LT95 Transfer Case Intermediate Shaft Wear

[stirlsilver]

Hello everyone, I'm in the process of rebuilding my LT 95 which destroyed iteself after the differential bolts let go.

Anyway this is an extract from my thread, the whole post can be found here:
http://www.aulro.com/afvb/members-rides/39420-series-iii-stage-1-bit-difference-19.html#post1155464

I started looking into assembling the transfer case, I was considering installing the intermediate shafts in the transfer case... but I found very bad wear marks on both the intermediate shafts. Below is the shaft that came out of the box I dismantled (box 1)

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/01/1010.jpg

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/01/1011.jpg

Blelow is the one that came out of my car... better but still no good... The wear marks on both were on the high range gear side.

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/01/1012.jpg

https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/imported/2010/01/1013.jpg

So that is where I am at... I think i'm going to have to try and find an intermediate shaft... anyone have one kicking around by any chance?? Or is there some other way around this problem??

Any help greatly appreciated.

[djam1]

Stirling they are relatively cheap and available I got my last one from All 4X4 in Newcastle.

[PhilipA]

You need a new one.
If the LT95 is a shimmed one ( and probably for a taper bearing one) you also have to make sure that the gear set is long enough to fit the needle rollers in. That type of wear may be from a short gearset that has tensioned the needle rollers, although usually from swarf from shims blocking the internal oilway.
So measure the gearset also.

Regards Philip A

[400HPONGAS]

Jeez , I fully overhauled 100 LT95 transfer cases and never seen or heard of a center diff snapping its case bolts . PhillipA , usually if you over shim the 3 needle roller ( NO taper rollers anywhere in a intermediate assembly ) bearings it results in the plastic cages melting and blocking off oil supply and doing alot more damage than that shaft shows . That shaft shows pretty standard case hardening lifting emanatiing rom the lube holes .Wont be swarf , will be bits a metal coming off the needlebearings ,Check eack bearing , you will see the witness marks line up with oil holes .

There is no easy ,cheap way around it , you need to fix it properly the first time,
This is one of the rare times the workshop manual , is probably the best thing to follow for the novice .
There are basically two sets of measurements/clearance you must get right .
First the bearings , there spacers , and shims total length must be just so.
The whole intermediate shaft assembly must be just a certain length .
Those pegged end washers , those Bronze thrust wasjers must be just so,
Its a case of offering up the assembly ,checking the end thrust and adjusting by changing the endplate or bronze thrust washer thickness ..

Your old shaft will be great as a Dummy **** to use to set up and measure with !
The manual clearly shows all the measurements you need to get right

PS while your there , dont forget to do the Modiication that prevents gearbox oil getting into the transfercase

[rovercare]

Jeez , I fully overhauled 100 LT95 transfer cases and never seen or heard of a center diff snapping its case bolts . PhillipA , usually if you over shim the 3 needle roller ( NO taper rollers anywhere in a intermediate assembly ) bearings it results in the plastic cages melting and blocking off oil supply and doing alot more damage than that shaft shows . That shaft shows pretty standard case hardening lifting emanatiing rom the lube holes .Wont be swarf , will be bits a metal coming off the needlebearings ,Check eack bearing , you will see the witness marks line up with oil holes .

There is no easy ,cheap way around it , you need to fix it properly the first time,
This is one of the rare times the workshop manual , is probably the best thing to follow for the novice .
There are basically two sets of measurements/clearance you must get right .
First the bearings , there spacers , and shims total length must be just so.
The whole intermediate shaft assembly must be just a certain length .
Those pegged end washers , those Bronze thrust wasjers must be just so,
Its a case of offering up the assembly ,checking the end thrust and adjusting by changing the endplate or bronze thrust washer thickness ..

Your old shaft will be great as a Dummy **** to use to set up and measure with !
The manual clearly shows all the measurements you need to get right

PS while your there , dont forget to do the Modiication that prevents gearbox oil getting into the transfercase

Better yet, junk it and fit a tapered roller intermediate gearset:D

[PhilipA]

PhillipA , usually if you over shim the 3 needle roller ( NO taper rollers anywhere in a intermediate assembly ) bearings it results in the plastic cages melting and blocking off oil supply and doing a lot more damage than that shaft shows .

I must be getting poor at english but I thought I said exactly what you said.
I was just warning him that if the gearset is too short the plastic cages etc etc.IE measure the overall length.

