Service time for the 300 tdi

[simmo]

I started my annual service today, making sure the car is good to go over Christmas. ( and having a break from renovations)

focusing on the axles& drive shafts today.

brake fluid changed, I managed to spray both airbags with brake fluid , my old bleeder kept falling off, i have new one its better but more fiddly to fit the hose. Brake pads are OK. Gave the airbags a good washdown with warm soapy water.
Rotated the wheels

Rear axle; Rear diff level was Ok, hub bearings no need to adjust, & I removed the maxi drive hub caps, they haven't been off for a couple of years I think. the thread on them is fine so I like to take them off to make sure they aren't stuck , one was ok the other quite difficult to get undone. I put Teflon thread tape on the threads and only gently nip them up with the bearing spanner. as usual I put about a tea spoon of Mol' Di sulp' grease in them before I put them back on. It migrates into the hubs through the splines. The maxi-drive flanges & axle splines were looking like new. ( about 70,000 kms)
Front axle; RHS hub bearings needed a nip up, so drained the oil and removed the flange, the original LR drive shaft & drive flange are in near perfect condition, clean shiny & oily. (220,000 kms, some photos below). refilled with oil and put a teaspoon of MDS grease in the little rubber hub cap. I'm experimenting with using permetex #2 (non hardening) on the drive flange this time , it should be easier to clean off than the Silicon blue/grey I've used before.
Drained the LHS hub and refilled, ( 75 ml of 80-90 diff oil), & MDS grease in the hubcap etc.

Both swivels needed topping up, looks like the oil is migrating into the diff, it flowed out when I checked the level.
I'm using 80-90 diff oil in the swivels but have a feeling I should be using something heavier (140?)
Drive shafts greased.

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The LR drive shafts & drive flanges cop a lot of bad PR on the later model defenders, maybe its the bigger power of the later defenders or quality is lower, but mine are looking like they'll last forever.

Engine & transmission is next when I get a free day

cheers simmo

[mox]

Re the drive shafts and flanges copping a lot of bad PR on Defenders, the aspect of them sometimes stripping the splines is obviously due to lack of lubrication. Note that the splines on the diff end of the axles, which run in oil are the same. Have never come across any reports of them stripping.

On older Land Rovers - I think including early Defenders the front hub wheel bearings are lubricated by oil from the swivel housings. Then Land Rover engineers changed them to grease filled. Reason probably to reduce the oil leaks when they get older. Including onto brake linings. However, grease often tends to harden like cheese when it gets old and will no longer work its way into places where it may be needed. Then when splines that transmit a significant load are run dry, they "fret". ie Produce powdery rust as they wear. I had the left rear flange and axle on a Defender 130 strip when vehicle had only done about 35,000 km. Other three were still OK. They all still looked a bit oily.

There have been threads on aulro and elsewhere on converting these grease filled hubs to oil.as was standard long ago. Included replacing seals on hubs with proper oil seal types. Anyway, I bought a set but never got around to installing them and now see no reason to. All that is needed is to remove the plastic /rubber caps on the flanges, fill them half full of appropriate oil and slap them back on. Older versions of genuine Land Rover part caps were plastic which tends to go hard and split with age but not as fast as some aftermarket ones. More recent "genuine" ones seem more rubbery and have a bit more volume capacity to hold oil. Also, when filled with oil, it does not seep out around edge such. Probably would need aftermarket flange such as Maxidrive with metal cap to stop this as pressure probably build up with heat until oil or air leaks out hub seal or into swivel housing.

For this purpose, I have used a very heavy hypoid/ extreme pressure gear oil Like diff oil only thicker. Have a 20l drum including for other uses of Castrol Alpha SP680 Industrial Gear Oil. Reckon any sort of oil /grease concoction would be better than letting shafts run dry. Probably whatever is readily available that should be able to work into splines as well as out and preferably have some extreme pressure resistance characteristics.

Further re both swivel housings and hub bearings being grease, rather than oil lubricated, when my Defender still had low mileage on it, I looked at a similar one that had done a lot more in a local garage. Had both front drive shafts pulled out and the constant velocity joints were all chewed up - probably from lack of lubrication. Land Rover has supplied its own special grease for swivel housings. However, in this case was obviously either not filled properly and/or grease works its way out of CV joints and not enough back in. So as well as every now and then putting some oil in rubber axle caps I have occasionally added some hypoid gear oil to the swivel housings. Hopefully will remain much more than enough for adequate CV and king pins or whatever but have not filled it full as probably would just encourage oil leaks.