Thread: stripped axle spline

Hi All . Stripped the spline on the right axle/flange in the 130 yesterday afternoon. Have done the bush mechanics weld to get me by for the moment, thanks to Benny11A for that little tip.The axle and flange were Maxi Drive items and yes the wheel bearings are greased so will be looking to change to oil fed . My truck does not do alot of hard off roading mainly highway and beach driving with a bit around town also. Do I need to go all out and buy Hituff stuff or will standard aftermarket stuff last just as well in my application? There seems to be quite a bit of diference in price ie. Hituff $700+, standard aftermarket around $200.
I'm interested in peoples experiences, thanks James.

I had the rear left axle spline on my '97 build Defender 130 strip at about 35,000 km on the clock. It was dry and rusty. Pulled plastic axle caps off other three hubs and they were OK with some lubricant still in them. Bought a pair of secondhand standard rear axles with hubs from bloke who had replaced his with aftermarket heavier ones when installing a Detroit Locker,(which he reckons seems not a very good idea with constant 4WD) and a set of hub oil seals to replace the grease ones with. However, still have not installed the oil seals or removed ones keeping diff oil out of hubs. As a temporary measure initially, simply filled the plastic caps half full with very thick hypoid oil and slapped them back on.

Have kept doing this occasionally since. Probably satisfactory indefinitely as long as enough decent lubricant in splines, which are the same as ones on the diff ends which don't seem to strip. Each time this is done a bit of oil would be pushed into the grease filled hubs, which should stop it from turning into hard "cheese" but is unlikely enough would seep through the original grease seals to cause any problems getting onto the brakes etc.

The oils I have used have been Castrol Alpha SP 460 and Alpha SP 680 (the latter thicker) bought in 20litre drums for other purposes including putting in leaky slasher gearbox before seal was replaced as thick oil leaked out slower. However, for the small quantities needed to adequately lubricate axle splines on Land`Rover grease filled hubs, lighter hypoid oil normally used in diffs may be adequate but if mixed with some appropriate grease to thicken it is probably better, like the above heavy oils which not many people would buy 20 litre drums of.

Only minor annoyance is if plastic caps not in good order, there is a bit if dirt attracting oil weep on outside of hubs. Seems more likely to occur with aftermarket plastic caps which are cheaper and nastier than genuine Land Rover ones. In good condition they will hold thick oil in even though probably only designed to keep grease in and dirt out.

Standard axles are obviously not as good as some aftermarket ones but what I have done has at least deferred the need for a costly upgrade.