Td5 Swivel and Wheel Bearing Advice?

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Originally Posted by Defendozer

Also Ive been doing some more research and Ive heard mention of needing a different "spacer" and "snap ring" for the larger diameter of the 23 spline halfshafts? To prevent the halfshafts "floating"?

Or have I got my wires crossed?!

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I have front CVs & half shafts from Ashcrofts ready to do the front axle on my Defender(2004).
My outer splines are a bit fretted, & I want to upgrade the axles for strength & maybe convert to oil lube at the same time.

You will find that the CVs & axles as supplied by Ashcrofts will include the spacers & snap rings. It should be just a matter of joining the axles & CVs so that they can then be fitted. There are also larger diameter oil seals needed for the axle tube where the swivel bearing housing ball bolts on, because the axle shafts are slightly larger diameter. These are also supplied with the CVs & axles.

I have previously repaired the RHS swivel bearings which in my case were rusty due to insufficient lubrication (thanks servicing dealer :() & it is a pretty straightforward job; albeit a messy one!

The main challenge is getting all the bolts undone with no problems. Some of them can be very tight, particularly the drive flange bolts, & the bearing staking nut on the later models. You need a good 52mm socket for this, or a HD box spanner with a 1/2" drive facility. I found I had to put a high-lift jack under a long 1/2" handle to undo mine - they are ****** tight! ;)

Cheers,

Lionel

grease the bearings first.

if you want to get pedantic about it (and sometimes I do)

use a grease from the same manufacturer with the same formulation as the oil you intend to use.

at the end of the day, grease is just oil holding a base in suspension. if you thin the grease down with oil you wont harm anything.

BUT some geases and oils do not like to mix just as some greases dont like other greases. Its not "its going to explode or turn to glue/grinding paste" type fail its "loose its properties or seperate into various parts and form an emulsion" type fail.

Thanks for all your advice its great!

After a lot of thought and reading everything related I could find in The Good Oil I decided to go with standard cv's and axles instead of the Ashcroft gear to fix the very worn axle splines and put the saved cash into replacing all the other parts.

I wasn't intending on replacing the stub axles, however I found this on the underside of one of the rears yesterday (attached pic).

I could rotate them but because of the ABS sensor they have to be swapped to the other side of the vehicle which Im not able to do atm, plus i would have to drain the diff then too!
Also they must have gotten water in them at some stage as the inside of the stubs are slightly rusty as well..

Would you recommend replacing?

I've seen worse, give them a wipe round with some 1200ish grit wet and dry to see if the discouloration comes out if it does theres nothing to worry about.

if the lip is significant (try sliding a bearing over it and see if it catches) then you'd want to at least swap them left to right to rotate them or replace them if the money permits.

when I'm doing the work I generally replace parts at a higher than normal rate to ensure the quality and durablility of the workmanship.

2 reasons.

1. I'm lazy I dont like warranty work so its easier to just do it right the first time.
2. Im usually not charging by the hour and most people are happy to offset the cost of labour onto parts if it means they get more work done for the same money they would normally pay to get "just" what was asked for done.