blew a differential in the middle of nowwhere

I don't know about Land Rovers but I have exerience with Army jeeps and doing this. I was the commanders driver and our jeep had an anoying rear vibration. I couldn't get anything done about it so I took matters into my own hands after I realized they were the same part. I went to the motor pool after hours with my own tools and swapped them out (Front to back) and used some old tire sidewalls pieces to do some insulating. My commander just happened to be the duty officer that night and discovered me while doing his rounds. He flipped his lid when he saw his jeep in pieces. He demanded that I put it together and he wanted to see me in his office in the morning. The next day he was all over me. He threatend me with an Article 15 for compromising the combat readiness of the equipment and working outside my job description ( I was a Commo guy). I thought I was in big trouble after looking at his tonsils for half an hour. Not to mention the later session with the First sergeant who was less freaked out. He was still very sore at me until he rode in it. He was impressed. The vibration was gone (moved to the front and dampend) and you could hear yourself think for a change. He told me nice job but leave the mechanical work for the mechanics. Looking back. Its funny how a 19 year old with a head full of non proceedural ideas , had the run of the place. Hey, they gave me the keys Sorry about the GomerPyle war story. The original post reminded me of that and made me laugh.

That kind of initiative usually results in getting you a permanent job crawling under jeeps.

Ed

I'm curious how that worked. The front diff turns the wheels in rotation opposite to the rear. Do the drive shafts turn in opposite directions?

I know someone with a similar problem. I think what they ended up doing was swapping the front and back wheels, unlocked the hubs on the back, put it in

4WD and drove as a FWD.

That seems like a shit load of work.

On my Jeep, I can just remove the rear driveshaft or diff guts and drive home in 4x4 which leaves me with front wheel drive.

Mike

86/00 CJ7 Laredo, 33x9.5 BFG Muds, 'glass nose to tail in '00 88 Cherokee 235 BFG AT's

David Askari wrote:

It,s a creavtive approach to auto mechanics which is only seem when procedure is not practical at the time. I guess the older vehicles have more of a chance of swapping parts. For example my 1981 ford 150 v8 cracked the tranny case 4 speed. I figuered out why when i swapped it out with a 66 mustang 3 spd. tranny. (tranny was not designed for a truck)

yes it was, it took all day.