Thread: Defender Rear Axle/Hub Identification

HTE = Hi Tough Engineering.

and the X denotes long splines on the drive flange.

A lot of us have those axles and flanges. Mine will be the same except are labeled Maxi drive, the original before Mal Storey retired and Hi Tough took over the axles part of the business.

DeanoH, as others have said, they are made by Hi-tough Engineering, which is run and owned by Barry Ward. He was Mal Storey's right hand man and made alot of the MaxiDrive axles.

Im guessing the numbers on the axle are date? Are they stamped on the diff end? Normally there is a number/code on the flange end.

Number is not steel code, material used in those is Hytuf. I think it is AMS 1684??? I think the DF is 4140???

Are you running the wheel bearings in oil?

Originally Posted by slug_burner

A lot of us have those axles and flanges. Mine will be the same except are labeled Maxi drive, the original before Mal Storey retired and Hi Tough took over the axles part of the business.

Although mine don't have the trendy scallop between the bolt holes
Pure business only

Originally Posted by uninformed

DeanoH, as others have said, they are made by Hi-tough Engineering, which is run and owned by Barry Ward. He was Mal Storey's right hand man and made alot of the MaxiDrive axles.

Im guessing the numbers on the axle are date? Are they stamped on the diff end? Normally there is a number/code on the flange end.

Number is not steel code, material used in those is Hytuf. I think it is AMS 1684??? I think the DF is 4140???

Are you running the wheel bearings in oil?

The axle numbers shown are at the diff end. I haven't removed the drive flange yet as the 50mm nuts are very tight, (should have loosened them when the wheels were on the ground), the rear bearings are in good nic and are not running in oil. When dis assembled they were greased with a strange looking orange grease, not amber but orange.

The axle seals are obviously working as there's no oil in the hubs. I've noted in different threads that oil bath is better but have visions of my old SIIA and the horrible mess around the swivel pins when they were oil lubricated so am a bit loathe to go down the same path.

Presubably for oil lube one removes the axle seals, replaces the hub grease seals and rely on the diff oil to do the job ? Probably a thread on this somewhere but haven't looked yet.

On the long axle there's about 1mm of end float at the drive flange, but as I said I haven't undone the big nuts yet. On the front axles theres two washers/shims on each side next to the circlip which minimises end float. Should I expect the same on the rear or is end float relatively unimportant. The short axle has barely discernable end float.

Deano

Originally Posted by DeanoH

The axle numbers shown are at the diff end. I haven't removed the drive flange yet as the 50mm nuts are very tight, (should have loosened them when the wheels were on the ground), the rear bearings are in good nic and are not running in oil. When dis assembled they were greased with a strange looking orange grease, not amber but orange.

The axle seals are obviously working as there's no oil in the hubs. I've noted in different threads that oil bath is better but have visions of my old SIIA and the horrible mess around the swivel pins when they were oil lubricated so am a bit loathe to go down the same path.

Presubably for oil lube one removes the axle seals, replaces the hub grease seals and rely on the diff oil to do the job ? Probably a thread on this somewhere but haven't looked yet.

On the long axle there's about 1mm of end float at the drive flange, but as I said I haven't undone the big nuts yet. On the front axles theres two washers/shims on each side next to the circlip which minimises end float. Should I expect the same on the rear or is end float relatively unimportant. The short axle has barely discernable end float.

Deano

The grease could be anything, I have some Redline CV2 grease that is a very high temp/race car wheel bearing grease that is a funny solid orange/red colour. (it's also water resistant and suitable fro CV's as it contains soluble moly)
I used to use Neo Z12 (no longer available) that was a pretty translucent red colour.

I'd convert the hubs to oil lubed too.

I haven't had an oil leak since converting mine nine or so years ago, just use the RTC3511 hub seal and remove the axle housing oil seal and off you go.
It'll stop the axle splines fretting too, and end float is controlled by the end cap on those axles, it isn't critical as it is with the front CV axles.

I find it a personal preference. I'm running Maxi-drive axles and drive flanges, with ARB lockers front and rear. I went with oil lubed for a while but it gave me the ****s - I had a couple of bearings fail. Probably not the fault of the oil at all, but I prefer to stick with grease considering I'm generally doing adjustments and checks every 10k.