Thread: Help rear diff disco 2A

Lloyd, I had the rear diff fail at 110,000 km 4 months ago. The spider gears shattered whilst on a trip and I had to drive the vehicle 30 km to a town so RACQ could tow me home. I was responsible to get the vehicle to an authorised repairer. It was subsequently repaired under warranty without any problems. Warranty companies are specific on who they have approved to perform repairs.

You are in an awkward position here. The diff is working therefore no failure has occurred (yet), this means there is no claim possible. When the diff fails, you then can make a claim. Unfortunately, you also have a distance problem.

Maybe you can negotiate with the warranty dealer to accept a diagnostic report from your local mechanic? Stress to the Warranty dealer the diff is on its way out and rectifying it now will cost them less. You may be able to ship the diff down to them for repair and depending on your negotiation skills; they may reimburse you the R & R costs for your mechanic.

Good luck

The other thing which triggers the alarm bells, but at the same time may be a justification and explanation is that the D2 hemisphere is upgraded over the D1/RRC etc units in that they redesigned the cross pins and removed the stress raiser out of them which AFAIK precipitated the pin failure. The D2 hemisheres more typically will destroy the planetary gears by breaking the teeth off them which will also produce a lot of metal into the diff oil, and when this happens you will still have drive and it wont make any special noises etc. This all adds up in your situation, except the specialists diagnosis which may be based purely on the history of what he has seen and the oil which came out (actually, most of the metal just sticks to the sump plug which is magnetic). The fragments of broken gears get crushed by the rest of the diff and then come out with the diff oil.

This is what it should look like.



This is what the D2 diff does.

Andersons have been there for a LONG time, father and son stuff,, I have benefited from their good nature and service.

but they do like to charge--





and slunnie,,,
tell me the pics are not yours---

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

and slunnie,,,
tell me the pics are not yours---

It was from a while ago though.

I had a service done by a LR specialist,just before the factory warranty ran out,done 48k's.He said the rear diff oil was full of metal,& it was on its way out etc etc.I took it to the stealers,who found nothing wrong(i was not surprised).

I recon the oil had never been changed,it was the original factory fill,the previous services had been done by the stealers.

Anyway,20k on,no problems.....,oil is clean...

Originally Posted by lloyds disco

I have a 2003 model Td5
I have paid the local landrover guy in hervey bay to service the vehicle & check it over. I have had him do a few mods/ repaires for minor problems. ie oil into wiring loom on injectors etc. most of these things I have heard of before. so Im not to worried I would like a reliable vehicle, having just bought it i expected a couple of typical landrover niggles. He has told me this is fairly common in landrovers
the local landrover guy in hervey bay says that the pin that holds the spider gears in the diff is broken & the the part it goes into is extremely worn & elongated. he also says this is fairly common in landrovers. I had not heard of this problem before. I then went back to the mob I bought it from in brisbane & they have told me if it not making loads of noise or stopping the vehicle from driving its not a warranty problem only fair wear & tear. he said that I would have to come back to brisbane for him to check it before even considering a warranty claim. I dont mind getting a second opinion, but the dealer is 350klms away & the wife only just had a baby last week. it would mean staying over in brisbane, (Paying fuel there & back, accomadation & 2 days off work) that doesnt sound reasonable to me. The other option is doing without my car for a few days (not easy with a newborn) & get it trucked down to brisbane. the dealer told me this would cost me $198 each way. the repair quote was only $1100

any opinions out there?

Is the pin you refer the roll pin that goes through the hemisphere cross shaft?
I had that break on my D2 front diff last year. It had around 115K on it at the time. Found half the pin, metal slithers and a large ammount of fuzz on the magnetic drain plug when I went to change the oil. The oil was full of very fine metal particles - cast iron from the hemisphere.

The diff wasn't noisy and fortunately there was no damage to the gears. I was lucky that the broken piece ended up on the magnetic plug and I changed the oil when I did. There was lots of wear where the shaft goes through the hemisphere. I had it rebuilt with a new hemisphere and cross-shaft that has an inside c clip at each end to retain the shaft. This was apparently the arrangement on earlier landrover diffs. LR got cheap with one roll pin!

It was an expensive rebuild but I saved a lot by removing and refitting it myself, I also fitted new universals to front driveshaft while it was apart and replaced the brake disks/pads. I have since bought a good second hand diff as a spare in case the rear one fails. This of course means I will never use it!

Is there anyway you could contact the dealer, explain the situation with the new baby (congrats BTW), and work etc, and see if they are willing to have another mechanic of their choosing look at it, but one that is closer to you?

By my way of thinking, it cant hurt to ask, and it will only cost a phone call.

Some times, it may even pay to speak to the dealer principal, and explain the situation.