Fitting upgraded Axles, CVs and converting to oil lubed hubs

Food for thought.

Land Rover state that the reason they chose to grease the CV over oil is to retain Lube in the CV on angles, Good point.
But also and more importantly Id presume, is there will only be one lip seal stopping bulk oil ending up on your brake rotor vs 3 seals.
There is nothing wrong with grease, it is better suited to this application than oil. Oil has no where near the shear strength of grease this means the oil will push out easier than the grease will, yes oil will help keep it cooler, but unless your running the Dakar with massive HP and making prolonged turns, under power and well over 100kms and hour, there is no need. Id rather have grease and know when the wheel in the air comes down or grabs traction it has lubrication, and it has not been above the oil level draining for however long and cop a shock load basically dry.

If you half fill the swivel hub with oil there will be no angle - including vehicle inverted - that the cv will be dry of oil
Andy are you going to drop the oil out of your transfer case and grease it all up instead???

S

Slightly off topic but i would imagine the front diff would be the weakest link??
Is this upgrade worth while with a standard diff or as a must after upgrading the diff?
I already have an elocker in the rear and was just going to add a elocker to the front and an atb in the centre, thought this should be up to task with no issues?

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Originally Posted by 1nando

Slightly off topic but i would imagine the front diff would be the weakest link??
Is this upgrade worth while with a standard diff or as a must after upgrading the diff?
I already have an elocker in the rear and was just going to add a elocker to the front and an atb in the centre, thought this should be up to task with no issues?

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The CV's and stub axle on post 200Tdi Deefers are even weaker than the CWP.
Anything you do to make them better is an improvement.

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Originally Posted by AndyDuncan

Food for thought.

Land Rover state that the reason they chose to grease the CV over oil is to retain Lube in the CV on angles, Good point.
But also and more importantly Id presume, is there will only be one lip seal stopping bulk oil ending up on your brake rotor vs 3 seals.
There is nothing wrong with grease, it is better suited to this application than oil. Oil has no where near the shear strength of grease this means the oil will push out easier than the grease will, yes oil will help keep it cooler, but unless your running the Dakar with massive HP and making prolonged turns, under power and well over 100kms and hour, there is no need. Id rather have grease and know when the wheel in the air comes down or grabs traction it has lubrication, and it has not been above the oil level draining for however long and cop a shock load basically dry.

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Grease was used in the CV's when BMW took over Rover purely to reduce leaks, 'One Shot' is a very average CV grease. ;)
As Steve said, oil filled swivels won't be dry, ever.

The CV issues aren't a lube issue, they are a CV size/design/stub axle size issue.

Drilling the housing and fitting a drain is easier than it sounds also. I had one with a drain and one without so i could see where to drill and tap a 6mm hole.
Undoing the bottom bearing bolts to let the out oil may mean that it wont then seal as well. Mine is all sealed with gasket maker. No paper gaskets used.I also overfilled everything from the diff breather hole , waited overnight and a short drive before opening the middle level plug on the housings to let the oil level stabilise. No water is going to get in anywhere if you do the job properly and it makes for easy draining and refilling. I like clean oil and will change it once per year in my case.
The next question is what oil to use? I was going to use some heavyweight redline shockproof i had laying around but didnt quite have enough so just used Castrol axle 80-90 i think it was after reading about the 140 causing heat. I dont like hot and dirty. Not with cars anyway ;)

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Originally Posted by roverrescue

If you half fill the swivel hub with oil there will be no angle - including vehicle inverted - that the cv will be dry of oil
Andy are you going to drop the oil out of your transfer case and grease it all up instead???

S

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For this be be right then your leaving in the axle seal item number 8, you would be right the oil will stay there if that seal is left in, but with very little clearance for new bungs to be drilled and tapped, how do you maintain the oil or fill it? Because you cant do it through the diff then, and there is obviously clearance and quite a bit I might add between the axle and the housing so oil will disappear pretty quick on side angles. There will be residue that's about it. But as I said before about shear strength of grease vs oil, and the safety fact of one seal between oil and brakes with a syntrifical force not helping it.
Also wheel bearing tolerance changes because your changing from grease to oil for lube. You will require a tighter clearance.
Grease is used in some applications in gearboxes and work quite well. Its not a stupid idea using grease in an LT230 because you do have high bearings in the box that would possibly benefit from it, but you would nee to seal them to retain it.

Lots of ways to skin that front axle cat
Can flick the axle seal and over fill the whole diff/axle
Either way installing a swivel drain and changing the hub seal to RTC3511 is best practice

Wheel bearings in oil will have near indefinite lifespan
John has 600oookm on his county bearings from memory
Greased bearings are a maintenance item

I think you are over thinking the cv lube requirements - 80-90W splash lubricated will not harm the cv as much as a thoughtless right boot

As Rick said above, the change from an oil filled axle to grease swivel and bearings was an engineering backward step to reduce oil leaks

Oh and if you run grease swivel get water in - you are up for complete strip down to prevent serious cv and bearing damage
With oil filled you drain and refill - done

S

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Originally Posted by timax

The next question is what oil to use? I was going to use some heavyweight redline shockproof i had laying around but didnt quite have enough so just used Castrol axle 80-90 i think it was after reading about the 140 causing heat. I dont like hot and dirty. Not with cars anyway ;)

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RL Shockproof would've been really good, except a triboligist told me once it doesn't like moisture, something to do with the colloidal calcium additive RL uses ?
The borate ester additised gear oils that Caltex (Chevron-Texaco) and Penrite sell have excellent EP performance, better than most all Sulfur-Phosphorous gear oils, but again, they don't mix well with water.

SAE140 would've been fine IMO, I think my swivels have an 80W-140 in them.

I ended up getting onto Ashcroft and brittish, they advise to use Oneshot grease, thats what their CVs are designed for, oil is not up to the job. its ok if your hiway running and granny footing it, but If your using it pretty heavily off road i.e. breaking CVs as I have oil wont last in a decent CV under those stress conditions.