200tdi shafts into a 300tdi axle question

[markyb]

anyone know if 200tdi shafts fit into 300tdi axle housing.  Ive got a 10 spline arb i was thinking of fitting . probably over kill for laning but thought why not so not to worried if the 24 spline is stronger or not.  thought it might save the axle swap over .

[bogie]

just swap the axle!

[Range Rover Blues]

The diff and shafts will fit no problem, they are the same length etc.  What you have to watch is that the ABS axles and the 300 TDi axles had the inner oil seal inside the stub axle running on the halfshaft, on the non ABS 200s the inner seal at it were is on the outside of the hub, under the mushroom.

So if you put oolder halfshafts inside the 300 axle you may not have the inner oil seal (separates the diff and the hub bearings) but you should be able to pick up the right halfshafts cheaply.

IMHO a decent 10 spline diff (like the ARB which is stronger) is as good if not better than a worn out 24 spline.  The weakness is the root of the splines which case shear off.  Halshafts are cheap.

[markyb]

cheers for the info,  yeah i rate the 10 spline the splines are thick after all. diameter appears to be the same,   

I suspect the only thing to change is loose the donut and add a 200tdi prop which i have in the shed i think.

[Range Rover Blues]

that's true, I guess the doughnut is there to reduce NVH but I can't honestly say it makes a noticeable difference, Our TDi has a UJ already.

The reason 24 splines are meant to be better is that the splines are not cut as deep into the shaft and being more of them they spread the load intot the shaft more evenly.  10 spline shafts fail typically because the square splines cause stress raised areas where failure begins.
However the 24 spline shafts suffer when they wear, they jump whereas a 10 spline just has more backlash.

Anyhoo, driven sensibly 10 splines should be fine, I run them in both my ARB and I've only bust one halfshaft, I don't know how I did it either as I hadn't been off-road in a year (I thought it was a seized Viscous but that seems to be fine).

[Disco_Stu]

Stub axles on 200tdi's are longer than on 300's - this is to accommodate the double seal and spacer arrangement of the 200. If you're going to swap shafts, you need to swap the stub axles also.

Stu.

[Skibum346]

To change the doughnut on rear diff... you'll need a 200tdi drive flange. Teh doughnut drive flange only has three holes... and I'd be impressed if you could make 4 bolts fit three holes!

Skibum