Thread: "The joys of motoring" Front diff is dead.

Originally Posted by Bohica

One of my Dad's quotes. Delivered with a dry sarcastic English tone. The joys indeed. Generally when he has elbow deep in oil, grease et.

The front diff has gone, I jacked up a front wheel and tried to rotate the wheel. It was stiff and after a few turns, stopped.

I am sure I have come across the odd post that it is better to get hold of a rear diff centre to replace the front diff centre, something to do with direction of rotation causing more wear when it is setup as a front diff centre, so don't use front centre from another disco use rear, need experienced person to chime in here, as mine has been noisy since I got it 3 years ago and I think I should replace b4 it breaks.

Originally Posted by johnp38

I am sure I have come across the odd post that it is better to get hold of a rear diff centre to replace the front diff centre, something to do with direction of rotation causing more wear when it is setup as a front diff centre, so don't use front centre from another disco use rear, need experienced person to chime in here, as mine has been noisy since I got it 3 years ago and I think I should replace b4 it breaks.

Hi,
If I recall correctly the front and rear diff originally came from the Rover car of the time (1948) and so the front and rear diffs are the same with the choices being either early 10 and later 24 spline, and imperial and later metric. On the front diff the drive is to the back of the teeth which isn't the best. Ashcroft make reverse cut gearsets.

Cheers, James NZ

Originally Posted by Bohica

One of my Dad's quotes. Delivered with a dry sarcastic English tone. The joys indeed. Generally when he has elbow deep in oil, grease et.

Replace the rear cam bore seal. It'll be easier to remove the rocker cover (I think) to get the old one out and put the new one in. There is not much room back there. Will I need a new gasket?

Hi,
the camshaft carrier uses STC4600 to seal it to the head. STC4600 is Hylomar3400. When I rebuilt my 1st TD5 head I sourced the Hylomar from the UK as I couldn't get it locally, its plenty spendy stuff tho. I managed to get a small tube as opposed to the cartridge and the tube one was a bit cheaper. This was a number of years ago. Rave also tells you to discard and replace the bolts for the cam carrier (and just about every other fastener) but I didn't. Never had a problem, until somebody stole that particular truck!

Cheers, James NZ

Mine lasted 340,000 and only failed because some muppet ( me ) screwed up replacing my axle in the rain and folded over the lip of the seal. Consequently it ran low on oil and ate the pinion bearing. Cursory inspection showed no damage to the C&P. I have put in a S/H one for now.
So, seems like the LR guys weren’t all that dumb putting the rear into the front. If you want to go all out and get the Ashcroft one then make it worth the trouble and get their ATB with you’re at it.

Originally Posted by johnp38

I am sure I have come across the odd post that it is better to get hold of a rear diff centre to replace the front diff centre, something to do with direction of rotation causing more wear when it is setup as a front diff centre, so don't use front centre from another disco use rear, need experienced person to chime in here, as mine has been noisy since I got it 3 years ago and I think I should replace b4 it breaks.

A crown wheel has a drive side and an over run side on the gear. Both front and rear diffs are identical.

As the diffs are facing each other this means that one is driving the crown wheel on the drive side and the other diff is driving on the over run side.

So yes it would make sense to source a rear for the front.

I have Ashcroft crown wheel and pinions in mine. They make a dedicated front and rear set.

This means that both my front and rear are driving off the correct side of the crown wheel.