Rear hub cap leak on a 2012 Puma

[jplambs]

Hi All,

I took the 130 over to Melbourne on the weekend and on the way back, at Ballan, I noticed a wet patch on the hub cap. By the time I got back to the farm last night it looked like the attached image. When I took the cap off there was a phhhp of air escaping. My initial thought was that something had blocked the breather causing the oil to push past the seal however I located the end of the breather at the top of the engine bay and it appears to be perfectly free from all obstructions.

Any ideas as to the cause? The 'fender is 200kms off of the 10,000 km service so they can sort it out then however I'm keen to make sure the parts are in when I get there as the dealer is 200km away.

Cheers.

[Scouse]

I think I'd be removing the pipe & banjo connection at the axle casing to make sure it's all ticketty boo.

[jplambs]

Cheers Scouse, thanks for removing the duplicate post if that was you too! JP

[Scouse]

I have seen one case on a fairly new car where the banjo bolt wasn't drilled out so while the breather itself was fine, it was still pressurising the axle case.

[barney]

If there was a pfffft, I reckon your diff breather is blocked. ? It has probably pressurised the diff when it heated up and blew out through the axle seal and into the hub.. you should be able to remove the breather cap, after you've thoroughly cleaned around it because you don't want any dirt falling into the diff housing. Once you've cleaned it up, you should look at running a hose from it, up into the air cleaner to stop this and anything else happening again. Just to he on the safe side, you should replace your diff oil incase you've got any muck in it.

[goingbush]

At least your axle / drive flange splines are getting lubed, more than I could say for most later model Landrovers,
might pay to stick your head under the back and make sure the inner seals aren't leaking. ( oil / grease around the inside of the rim/ tyre)

certainly sounds like a blocked breather

[jplambs]

That's exactly what I thought Goingbush, I will eventually convert to oil bathed bearings however I want to wait until its out of warranty. If something does go wrong it needs to be LRA problem in the short term. On that topic should I be asking them to loctite the splines in the rear hubs until such time as the warranty ends?

[Scouse]

If you're going to convert to oil fed bearings eventually, fit the bigger flanges with the screw on cap.
They have more contact with the spline & the steel cap seals better than the original rubber one.

Maxi Drive types are not cheap but for standard axles there's a cheaper type around.

http://www.british4wd.com/xcart/image.php?productid=2016

[Jode]

A brief thread-hijacking - sorry:

Excuse my ignorance but I thought the Puma was fit with semi-floating axles, but fplambs' photo shows a fully-floater. Does the 130 axle differ from the other models?

[BigJon]

I thought the Puma was fit with semi-floating axles,

Not to my knowledge. LR are known to go backwards at times, but I don't think even they would do that.