Finally I’ve got the diff fully apart and have found a broken piece, classically it’s the only plastic part. Also I cleaned a whole pile of small fragments of stuff out of the diff, they can’t have been helping the matter. I’ve now contacted a local firm who might be able to supply me with the new bit.
I have carried on trying to get into the diff, so far I have failed to undo what I think are just M5 bolts. They’re tight and also have a funny 12 sided head. I don’t have a socket to fit them, which doesn’t help. I have lined up a friend and a local garage to help me undo these 6 tiny bolts, then I shall throw them away and replace them with something that had a head that I can undo myself.
I have started to take apart the ARB Locking diff now. I’ve just removed the air pressurisation part and the dropped the diff itself out from the bearing carriers. I also got a nice picture looking in from outside at dusk. I got the track rods re-fitted the other evening also, so short of some oil in the diff, the Land Rover is ready to go again.
I’ve set about fixing the issues I caused last week. Here are a few pictures and videos of the progress. First it was off with thw track rods, as some of the ends had badly split rubbers and though there was little play, I feel that it’s a good idea to just replace the ends while I am here. So they’re on order now. Next the half shafts came out. Then I popped the prop off and the diff out, it’s still locked up, I dragged out my old diff and checked the back lash, adjusted it a touch. So now it’s a case of waiting for the order of new bits to turn up. The diff can go back in, half shafts back in. then when the track rod ends turn up I can put that all back toegether and it should be road worthy once more. Then I […]
Went out along Waxall Lane from Chilfrome end, with a friend in his Disco 3. It was good until the junction that goes down to the Irish Bridge. This point was very badly washed out, and perhaps had been driven rather lot when wet, maybe by something with much bigger wheels than my LR. I did wonder if had been a tractor. Either way I got very stuck and pulled out twice. The second time a valve stem got broken off causing a flat tyre. While stuck at one point I felt something in the steering system give and now the wheels aren’t aligned anymore. Also the locking diff is stuck engaged. Other than those three minor incidents and the lack of any real distance covered, it was a ace laning session. Now I’ve got some work to do before it’s drivable again.
Well actuality I think I’ve got a noise in a diff or perhaps else where. So I jacked up the front and spun a the wheels and prop, but could hear nothing out of the ordinary, but this lead to some routine maintenance being carried out. I need to find a way of recording this information. I failed to find the noises I was looking for but also haven’t driven it since doing this, so can’t be sure that I’ve not resolved it accidentally. Anyway, a good job was done. I still think there is a lot of back lash in the rear diff, but I need to find the enthusiasm to take it off the road for a day or two to do it.
I ddid Gascoigne Lane again at the weekend. The southern crossing I skipped as it looked very deep, which gave me confidence that the northern most crossing would have been less washed out during winter and would be easily passable. So I headed into the northern one and soon realised that my feet were getting wet, so it was deeper than I’d hoped.
I ordered a coupler/bush, to adapt from some female metric thread to 1/4″ BSP male thread of thew air line. I guessed it was M10 ish thread on the inflater thingy. I guessed wrong. It was perhaps M12. I don’t know, and now it doesn’t matter anyway. The metal filler stuff, similar to plastic padding came out and resolved the issue permenantly.
After driving the Land Rover on the beach the other week, I was prompted to think about my tyre pressures. I could easily reduce them but of cause re-pressuising them is harder. I had in mind that I could added a quick coupler to the air system that is used to operate the diff and then I’d have access to about 5 liters of 100 psi air. I had previously purchased a coiled air line and a tyre infalter thing, but hadn’t thought about how exactly I’d do it. In the end I just got on with it and did it. Done. One full tank will do one tyre from nearly totally flat to 20 psi, it’s unlikely that my tyres will be that flat, but the compressor will have to run at least a couple of times to do all four tyres.
I was finding that adjusting the windscreen wiper knob was difficult when driving due to it’s small size and the minimal protrusion from the dashbaord surface. We we’re out last weekend when Abigail had some kin dof pouch of food stuff, this came with a lovely cap which I thought would work perfectly as a knob… The red thing: I’ve not used it yet, it seems to be okay, just epoxied it to the old knob, so not a lot of going back now.
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