.

Getting the seal out actually takes a while as, of course, it's behind everything else. It's not a hard job, assuming the stub axel bolts don't all round off etc.

Rear axle is off.. next session is to disassemble the axles, clean and inspect the parts, and slosh out the axle housing. Has anyone here got a tried and trusted method for cleaning 35 years of gear oil out of it? I was thinking of draining the old oil, then filling with petrol and letting it sit between lifting one end up and down repeatedly. A method probably not in the Haynes manual.




Rear radius arm brackets are shot, no big deal.. 20 bucks a pop.