Thread: Freelander IRD

Unsure of price in Aus. but can get them from UK for 200 Pound exchange plus freight. If you are not going to use it off road you can remove the tail shaft and it will be a 2wd.

thanks for the info

Hi Folks,

re the VCU fluid in case anyone's interested - I had a good read around the web for info on it - what it's called etc...( 12500 CS polydimethyl siloxane) and have managed to source some from a crowd in Adelaide. About $120 for 2kg of it.

The VCU in our 2000 Freeloader is stiff, but still serviceable (just hit the 120k mark) - I'm trying to get my hands on a dead one here in melb, so I can drain/flush the fluid and replace with the new stuff to see how it goes.

What will be the solvent to dilute the old fluid when removing it and then to flush out the the VCU?

That's the million dollar question - I suspect it might be a function of pushing new fluid at the top to both force the a little of the old out at the bottom and dilute what remains - I read on the uk forums ages ago about someone doing something similar - just adding new fluid at the top and running it for a week to mix it around then draining out what they could - rinse and repeat.

The data sheet on the stuff I found didn't list a particular solvent as far as I could see.

The tolerances between the rotors and stators in the VCU are very close and as the viscosity of the old stuff is either solid or close to it I doubt just putting new stuff in will work - the old stuff will have to be washed out first or the new stuff will not get to where it counts.

Garry

I must be lucky - I have done 240K and the VC hasn't failed. The 200 quid unit from the UK sounds the go.

What signs does one see if this thank is on the way out?

Cheers, Demi

Originally Posted by Demi

I must be lucky - I have done 240K and the VC hasn't failed.

Not lucky at all - you have the model Freelander after when all the design faults with respect to the IRD were fixed. It was the IRD that caused the VCU to fail which in turn caused the IRD to fail. There is actually nothing wrong with the VCU, so as the new IRDs do not overwork the VCUs, the VCUs do not fail and cause the IRD to fail.

A circular scenario somewhat