Although I have seen one so blocked with shim swarf that when I blew it out with some air , the material flew across the room. I suspect the transfer involved had had EP90 in it.
Regards Philip A

[101RRS]

PS while your there , dont forget to do the Modiication that prevents gearbox oil getting into the transfercase

What is this modification?

Garry

[clean32]

.

I must be getting poor at english but I thought I said exactly what you said.
I was just warning him that if the gearset is too short the plastic cages etc etc.IE measure the overall length.

Although I have seen one so blocked with shim swarf that when I blew it out with some air , the material flew across the room. I suspect the transfer involved had had EP90 in it.
Regards Philip A

whats the story with EP90??

[350RRC]

whats the story with EP90??

EP 90 used to have an ingredient that ate brass / bronze shims in LT 95's. Some EP 90's may still have it. Rick 130 would be the man to explain. PhilipA had sad first hand experience in the past, from memory.

cheers, DL

[400HPONGAS]

The use of EP90 , was the reason 75% of the transfercases I overhauled , blew up !!
Usually the same scenario ,
Step 1 get it serviced
Step 2 Nice and cheap at the Local K-mart , ultra-tune etc
Step 3 Put GEARBOX oil in the Gearbox (as you would !!!)
Step 4 Exactly 1232K later , bang !!!! The bastard of a thing keeps flipping the Transfer case into neutral
Step 5 Tie in High range using rope
Step 6 200 k's down the road BANG again , oops chewed throught the selector arms .
Step 7 , call for the Tow Truck !!! ($1 per Kilometer )
Yep , sulphur based extreme prerssure additives absolutely love those Phosphor Bronze Thrusts
Again , the manual clearly states the use of a ENGINE oil not a gearbox type oil !!!
Wait till you see what Gearbox oil in the main gearbox can do , very messy !!!!

AS for the No 2 biggest problem of LT95's , that of transferring oil from the main to the Transfer box , just peg the Output gear spacer to the spline , so as the output gear and its spacer can not rotate at unequal speeds .

[clean32]

The use of EP90 , was the reason 75% of the transfercases I overhauled , blew up !!
Usually the same scenario ,
Step 1 get it serviced
Step 2 Nice and cheap at the Local K-mart , ultra-tune etc
Step 3 Put GEARBOX oil in the Gearbox (as you would !!!)
Step 4 Exactly 1232K later , bang !!!! The bastard of a thing keeps flipping the Transfer case into neutral
Step 5 Tie in High range using rope
Step 6 200 k's down the road BANG again , oops chewed throught the selector arms .
Step 7 , call for the Tow Truck !!! ($1 per Kilometer )
Yep , sulphur based extreme prerssure additives absolutely love those Phosphor Bronze Thrusts
Again , the manual clearly states the use of a ENGINE oil not a gearbox type oil !!!
Wait till you see what Gearbox oil in the main gearbox can do , very messy !!!!

AS for the No 2 biggest problem of LT95's , that of transferring oil from the main to the Transfer box , just peg the Output gear spacer to the spline , so as the output gear and its spacer can not rotate at unequal speeds .


thank you very much, ill just have a shower to try and get that EP smell of my hands.

a pick of the pinning of the output gear spacer would be very much worth a beer or 2.

[400HPONGAS]

Im sure someone here has a picture of the Mod , I dont but if someone could just post a picture of the Output gear spacer ,Ill draw on what you need to do .
Basically, the output gear spacer has 2 oil return holes in about half way down . Just make a pin that goes in one of them and locks into the spline , then weld the pin in , carefully , with out excess heat into the seal runner area. Oh , and keep hold of that mainshaft as it has this little habbit of jumping the thrust ring of that in the main box .
Youll know when you got it wrong , you wont be able to get the gear on far enough to put the locking clip back in its groove. LOL !!

[yt110]

Is EP90 ok to use in a LT230T thats on a LT85 ?

[350RRC]

Im sure someone here has a picture of the Mod , I dont but if someone could just post a picture of the Output gear spacer ,Ill draw on what you need to do .
Basically, the output gear spacer has 2 oil return holes in about half way down . Just make a pin that goes in one of them and locks into the spline , then weld the pin in , carefully , with out excess heat into the seal runner area. Oh , and keep hold of that mainshaft as it has this little habbit of jumping the thrust ring of that in the main box .
Youll know when you got it wrong , you wont be able to get the gear on far enough to put the locking clip back in its groove. LOL !!

