Thread: Front diff housing crack

Originally Posted by Nomad9

Hi JDNSW,
Same same, RRC 1986 4 door mine though, standard bushes but I gave it a bit of a rough life, porosity in the front weld, only ever dripped a couple of times and never got any worse. I peened the porosity hole over with a ball peen hammer, this "sort of " worked. Never actually got around to welding it up. No cracks thankfully.

This is not porosity - clearly visible crack, right down the middle of the weld after degreasing.

If you visualise the stress on the axle, this is not a high stress area under bending load, but is under twisting, when one side is up and the other down, so that the arms are trying to rotate the axle housing in opposite directions. The rear of the banjo is held fixed by the cast diff centre, and although the design presumably intended that the twisting strain be taken by the bushes, no structure is completely rigid, so the housing must twist a little.

Had a good example of this - to make the housing accessible for welding without a lot of disassembly (drag link and panhard rod), I jacked up the RH front corner of the chassis. This made the driver's door a little more difficult to open - the chassis does twist, despite being quite rigid.

By the way, just done the 550k service.

John

Noticed a bit of an oil leak in mine last year.
The crack followed the bottom of the seam right to the pumpkin.
Bought a used housing to replace it after welding on some angle for bracing.
Should be right now

Originally Posted by 123rover50

Noticed a bit of an oil leak in mine last year.
The crack followed the bottom of the seam right to the pumpkin.
Bought a used housing to replace it after welding on some angle for bracing.
Should be right now

I have replaced a D1 front housing exactly the same as this. Someone had already tried to weld it all the way along and then vertically (around the axle tube), which of course almost broke completely afterward. AND they were an 'engineering' shop, AND they charged him heaps....


JC

Mine was cracked the same as 123rover50
I did this to the replacement






Edit there is a photo in my gallery under county 2. I've done something wrong again

I'll throw my hat in this ring too. My Isuzu 110 had exactly the same crack as you John. Ben at KLR sorted it for me as the oil means its no job for TIG.

It seems that this thread is confirming what I had suspected - this is not an uncommon problem! Fortunately, one with no dire consequences.

John

You can add me to the Isuzu cracked housing club. After a trip to the desert last year my diff soon started leaking from the top of the diff pan which seems to suggest twisting cracking rather than load cracking.

Hopefully this is enough to keep it going for a while.

Originally Posted by inside

You can add me to the Isuzu cracked housing club. After a trip to the desert last year my diff soon started leaking from the top of the diff pan which seems to suggest twisting cracking rather than load cracking.

Hopefully this is enough to keep it going for a while.

How do you weld so much crap onto the housing and have it not warp in the process ?