Puma Drive Flanges

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Originally Posted by Beery

I was under the impression that standard cast drive flanges from 20-30 years ago were a fair bit harder than the recent ones.

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Put it this way, 200/300Tdi's and TD5's all had the same issues as the TDCi, flanges and axle splines flogging out.

My old 300Tdi 130 was an ex-lease vehicle. it had 76,000km on it when I acquired it.
I popped the axles and flanges off and there were hardly any splines left on either axle or flange, I would've been left without drive within the next 500-1000km.
Another bloke I knew at the time (early 2000's) was stranded in the Simpson when his flanges failed. When Land Rover went to greased bearings and then the narrower hubs/stubs with the 300Tdi it's been a problem.

Maxi-drive axles and flanges went straight on (now Hi-Tough) and nearly 300,000km later and no play at all.

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Originally Posted by rick130

Put it this way, 200/300Tdi's and TD5's all had the same issues as the TDCi, flanges and axle splines flogging out.

My old 300Tdi 130 was an ex-lease vehicle. it had 76,000km on it when I acquired it.
I popped the axles and flanges off and there were hardly any splines left on either axle or flange, I would've been left without drive within the next 500-1000km.
Another bloke I knew at the time (early 2000's) was stranded in the Simpson when his flanges failed. When Land Rover went to greased bearings and then the narrower hubs/stubs with the 300Tdi it's been a problem.

Maxi-drive axles and flanges went straight on (now Hi-Tough) and nearly 300,000km later and no play at all.

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Thanks Rick. Think I'll probably just do the oiled hub conversion and kill two birds with one stone

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Originally Posted by Pickles2

I've heard that when fitted with these HD flanges, the standard centre cap cannot be fitted with Defender Dual Finish alloys,....Is this correct?
Pickles.

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No drama with Britpart flanges and sawtooths. Pat

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Originally Posted by Beery

Thanks Rick. Think I'll probably just do the oiled hub conversion and kill two birds with one stone

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I changed back to grease lubed hubs because the iron ore dust caused constant leaks.Both my vehicles get a blob of grease under the caps every now and again and both are slack free. Pat

Also interested in outcome regarding fit with dual finish alloys.

My TDCi is sitting in the driveway if anyone around Perth want's to try different rims on it. Pat

The below has been covered in great depth on AULRO, use search function....

summary
*HTE (brand name) are a deeper spline, thicker flange on the rear only.
*Ashcroft (brand name) are a standard depth spline, standard thickness flange front/rear.
*A spline depths (in this application) does not add to its lasting ability.
*So a deeper spline in this application is pointless, HTE dont do standard depth splines (I dont know why).
*HTE - the centre cap on any Defender alloy wont fit on the rears.
*HTE - Cap can be machined a mm or so to allow caps on standard Defender alloys to fit, rear (I dont do this anymore, its another labour cost I cant carry).
*HTE - Sawtooth cap still wont fit, rear.
*Ashcroft - all caps will fit. no mods required, quick supply time.
*Greasing splines on a regular basis is far better than the old oil feed idea.

ALL splines will suffer fretting, what compounds this wear is:
*Rotational vibration.
*Torque or load (i'm sure there is a correct engineering term for this, but rears suffer badly, but fronts not so).
*Lack of lubrication.
*Formation of oxides due to the above.
*Poor quality material used.
*Poor mis-match in splines.
*The last two points has been the big elephant in the room for the Defender TDCi (puma) model.

Regards
Daz

"*Poor mis-match in splines." This is exactly what I've always thought. Poor quality fitting plus soft materials is to blame for the continuing problems with axles/driven ends.
Towards the end of my apprenticeship in the UK I used to build gearboxes for road pavers and graders and always matched splined gears and shafts so they were a decent slide fit with no wobbling.
Mate of mine did his own "adjustments" with any that were loose..... by using a hammer and chisel to produce a big burr which he reckoned solved the problem. Maybe he's been working for LR..... [bigsad]
AlanH.

I bought Britpart because of the fit,they are the tightest of all the makes,and cheapest by far. Pat

Hey all,

Any value in just buying and trying the HD flanges first? Don’t really want to buy half shafts if not needed.

Good clunk at 70K kms...sigh