If you don't want to pull the box down and are running the same (engine) oil in the gearbox and TC it is really easy to make a return line between the respective fill / level plugs using standard plumbing fittings and copper tube to solve the pumping oil prob. Many have done it in the past, and I've posted a link with someone's photos on here in the past.

cheers, DL

[400HPONGAS]

Jeez. 350RRC , thats a little ruff !!! Pity the correct oil levels are a little too different to work as a long term fix , but Ive seen it done alot !

[350RRC]

They're not that far off being the same level. My old LT 95 is sitting on the floor in the shed and I had a pretty good look at the levels when I heard about this 'mod', then posted a link to someone else's pics who had done it.

Sure it's crude, but so is an LT 95.

When I pulled apart the gearbox (C9) and TC I bought (Ritters conversion) the TC (LT 95) was full of a mix of auto fluid and oil. :D This mod was not an option. :D

All still good now after 60,000 with new seals before it went behind the Chev.

cheers, DL

[djam1]

Youll know when you got it wrong , you wont be able to get the gear on far enough to put the locking clip back in its groove. LOL !!

400HPONGAS
Can you prevent this by putting it in third gear ?? or is the third gear synchro falling out another issue when the shaft moves forward

[400HPONGAS]

Actually it was fourth gear . only in 4th is the input shaft locked to the output shaft , all the rest are are layshaft gears . Even then , when lockedi n gear , its still possibleto drop the shim off due to overall end float . Its still pretty easy to get it back in place , Rotate and pull , violently , it will drop back in !!!

[stirlsilver]

Hmm, I have been running Castrol EPX80-90 for some time in both the gearbox and transfer case. And I've just found out it contains sulphur and phosphorous. Whoops.

Not sure about the transfer case shims, but the synchro cones in the gearbox looked fine with plenty of meat left in them.

After some research I think I will avoid using sulphur and phosphorous oils in the LT95. Thanks for that info... now I need to go off and correct some threads i've written in the past on another forum.

Thanks for the info guys.

[stirlsilver]

After some google searching:
Industrial tribology: the practical ... - Google Books (http://books.google.com.au/books?id=z_xyfJDCNAcC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=sulphur+phosphorus+Bronze+oil&source=bl&ots=KXhJT_2Oq8&sig=15y6kwEo7kqAmIQdVVae5frhsVA&hl=en&ei=fbBTS_KRDY7ctgPE1J2KCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=sulphur%20phosphorus%20Bronze%20oil&f=false)

Starting from Pg 109

"Sulphur Corrosion
This is a general description which is applied to most forms of corrosion encountered on silver-rich or copper-rich bearing alloys. There is no doubt that sulphur compounds in lubricating oils can promote the corrosion of these particular alloys. On the other hand, both naturally occuring sulphur compounds in lubricants and sulphur-contining additives confer beneficial properties on lubricants. Etc etc...


...The corrosion problems of copper alloys are more complex because the alloys themselves are complex. On simple copper-lead alloys the copper phase may be attached by sulphur, but this is comparatively rare occurrence, the problem of sulphur corrosion being much more acute on phosphor-bronze alloys. This is because phosphor-bronze alloys which are very popular for little-end bushes in diesel engines, are expected to operate at considerably higher temperatures than copper-lead bearings in use today. etc etc..."

You can keep reading if you like

Basically it seems that sulphur will attack phosphor bronze which is used in the transfer case... (and gearbox) however it doesn't start until high temperatures

From the same source on Pg113

"If the alloy is porous, the lubricant is drawn into the pores, where it stagnates and, if the operating temperatures are high, can become very corrosive. The particular temperature at which corrosion becomes servere depends on the type of dithiophosphate used; very active varieties can start to corrode at about 130degC, where as other varieties may be comparatively stable up to 180degC. Natural sulphur compounds give little trouble below 170degC."

So I guess we would need to know what the operating temperature range of the gearbox and transfer case are.

[350RRC]

Shouldn't put EP 90 in an LT 95 gearbox anyway because you run the risk of stripping the fibre oil pump gears on a cold morning in Brackistan.

cheers, DL

[stirlsilver]

Well, I suppose here is the proof of what EPX does!:

http://www.aulro.com/afvb/members-rides/39420-series-iii-stage-1-bit-difference-19.html#post1163616

It only seems to have affected the components in the transfer case though.