Good afternoon,

I am new to the forum but trust your expertise will come to my rescue. Got a couple of problems with my 2000 Defender 110 TD5.

• At speeds between 80 - 110 Kms the whole vehicle vibrates, thought it may be the wheel balancing. Had that sorted but problem persists.
• for a couple of weeks now the vehicle has been stalling at speeds exceeding 100kms or when revs reach +/-3000. I have been able to restart it without any difficulty albeit with a huge cloud of smoke and smell of diesel. Fule filter has been checked at our local garage in vain.
• Whinning gearbox most prominent at lower speeds, otherwise gear change normal

I am in the bush here with no Landy dealers in proximity, also weary of their ridiculous charges.

Would appreciate any advice!

Regards,
Hans

Hi Hans,

With regards to your landy shaking here's something you can try:

1. Park your car in neutral with the hand brake off and esnure that your car can't roll forwards or backwards by stopping each of the wheels with a brick or a stone.
2. Get underneath the front and give all the bars connected to your front wheels a good jiggle to see if there is any play or excessive movement.
3. Crawl underneath the middle and give both drive shafts from your central differential a really good jiggle to check for any slack.

If you find a bar with some slack it has most probably snapped or shattered at the joint which will usually require a repair, or a good weld if you have the tools to do it. These parts are not expensive in general. If you do not find any slack parts I can't think what may be causing your problem unless you've just got unlucky with the wheel balancing.

As for the gear box whine it's a standard thing. Land rovers have a big hefty industrial gearbox that will make a lot of clunking, whirring, whizzing and whining noises - it's just the way they work. If it is a very loud noise that makes you cringe then it may well be a problem. Check that you have enough oil in the box to help it turn smoothly.

As for stalling at higher speeds, that may well be something to do with the TD5 computer that's under your bonnet. That's something that you need a land rover garage with a computer to put right for you, however, it could be something simple like a split diaphram or gasket in the fuel line, are there any signs of moisture around the fuel line?

-Pos

Hi there Pos,

Thank you for advice, checked it out this weekend with the following findings
- rear Prop shaft has significant dent mid-shaft area - does not look bent through the naked eye but i pressume this may well be the reason for the vibration. Shall have it replaced and will give feedback in the near future.

Much appreciated,

Thanks,
Hans.

Good job!

with regards to vibration, as well as the prop shaft dent you should also jack up the car on it's axles and check the wheel bearings and swivel pin preload torque.

to check the bearings - do this by grabbing hold of the wheels (when they're off the ground) and attempting to shake them. if there is any play or wobble, you will need to change the bearings.
the pre-load also relates to the bearings, when the swivel pin bearings wear they allow free play which reduces the resistance on the steering system also creating wobble.
preload should be checked by taking the track-rod connections off the swivel pin and then rotating left to right, there should be a slight resistance, but it shouldn't be really lose. to modify the preload you will need to take out shims from the upper and lower swivel pin bearings... it is a bit of a pain in the butt to do. but it makes a huge difference.

i've owned a good few land rovers (discoveries and defenders) and they all seem to get this. i usually re-do the pre-load once a year as the bearings can take a battering if you use it off-tarmac.

like what everyone said, check your prop shafts, if they are bent even just slightly then can cause excessive vibrations. check if the prop shaft is well greased, the sliding bits, you can see if there's any grease at the end of them, if not, it prolly had not been done which can cause them to wear out pretty quickly.

check the U joint, they are another possible culprit which when warn out will cause the prof shaft to move around. one last thing is to check the bolts which attatch to the ends of the prop shaft, if the bolts are loose it causes vibration and in the long run can be very dangerous if they work themselves loose, dropping your prop shaft onto the road, depending on which way it falls, it can cause you to flip the car over.

about the engine cutting out. check the red plug at the ECU. remove it, is there any trace of oil there? if yes, if it's a little, you need to reseal the injectors. it's abt SGD$120 in my world to fix. if there's heck a lot of oil there, you prolly screwed the entire harness which will cost you SGD$900 at the LR dealer.

check your turbo. cos if someone has 'turn up the power' by adjusting the number of turns on the screw rod to make the car have more power by kicking in the turbo earlier, when you are doing 3k rpm you might be pushing too much air into turbo to the engine, hence when the compression is >2bar or there abouts, it might just request the ECU to shut down the engine for safety.

I just checked mine after a similar vibration and the bolts were loose! thanks