transfercase oil pressure and overheating

[mills rover]

Hi to you all

well where do i start my 200 tdi defender is giving me a head ache
Its started to blow oil out of the breather pipe
ive changed the oil in the transfer case twice and its still blowing oil out of the breather and getting hot around 120c when im driving on the freeway
made sure oil isnt over full and checked hand brake drum for anything binding it all ok also checked to make sure hand brake not too tight and staying on everything seems ok but oil still going out the breather pipe ive never had this problem in all the years ive worked on landys

its got me beat im about to take gearbox and transfercase out and maybe replace all the bearings and seals
whats strange it drive like a dream no noise or anything coming from transfercase ive even took my centre console out and drove it with a big hole in the floor and nothing not a noise of ant kind

What could be causing it to run hot and blow oil out the breather ?


By the way i run 80 w 90 gear oil as ive always ran in her
with no problem before this

Thanx guys any help would be appreciated


Cheers and Merry Xmas

Andrew

[clean32]

my first thought is, check the rolling dia of each wheel, make sure they are the same.

[mills rover]

Thanx clean 32
Yes mate checked that and all the same . its got me beat

[strangy]

Deleted cos I should have read the post when I was awake!

[mills rover]

Hi strangy

wasnt sure what you meant by that mate

[Blknight.aus]

1what oil are you using?
where is the breather routed?
whats the load on the vehicle what speeds do you do?
wheres the breather fitted up?
Are you certain that its the Tcase breather thats giving you hassles and not a diff or gearbox breather?

[strangy]

Hi strangy

wasnt sure what you meant by that mate

Sorry. I didnt fully take in your post before I wrote a response. I tried to delete it. But couldnt, so had to leave something.

Interperetation: I have no constructive info. Sorry:angel:

[justinc]

120deg means there is a binding or bearing problem generating excessive heat. It is way too hot for normal highway temps, even towing.

If it were an early LT230 I'd suggest thrust washers are knackered, but more than likely the intermediate shaft bearings are the culprit, possibly spinning the inner races on the shaft:(

Either way, drop the bottom plate and check the oil for contaminants and particles and spin the intermediate cluster etc to check for resistance.

To give you a bit of perspective, I was towing a van at 100km'h in my RRC with an LT95 on a 40 degree day and the oil temps in the transfer got to 100deg. 120deg behind a Tdi means there is a problem, you just have to find it:(

JC

[mills rover]

Hi Black knight

Oil i use is castrol 80w90 gear oil
breather goes from transfercase to just under the bonnet
speed i was doing around 105 k on my gps so i assume its right
weight ... unloaded just my self and my son in vehicle
gear box wasnt anywhere near as hot as transfercase so made me think it was just transfercase
also when i dropped the oil in transfercase it was almost red and i only just put new oil in it a couple of months ago

well back then it wasnt making any noises at all but today it started to get noisy
so i think definetly bearing problem of some kind..
Cheers mate

Andrew

[mills rover]

Hi Justinc

Yes mate i think your spot on with some bearing problem mate but ill do some more investigating and see exactly where from mate

Cheers matey

Andrew

[Blknight.aus]

Im thinking that it may not be a bearing as such but it may be the mount for the lowrange gearset on the lower mainshaft.

[mills rover]

Hi Blacknight


Im not sure what you mean by that and how it would effect transfercase mate
Could you please tell me more mate


Cheers

Andrew

[Blknight.aus]

the high low set in the lt 230 is a permanant mesh gear set with a sliding dog clutch (think normal manual gearshift setup without the syncro) so at all times the low range gearset is turning at the lowrange speed and the highrange set at high range speed.

shifting a single selector connects the input shaft of the center Diff to either of the range gearsets.

IF one or the other of the mainshaft gearsets gets a problem you can wind up with the thrust caused by the helical cut of the gears turning the gears bearing faces into a kind of brake from either thrust loading on the gear face or by off axis loading on the shaft.

perversely.

While you have good oil in the box it will last but will just get very hot and consume power out of the drive line. When you check it by turning the shafts by hand you wont find anything wrong with the box as you dont turn the gears fast enough OR with enough torque.

Once this problem starts it eventually makes itself known by tooth whine from the contact pattern on the teeth being out of normal.

Drop your oil and if you dont have shiney bits in the oil or on the magnetic plug then more than likely the excess heat is coming from the contact point of either the high or low range gearset.

[mills rover]

Blacknight when i dropp the oil i found some metalfilings on the magnet but not a great deal of it .

So how do i fix this problem if its what you say as im not that good
with transfercase havent done any before but have done gear boxes in the past ..

would it be easier to get another one or have someone rebuild it ......
so the wynd im starting to hear could be the hi and lo gears rubbing

I have another question for you matey why did the oil changed colour
to reddish when it was only a month old do you think it was due to heat

cheers mate

Andrew

[Blknight.aus]

if it is what I think it might be then its a rebuild job more or less exactly the same amount of work as a rebearing anyway...

Try running ATF or engine oil in it and give it a run down the highway and see what it does then.

if the noise gets worse then its bearings and if it goes away its the gearset. (its not gone for good its going to get worse but you can buy yourself a little time with the right oil choice)

If you have a RAVE CD or the fourwheeldrives catalog with the exploded parts Diagram I can show you the components Im talking about.

