Buggrit! Something has broken in my front axle

On or around Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:57:44 +0200, Srtgray enlightened us thusly:

one of them, aye :-)

front prop off, difflock in and drive sensibly.

starting on one side, undo the drive flange, remove a circlip and shims under the rubberoid hat, remove the driver, remove hub nuts and hub, then unbolt and remove stub axle from swivel housing. if it's the CV, it will immediately be apparent. if the CV is OK, pull the half shaft and see that it's sound. You'll get some axle oil and also swivel oil (if it's not got one-shot grease, in which case you'll get that instead)

If that side's OK, do the same the other side. If both CVs and shafts are OK, then it looks like the diff...

Ah, good, my diagnostic skills are still in fine fettle :)

Daft question, but is this a "wheel off" job?

Ta muchly,

Stuart

If it were me speaking from past experience, I simply would not drive the vehicle till sorted. Had a series 3 a few years ago, broke a rear half shaft, Thought not a problem put it in 4x4 drive on the front axle thought I to get home. Unfortunately what snapped the halfshaft in the first place was a dodgy gear box, upshot was while doing about 30 mph almost home bearbox decides to go funny again, and shagged the front drive shaft big style, which instantly locked the front axle solid, result was loss of control ans slap a wall on a bridge deck, and as if that wasn't bad enough has the missus and crumb snatcher on board.

Strip it and have a look

Yes, I had to do that once when a rear halfshaft on my SII 109" went. Luckily no further incidents, but the handling was, er, interesting.

Yes, you're probably right :)

Stuart

On or around Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:32:51 +0200, Srtgray enlightened us thusly:

yep. actually, technically, I think you can pull the hub with the wheel on it, but I don't see how it'd help :-)

That's all good until the CV joint (if it's a CV thats the problem) screams enough and locks up solid, tearing the steering wheel out of your hand and firing you off either into the scenery or the opposing traffic.

I'd suggest finding alternative transport and getting it fixed pronto.

You wouldn't be able to pull the hub and wheel off together without first removing the brake caliper which itself would be a PITA with the wheel on.

It would save you a bit of time if you can tell which side is noisy and remove that one first.

Martin.

We (SWMBO and I) think it was the left. However, the steering was heavy and trying to "self centre" a bit more than I was used to - almost like running the old SII in four wheel drive on the road. I'm thinking therefore that the diff might be at fault, since also there was nothing when running straight ahead.

Stuart

Even more interesting on mine, as the steering arm on the n/s wheel decided to work its way loose from the swivel. I can only assume driving it on the front axle only for a week contributed to it. Anyway, now it's in dock for chassis repairs, new half-shaft, and several other items.

Alex

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 17:57:44 +0200, Srtgray scribbled the following nonsense:

noises on full lock tend to point towards CV joints. If it has exploded, I certainly would not want to be doing 10 mph, never mind 50 or 60mph if broken bits cause it to lock....

But you wouldn't waste any time or effort by stripping the left C/V out first to check because to remove the diff unit you will have to pull the halfshafts out anyway.

Martin.

On or around Wed, 16 Aug 2006 22:05:20 +0100, "Oily" enlightened us thusly:

I had this in mind in my post, too. which is why it doesn't suggest that you put the first one back having found it to be OK...

Had diff side bearing cage break up in a burper van once, and that produced some "interesting" handling as every now and then bits got stuck in the ball race...

On or around Thu, 17 Aug 2006 08:24:52 +1200, EMB enlightened us thusly:

good point. Actually, I think it should be possible to remove the whole of one half-shaft and CV assembly and run it like that... I assume the sun gears and planet gears stay put in the diff without a half-shaft present... actually, don't know if they do. anyone?

HBOL predictably uninformative. an ever increasing part of the HBOL is a phrase along the lines of "dismantling and overhauling is very difficult and requires many special tools, you have to measure things and shim them, and you can't get the parts, so don't do it." now in some cases this is true, but in others it's a load of bollox.

In the case of, for example, the gearbox on my sierra, it says all that. Now the sierra had 2 very different 5-speed boxes, the early one which is basically a 4-speed with an added 5th gear in the tailshaft section and the later one (MT75) which is much more complicated to work on. The early one is a piece of piss to strip and rebuild, requires just one special tool to dislodge one of the bearings, which I made from a thick bit of wire that used to be a bucket handle.

Yes they do stay put, all contained within the diff housing but it's not advisable to run with only one shaft in place.

Martin.

Yep - I've had more than a few of the early ones in bits - nothing complicated there, and even the MT75 isn't exactly difficult to deal with.

On or around Wed, 16 Aug 2006 23:19:56 +0100, "Oily" enlightened us thusly:

you could pull both though... not sure of the oil would stay in place without the shafts there though... although diff and swivels have the same oil, of course. But if the diff's damaged it could end up with iffy oil in the swivels.

I'm not talking anything other than emergency get-you-home measures here, mind.

On or around Thu, 17 Aug 2006 10:28:04 +1200, EMB enlightened us thusly:

Haynes these days are increasingly going this route. They used to have gearbox dismantling procedures. I reckon they're just getting lazy.

How about dropping the oil out of the diff? I can't see how anything that drastic, if in the diff, would fail to show some evidence (strange bits of metal). Also, remove the filler plug and look in with a good torch - that should enable you to diagnose which side it is; jack the front wheels up, and turning the one that has a busted CV joint will show no movement in the diff, where turning the good one will turn the shaft on the bad side via the diff. JD

transport) -

It would be quite a job removing both shafts at the side of the road as a get you home measure. As said earlier, remove front prop, difflock in but I would also just remove hub drive plates only while you get home and then fix it.

Martin.