D2a Rear diff issues

[froryan]

Gday all,

I have just spent an incredible amount of money to replace the rear diff and hubs on my 2003 HSE (V8).

I picked the car up second hand out of Sydney/Newcastle a year ago with 72,000km on the clock. It has only done 7000km in the last year and I put it in for the 80,000km service the other week.

Now I always knew it was going to be a pricey service, but when the bloke called me out to his workshop to see the issues, I nearly had a heart attack!

Both rear hubs were nicely rusted (old dark read/brown rust) with the seals gone and had leaked oil all over the rear brake pads (I just thought the poor braking performance was due to the weight of the thing). The mechanic suggested that it had been used to tow a boat and constantly backed in and out of salt water and never rinsed off with Fresh. This is a little surprising as there is absolutely no sign of rust anywhere else.

Then we got to the diff, where the crown pin was in pieces along with the pinion, and plenty of missing teeth everywhere.

Now, I have used it off road, but never anything extreme which would have loaded eveything up to the point of casuing failure, well not that I think it woud have anyway, especially becasue it is the better half's car.

Total cost of service, parts and repairs - just shy of $6K. :(

Now, I am not questioning that the repairs were needed, I could see that with my own eyes, nor even the cost of things - the mechanic I use comes highly recommended. Although it is recognised that he isn't particulary cheap, he does know LRs.

But has anyone else out there ever had problems with the diffs on D2a s? Or even anything remotely resembling this?

[Hendrik]

Hi
The rear diffs in the D2's have seamed to cause a few people problems, have a mate who did two of them in 2 months :o...and is now going to put an air locker in instead. It could be that your diff was just one of those fautly ones that slipped through QA, especially considering the amount of K's you have done. I have done over 260kms in my d2 and never had a problem, and it spends most of its time offroad.

With the hubs, they are costly items to replace, as you found out, as the whole hub and abs sensor need to be replaced. In your case the salt water probably just got to them eventually, while you might not notice any rust on the rest of the vehicle, salt water does seap into bearings and seals and that.
Eventough you cleaned the vehicle thoroughly after it has been to the beach, salt water does still get into those components and then one day it comes back to bite you. As what happened in your case.

[jwb]

I've just had a rear diff on a D2 2002 replaced. Showed up with some metal filings at a service 6 months ago then got progressively noisy.

Replaced diff center and now all good. 130k km and quite a lot of off road use. Service place said it was quite common.

I've had a front hub replaced that re-used the ABS sensor so I know you don't have to get the whole expensive unit for that piece of work.

[wardy1]

Only prob I had with my rear diff was when I really punished it pulling a camper out of Dingo Track (Vic). I wouldn't expect a diff to put up with that for too long!
Never had any issues with the hubs etc before or since.


WHERE'S THAT BIT OF WOOD AGAIN:o:o:o:o