Diff play

[Disco 90 george]

Can anyone tell me how much play should be in the diff when you take the prop off.

I've just done the uj's on the front as i had a knocking when i put my foot down, it's still knocking and i found the drive plate the prop fits to has a lot of play in it. Don't think it should have as much as it does.

Thanks Graham

[V8MoneyPit]

The diff alone should have hardly any. However, there will be a little play in the shaft splines too. General wear in the various components can add up to quite a lot of rotational play in the diff flange.

I had huge amounts in the front diff, but when I took it out it was fine. All the play turned out to be CV joints!!

[Disco 90 george]

Thanks for that, looks like i have more things to look at.

The list is getting longer.

[Landy Andy]

Hi 666 George,

I have a 04 reg TD5 90, and had a few knocking sounds and things. Spoke to Ashcrofts (gearbox diff supremo's) and they recommended a chap to me. I went to see him and he looked at all my drive system and had a go.

He then told me that my rear ball joint had gone at that all else was normal including the play in diffs etc.

There is a lot more play than you would think to be good, knocks and noises are normal, due to lots of small bits of slack in many components.

That was his opinion and i am happy with that.

If you would like to compare yours to mine let me know as i am only up the road from you.

Andy

[Disco 90 george]

Thanks for that Andy, i may take you up on that.
It sounds like something is loose in the drive system, it knocks once as you put your foot down and and it knocks again 2-3 seconds later. Like something is being pulled on of place and then droping back in place again.

Graham

[V8MoneyPit]

With that type of symptom, I would still look at the A frame ball joint as suggested by Andy.

But if you have more than, say, 10 degrees of flange rotation, something is getting quite worn. It's highly unlikely to go bang though, unless you give it some serious stick.

[Tommo]

10 degrees???

surely ever landy over 15 yrs old has at least 1/4 of a turn!

[MuddyMike]

As in the old joke.
Q. Whats the Amber traffic light for?
A. To allow Land Rover drivers to take up slack.

If it aint broke don't fix it.

Mike

[Landy Andy]

A knock can be caused  by the two bars that go from rear axle to body when the bolts are loose. (sorry don't know technical name). Noise is particularly noticeable when going from forward to reverse or opposite.

I think i will stop there as i have confused myself...

Andy

[V8MoneyPit]

10 degrees???

surely ever landy over 15 yrs old has at least 1/4 of a turn!

 :lol: Yes, indeed!

But as I said, even with quite significant wear, it's unlikely to go bang. The things are so over engineered. Last night, I pulled the transfer box off the gearbox. The splines on both the gearbox output shaft and the input gear in the transfer box were almost worn right through! Both sets of splines had only about 1mm left! And it was still driving.

[Tommo]

10 degrees???

surely ever landy over 15 yrs old has at least 1/4 of a turn!

 :lol: Yes, indeed!

But as I said, even with quite significant wear, it's unlikely to go bang. The things are so over engineered. Last night, I pulled the transfer box off the gearbox. The splines on both the gearbox output shaft and the input gear in the transfer box were almost worn right through! Both sets of splines had only about 1mm left! And it was still driving.

over engineered in that crappy brittish way though. "well its gonna wear away so we had better put plenty of meat on to make it last"

where the germans and japanese are going... "hmmm, why does it wear?, can we reduce wear? i wonder what would happen if we tried this..."

etc etc!

[bombx3]

i run 38" tyres and have 4pin diffs i get the same problem as you discribed and its the diff ,the splines on the flange costs about forty pounds if i remember rightly easy job to do thou,do the oil seal as well . :hurry up:did have a similar problem once before many moons ago took the diff out and it fell apart :lol:i had been driving with it like that for 6 hard months

[Disco 90 george]

All sorted  :clap: It was the a frame ball joint. Hammered the s**t out of it to get it out, bloke over the road to me took it to work and pressed it back in, took 10 ton to get it to go in.