Thread: Defender uni joint?

Had the same thing happen on my Dads Defender just the other day, it had developed quite a bad shudder at about 55kph and a bad clack clack clack noise, mainly when accelerating/slowing down.

Easiest way to change a uni is to take the whole drive shaft off the vehicle as a work bench makes the job far easier

The way I do it is knock the uni one way through the yoke till one of the bearing cups is sticking out then depending on how stuck it is in the yoke get a pair of vise grips and twist it out, once done I knock the uni back the other way to get the other cup out.

The uni should then come out of that yoke and you just repeat the same for the other one.

Getting the new uni in is a lot easier with a press or good vise. You have to hold the uni in place while pressing both bearing cups in from either side making sure that it is all going in square, it will get to a point when you have to tap the cups in with a pin punch, do one and fit the circlip then turn over and do the same for the other side.
Repeat same steps for the other yoke.

Hope that makes some sense, not sure if I'm that great at explaining things How does anyone else do it??

Part No TVC 100010D is the heavy duty GKN replacement part with rubber caps. It's greasable, comes with an extended length zerk fitting and is designed to be "purged" i.e. when you've fitted the new one, grease it until you see grease begin to appear from under the rubber seal on each of the caps. Wobble the flange around to assist the spread of the grease...the new UJ wil probably be a bit stiff to begin with. The out-of-the-box part has minimum lube in it. It MUST be greased before use.

I'd suggest you remove the shaft as a complete unit and repair it on the bench as others have said. Grease it while you have the whole lot in front of you

If you have not done this before I suggest you check out the GKN website... there's a lot of useful info on how to replace a UJ. There are oodles of Youtube demos on this as well.

Along with a Vïse, a 6" heavy duty G clamp is also useful as a press tool ...

If you get stuck, you can always take the shaft and replacement parts to your 'friendly' local garage and ask them to show you how to replace the UJ... most are OK with this

good luck

Thx, it looks like I would need to replace the A-frame ball joint as well, any idea what the best approach is to do this?

20/30 tonne press is required to replace the ball joint, so you'll need to unbolt it from the A-Frame and pop the taper on the diff plate.

you'll need to put a jack under the pinion of the diff to stop it rolling over.
This will allow you gently rotate the diff allowing you the get the taper back in when reinstalling.

re TVC100010 dont buy el cheapo ones, there are low & high quality GKN & there are good & bad TVC100010 . very confusing.
waste of time using any other than A grade uni joints.

check out this thread

Why do Landrover UJ's flog out ??

Im doing my unis tomorrow

Do I need to place the vehicle on stands or can I only place jack under diff to prevent rotating?

Axle stands on the chassis is probably a good idea
The A-frame ball joint is there to stop the rotation of the diff housing.
Without it the pinion is free to move up and down.
I did mine with the wheels on the ground and axles stands under the chassis taking just a little weight.
You'll need a ball joint separator, the type you hit with a hammer to break the taper.
Where the upper arms come down to meet the ball joint, undo the 2 bolts there and remove the ball joint and retaining plate. (get 2 new nylocs for refitting)

When you've got it out, there will be 2x m8 bolts thru the ball joint into the retaing plate, remove these and cut the ears away, as you need this section for the press to work against.




While your at it, check the bushes at the other end of upper arms.