A Land Rover dealer tried to convince me, that all Defenders have a back-lash and that it is nearly impossible to get rid of it for good. Therefore an attempted repair would only be a costly and futile exercise. He was also insistent, that a back-lash will not get worse and will not do any harm to the vehicle in future.
I would be interested in your opinion. Thanks.
My 110 has had a pronounced backlash for the past 15 of its 20 years. 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' is apt in this case. I've just about given up waiting for mine to break.
huw
What exactly do you mean by "back-lash" ?
If you mean that it has a bit of slop in the transmission then, your dealer is right. Nearly every component in the transmission has some slop designed into it and when it's all added together it can be quite noticeable if you are not used to driving a vehicle of this kind. The transmission components haven't changed dramatically for years, in fact the diffs in the axles aren't very different to Land Rovers built over
50 years ago. To remove the slop you would have to run the diffs with no back-lash at all which would result in an annoying whining noise punctuated only by the noise of small pieces of metal trying to find their way into the bearings.If you mean slop in the steering then no, there shouldn't be any, at least with the wheels straight ahead. That is one thing that has changed in the last 50 odd years.
cheers
Dave W.
Wagon Wheels are smaller? Thats another thing that has changed.
I'll get me goat...
If by 'a back-lash' you mean a certain amount of play in the transmission, so the vehicle will rock back and forth a bit when the hand brake is on then he is correct.
The hand brake is on a brake drum behind the gear box, not on the rear wheels as in a two wheel drive car, so you have an accumulation of back-lash in the prop shaft splines, the differential and the half shaft splines. Non of these will be zero so there sum is also not zero !
AWEM
On or around Mon, 15 Nov 2004 18:52:30 +0200, "UK" enlightened us thusly:
Mind if it's excessive, then on high-mileage axles, you can improve it by replacing the CV joints.
The back-lash has been diagnosed as "Excessive" and it has been traced to the rear axle (150.000 km) of the left wheel. There is quite some play and putting the TD5 into gear produces quite a "thud".
Thanks guys - I feel better now.
and Mars bars
IF it is excessive by land rover standards (land rovers are already excessive by car standards) and it's high milage then look at the cv joints, replacing them could well bring it back to normal land rover 'excessive'.
Regards. Mark.(AKA, Mr.Nice.)
Thanks everybody. I will replace the CV joints.
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