Monday, November 18, 2019

Land Rover 109 front propshaft repair?

On my last trip to Nevada there was an intermittent clunking when in 4x4, most noticeable in high range probably due to the lower engine noise.

When I came home I checked things out and found my front prop splines worn on the male end.




Finally getting around to working on it and found this; all 88-109 front props are the same, part # STC1898.  There is a replacement male spline section available part #601790, I only found that on Rovah Farm.

I pulled the shaft and had a go at replacing the splined section. First I tried to grind off the weld but that was too difficult to see what I was exposing. I was looking for the inner wall of the tube section at it's longest point.

So I used a cutoff wheel and removed the splined section.



Then I carefully ground down the remaining flange part of the spline, hoping to find the tube walls. This took maybe an hour and a half to 2 hours, I didn't really keep track of time, but......

Finally I  got to it this morning. However I'm not satisfied with my results, more on that later.

Once I knew I had ground through the weld and found the side walls I had to remove the rest of the insert. That wasn't easy either. I finally welded a 1/2" rod to the insert and with some hammering and wiggling and brute(me?) strength I got it out!





Here is the layout of the splined shaft bits;



OK, Why don't I like what I did?;
     Although I tried to keep the grinding to a minimum, a lot was dependent upon the weld. One side of my grinding job came out 4mm shorter that the other. While I know that can be made up with careful alignment when welding in the new spline I am not comfortable with the balance issue of the shaft with all this extra weld on one side. On the other hand I could have squared off the tube by grinding down the high side, but would this have left the tube too short? I don't know.



So I bit the bullet and ordered a new one from Trevor at Rovah Farm.

Well the new shaft came in, it is Britpart.



I thought it might be for that price. What I din't expect was that it has been redesigned and didn't look like my old one or the sale picture on the websites. I can see why it was redesigned, it looks cheaper to make. I hope it isn't a cheaper version of materials..........................time will tell.
   I freaked out a bit and called Trevor, fired off an email to him and checked another half dozen website to see if the number was correct. It was and eventually I decided to just put it in.
   First I took the slide apart and saw that there was very little grease on only 1 part of the splines, so I pumped grease into the splines and the u-joints.

The new is on top, the bottom is a rear but shows the old design.


   Then I got out a piece of old carpet threw it on the mud and rocks in my drive and put it in.

In the rain. I was worried the sliding section would hit the crossmember, but it looks like it will clear everything.

I got soaked from the naval down and there was a drip hitting me on the forehead while I did the front bolts. It went in just fine.

After cleaning up Trevor called and informed me of the design change, so I could rest easy/er.

A quick drive in 4x4 around the neighborhood and yep, it works.

Thanks Trevor!

No comments:

Post a Comment