Grinding Noise
Hello Everyone, I am new to this Land Rover game and have come to my first dead end, everything up till now has been nice and easy. I have a loud grinding noise, metal on metal sound, that varies in volume upon braking or acceleration or when coasting in neutral, but non existent on stand still and idle, it is exactly the same as a knackered wheel bearing, but I have fitted all new bearings and there is no play in the wheels, but I have noticed, that on the rear offside hub, with the wheel removed, I can spin the hub freely, as normal, but once the wheel is on, it will only spin about 1/8th turn and back the other way. What on earth does this mean? Help Please! P.S It's a 1975 88" Series 3 2.25 Diesel.

It sounds a little like you've got a busted half shaft offside rear then, I wouldnt worry too much if it is, its not difficult or really expensive to sort.

Sorry, just had a moment of clarity. I was spinning the hub without the end of shaft attached, therefore bypassing the handbrake until I put it all back together and span the wheel, duh! but! the opposite rear wheel spins freely with the handbrake applied, what does this mean? there is some in/out play on the long half shaft, and it has a castellated nut arrangement rather than the circlip on the other side, is that the norm? the half shafts look fine, slightly worn but nothing at all major, I have a cold now anyway, so I'll stay away from her for a few days, try and forget about it and come back fresh eyed and ready with the club hammer.

If you apply the handbrake, jack up the rear axle so both rear wheels are off the ground, turn one of the rear wheels by hand then the other wheel should turn freely in the opposite direction. It might seem a little odd, but that's just the magic of a differential! From 1980 onwards both rear halfshafts were secured to the hub drive flanges with circlips, before that the halshfshafts were secured with a castellated nut. I'd guess that at some time in the past one of the halfshafts broke in your rear axle and it was replaced (together with the drive flange) with a later type shaft. Your shaft with the castellated nut should not move in and out with the nut done up, but with the nut removed it will move a bit - the nut is there to stop it moving. To check that your rear diff and halfshafts are not broken, engage the handbrake, jack up only one of the rear wheels and try to rotate that wheel by hand. If you are unable to rotate the wheel freely, but get a springy mechanical resistance then your shafts are not broken and there is nothing to suggest the diff is damaged.

Back to the original problem of what is causing the grinding noise. Did the grinding noise start up only after the wheelbearing had been replaced? If so then I'd suspect something has gone wrong with the installation of these. Check that one of the brake backplates has not been deformed and is rubbing on the drum. I'd also remove the brake drums and check that the brake shoes, springs, retaining plates have all been put back together correctly. If you're sure the noise is definitely coming from the rear axle and that the problem is not with the rear wheelbearings, then the noise could be coming from the rear diff. You could check this by removing both rear halfshafts and the rear propshaft, engage 4WD and take it for a test drive. If the noise has gone then it points to a problem with the rear diff.

Good Stuff, I will try it out tomorrow, but thinking about it, I would say you are probably right with deformed plate, as I replaced all the bearings because of the noise, two were half knackered but all the rest were fine, Thanks very much for the help.

Well, that took longer than expected, okay, that noise is sorted, it was the deformed plate, also that play in the shaft was a missing spacer, I don't know how I forgot to put that in, Doh!