Thread: Puma Axle's

Hi all i would like to know as well. as i would like to know that i will be able to have confidence with the family in the defender. I have read a lot of post, but i do not know the technical aspect. I just want do offroad with a little of sand,hills,mud rock but not extreme and able to pull out outher offroaders that may need my help.. thank you

Puma axles are fine. You only need to upgrade them if you are installing lockers and therefore subjecting them to conditions that they were not designed for. In particular, if your car is under warranty then leave it's drive train untouched until your warranty expires.

I hope for your sakes the drive flanges are being pulled and the splines greased every 20,000km or so when the car is being serviced.

Fretting corrosion of the axle/drive flange splines is the Defenders Achilles heel.

When the warranty expires I'd be converting the hubs to oil lubed.

same rear diff as the td5, I abused the hell out of mine and failed to break a shaft.

In your case I'd be more worried about the pinion bearings failing early because of the change in the included angles in the propshaft because of the tilt on the Tcase caused by the tilt on the gearbox thats hooked up to the engine they had to install on an angle.

Noooo skimping on doing the pinion checks during servicings on a ford.

Thank you much for your promp replies, especialy on a rainy sunday afternoon, I just got back spashing around (love driving the defender) and you guys have answered my questons Thank you very much
p.s the kids all have smiles on there faces and there starving apparently..
Thanks again...

Originally Posted by jake

Just a quick question, more out of curiosity.
Have the rear axles changed in the puma and are they good in terms of longevity.
Has anyone used other brand/type of axle.

Jake

As mentioned for normal use the axels will be fine. But check the flanges are well greased well as Rick suggested.
There is a bloke in the GCLRO club who uses his Tdci truck pretty hard. He has twin lockers on standard axels, or did have. It took him several years to break or strip the axels, so normal the axels aren't weak so to speak.

Ashcroft, or HiTuff do replacement axels if you are concerned. If you replace axels, upgrade the flanges as well. It's also worth considering running them in oil opposed to grease. It's a simple conversion which involves removing one oil seal all together, and replacing another with a twin lipped seal. You need the upgraded flanged as well to make it work.

I did the Ashcroft conversion ( front and rear half shafts, drive flanges and CV's) about 12 months into the new car warranty period. Also did the oil lube conversion at the same time.

That was 3 years ago and I think it was worth while. I wanted to negate any possible issues before they happened. It is well and good to say just claim it on warrenty but if you in a remote location when something g breaks...

What was the approximate cost of this work Drover?