Thread: 120 Ute vs branch & other disasters

Spent the last couple of weeks touring the Vic High Country with my partner Jane and a friend. On a less frequented track near the Crooked River I managed to hit a branch that punched through the driver's side vent. A combination of the particular angle of the branch and it's position in heavy shade on a brightly lit track meant none of us saw it. Luckily I was going pretty slowly and no-one was hurt. Ute was ok to drive, although the bulkhead - as you would imagine - is badly damaged.

We finished that trek and stayed the night in Bright. Jane had a chat to a friendly guy with a bright yellow 6x6 pinzgauer staying the same motel as us (I was still in bed recovering from drowning my sorrows the previous night at the Bright Brewery). Next day we got about 20km out of town and it seems something failed in the transfercase. Dropped out of hi-range, then wouldn't engage high or low range for more than a few seconds, horrible noises, etc. Also leaking oil. Ute is currently at a mechanic in Bright. Gearbox has 600k klm on it, so it's probably false economy to have him rebuild the transfercase, even assuming no damaged to the case. Best option I guess is to locate a good / reco'd Lt95, ship it to Bright and have him fit it. If anyone has any suggestions on where I might find a replacement gearbox I would be happy to hear them. (I've put an ad in the Wanted section).

And once that is done, and the ute is home, I can start searching for a replacement bulkhead

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Righto, mechanic has (finally) taken a look. I explicitly asked him to drop the TC cover plate and report back on the damage. Somehow, that's been interpreted as dropping the gearbox . No wonder it took so long!! Anyway, looks like the transfercase has been running without oil. It's always leaked a bit from around the cap on the intermediate shaft and the output housing / main case joint - but it must have got far worse in the last 5K klm between top ups. The fact that wasn't a lot of oil coating the underside when it broke down, makes me wonder if it's been pumping it into the gearbox. If it has, it must be a new development because I've been aware of possibility of this problem developing, so at gearbox oil change intervals have always opened the filler plug first to see if it's overfull.

Mechanic hasn't stripped the intermediate shaft down yet but a quick inspection found the gears might be still ok, one thrust washer in bits at the bottom of the case, and a slightly 'blued' selector shaft. Select operation for hi-low-neutral still works fine. Nothing's exploded so no damage to the housing.

Now the original idea was just to have the intermediate shaft quickly and relatively cheaply rebuilt just to drive it home, and then decide what to do in long term. Ironically, prior to this trip I was planning to have the intermediate shaft inspected / rebuilt & have the centre diff rebuilt (I have an Aschroft single piece cross pin to go in). However as the gearbox is now out, it's become a question of whether or not it's worth having the TC rebuilt and the gearbox re-fitted, or just get a reco'd box. At a minimum, and especially considering it's run without oil, I would think that the TC would require:

1. Strip down, inspect, rebuild intermediate shaft / output shaft / centre diff.

2. Address leak around intermediate shaft cap. As I understand it, this requires machining and re-sleeving the case housing as a it wears out of round, so a new o-ring is not enough. Does this mean a complete strip down to a bare housing for machining? If this is so, then I think it's a deal-breaker on repairing this gearbox for me.

So, given the likely cost of all that on a gearbox with 600K klm on it, and that I've already been committed to paying labour for a gearbox remove & refit, my guess is I'd be better to source a reco'd LT95A (hello Mr Bearman ) and have the mechanic fit that. What do people think? I'd rather have a LR specialist fit it - and fit the winch PTO from the old box to the new - but it might be cost prohibitive to pay for a gearbox remove & refit twice, plus the cost of the intermediate shaft rebuild to enable to be driven to said specialist.

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