Thread: Diff failing?

Hi Peter,

How is the diagnosis going? If still not sorted, perhaps have a look at the condition of your 'doughnut' - rear prop shaft to diff pinion shaft joint.

Ww've gone through a few of these on the D1A with heavy towing (2.3T ATM). When really stuffed, you can get steel to steel contact and resultant grinding noises. Possible more noticable at low speed around roundabouts when you're putting a lot of torque through it?

Just a thought.

Originally Posted by AK83

what kind of tyres do you run on the D2?
ATs? MTs? HTs?

The amount of tyre noise they make can mask a noisy bearing.

I've got Yokohama ATs on my D1, and they make a lot more noise for a predominantly road biased tyre than I think they should.
But what happens is that on really newly laid bitumen, the tyre noise stops .. pretty much completely.
Around my area lots of new roadworks on the freeways and some main suburban roads, so what I do is roll the D1 in neutral for a short distance on these new surfaces to listen for bearing noise.

Bearing don't always make noises when you just spin them by hand, and they need some loading on them to make the noise.
In your situation, I'm thinking that a bearing is 'on the way out' .. ie. not fully worn, but worn enough that when you make a turn(in your case a right turn) that's when there's enough loading on the bearing to make the noise.
Same thing happened to my D1. On an easy straight run, I'd get no noise, but on fast RH sweeping bends the LHS of the car gets loaded up, and bearings make noise.
I couldn't work out tho if it was front, or rear .. noise wasn't particularly concentrated either front or rear.. just LHS of the car.
I changed the front bearing(D1 is an assembly that needs to be built up), so when the bearing came out it was obvious that the bearing collar had bad wear marking.
Beauty I thought! fix was easy. But on the test drive, the noise was even worse, and now I could hear it on a easy straight run!
Turned out the rear left was also worn when I did that one too.
My problem was then that I must have set too much tension(but going by the assembly method according to RAVE), so after rear was done I still had some noise. Too much tension. After a few runs tho, it's all gone, so I reckon it's sorted itself.
I had plans to pull the rear apart again to re do it's tension, but now that it stopped whining I think it's going fine.

The problem with the old style of bearing assemblies I guess .. a non expert can stuff it up easily.
But on your D2, you can't really muck it up. As long as you have the tools to do the work, it'll take you about an hour or two to change a bearing out. I'd say do it.
From what I've read tho, do not go with cheap bearing options. I think some can have the incorrect number of teeth on the ABS sensor, which then mucks things up electrically in the D2.
So the advice is to get a bearing from a reputable retailer. I think it cost brother about $250, fitted easily no amigos popping up, so we assume the bearing he got was the correct type.

Tools handy to have again: 32mm socket, long breaker bar, large philips screwdriver or better a impact driver with philips head .. just in case the security screw on the brake disc is stuck.

So most likely you have a wearing bearing, and you may well make it to Paynesville and back .. and further again, but at some point it will get noisy all the time.

Thanks for the info. I think another poster pointed out that if the RH bearing was on the way out, swinging to the right would put extra load on the LH bearing........but the noise comes from the right. Perhaps the bearings do need replacing but I'm hoping that there will be more warnings before failure. At present they run lovely and cool, even at the end of an eight hour drive. Sounds like a job I could do myself with the purchase of 32mm socket, but not prepared to lash out $500 on a "chase the noise" venture.
Cheers,
Pete

Originally Posted by Leo109

Hi Peter,

How is the diagnosis going? If still not sorted, perhaps have a look at the condition of your 'doughnut' - rear prop shaft to diff pinion shaft joint.

Ww've gone through a few of these on the D1A with heavy towing (2.3T ATM). When really stuffed, you can get steel to steel contact and resultant grinding noises. Possible more noticable at low speed around roundabouts when you're putting a lot of torque through it?

Just a thought.

Thanks, I'll have a look. I've found the noise persists even coasting round the roundabouts.