[justinc]

My money is on either one or both of the main cluster bearings, or the intermediate shaft bearings. Under load, the main cluster bearings at each end of the hi-lo gearset and centre diff assembly will take a fair bit of thrust, and there are also bushes in the inner of the high and low gears that possibly can be siezed and rotating on the main through shaft, but unlikely as it would've imploded well and truly by now. Either way a strip down and inspection seems an inevitability:(

JC

[350RRC]

And on next weeks episode of Iron Chef we have Blknight Sakai:

'he high low set in the lt 230 is a permanant mesh gear set with a sliding dog clutch (think normal manual gearshift setup without the syncro) so at all times the low range gearset is turning at the lowrange speed and the highrange set at high range speed.

shifting a single selector connects the input shaft of the center Diff to either of the range gearsets.

IF one or the other of the mainshaft gearsets gets a problem you can wind up with the thrust caused by the helical cut of the gears turning the gears bearing faces into a kind of brake from either thrust loading on the gear face or by off axis loading on the shaft.

perversely.

While you have good oil in the box it will last but will just get very hot and consume power out of the drive line. When you check it by turning the shafts by hand you wont find anything wrong with the box as you dont turn the gears fast enough OR with enough torque.

Once this problem starts it eventually makes itself known by tooth whine from the contact pattern on the teeth being out of normal.

Drop your oil and if you dont have shiney bits in the oil or on the magnetic plug then more than likely the excess heat is coming from the contact point of either the high or low range gearset.'

vs JC Chen:

' My money is on either one or both of the main cluster bearings, or the intermediate shaft bearings. Under load, the main cluster bearings at each end of the hi-lo gearset and centre diff assembly will take a fair bit of thrust, and there are also bushes in the inner of the high and low gears that possibly can be siezed and rotating on the main through shaft, but unlikely as it would've imploded well and truly by now. Either way a strip down and inspection seems an inevitability'

Both contestants have one hour to fix this thing. The secret ingredient? An LT 230.

Whose cuisine will reign supreme? :)

I'll be watching with interest.

cheers, DL

[Blknight.aus]

My money says its not going to matter either way done properly both faults require replacement and reworking of all the same parts.

Gearset failure usually takes out the bearings with swarf unless caught early (and personally If I have a damaged gearset job then I replace the bearings as par for the course)

a full rebearing usually requires replacing the gearset as it wont tolerance up properly otherwise (least as far as the ones Ive done which are usually a case of "its been making this noise for a month now, should I have bought it in earlier?")

and at the end of the day we're both in the same area of the box but I've excluded the intermediate shaft bearings on the basis of if its coming apart for the mainshaft to be worked then you spend the extra $40 on bearings and bits plus an extra hours labour to do the intermediate shaft at the same time. It also did have mention of the trade mark "clank" of driveline take up that you get as the intermediate shaft slops back and forth.

It'll be a good cook off....

[mills rover]

Thanx guys
Well it looks like a rebuild then

I have to drive it to work till the weekend as its the only car ive got going at the moment
But i will pull it out on the weekend and go from there
Blacknight i have a fourwheeldrive catalogue matey ..

Cheers

Andrew

[mills rover]

Guys

is the lt230t out of 300 tdi the same as 200 tdi or are they diffrent


Cheers

Andrew

[Blknight.aus]

there are little differences but they should be a straight bolt up job.

from page 45.46.47,48 on the discovery book from the catalog cdrom the parts that we're looking at being worn in JC's case is sm2,4,7,17,bl21,4m which is all the bearings excluding all the seals and stuff to replace those parts.

In my case you get the same list + sm13/15+16 and potentially 18mt if the race that the lowrange gearset runs on is damaged.

[mills rover]

Thanx Blacknight

Im pulling it out this weekend and replacing all those parts

I drove it to work today and noise isnt that loud you can barely hear it
but leaking lots of oil

Unfortunally my wife is away with other car and my son is away with my disco so have no choice but to drive it to work


Cheers

Andrew

[Blknight.aus]

ummm..

I strongly urge you.

If you havent already got a copy of the rave manual that you get one and read up on rebuilding the Tcase.

theres some very precise measuring and part selection to be done.

best of luck on it.

[harbspan]

Hi Mills Rover

Just done mine... a bit tedious. The problem is there's two shims and a crush spacer (though RAVE says not to use these but rather use selective length spacer determined by a convoluted measureing method) and unless you've got a fist full of progressivly sized shims for the input gearset and output gearset then you are not going to get it done in a weekend.

In my case I ordered the thinnest shims for each and then cut some shim material and progressivly sanwiched with the bought shim assembling the respective bearing assemblies several times useing the handcut shims until the preload felt right (just able to turn with oil slippery hand). Then pulled apart and measured the sandwich pack and ordered shim to suit.

Make sure you use a press for the bearing cup/shim assembly. Never hit them in, they will never seat properly and you won't get a correct measurement (will always bounce minutely).

All the best with it.:BigThumb:

Les.

[mills rover]

Hi Les
Well i do have quite a lot of shimms in my workshop but weather i have the ones i need or not ill have to wait and see, picking up all the bits i need today so might get some more shimms in diffrent sizes
I do have a press which i havent used in ages since i sold my other series landies and havent done much work on these ones so it might get a work out this weekend
Let you know how i go

Cheers matey

Andrew

[mills rover]

Hi guys

I just want to thank you all for all the help i recieved as im picking up all the bits i need today ill let you all know how it goes

Thanx again

Andrew

[mills rover]

Hi blacknight

I do have a rave cd but cant get it to work on my laptop
But i do have a proper land rover workshop manual for defender that was given to me by a mate that worked in a dealership it has most information i need i think well i hope
If not ill be ringing my mate in qld

Cheers

Andrew