Thread: It couldn't be a smooth drive to melbourne... could it.

Righto, Hi all!

This has ended up as a bit of a long one, but bear with me.

Well, yep I finaly undertook the drive from the sunshine coast in qld allllll the way down to melbourne in my Stage 1. And yep, the car threw some curve balls down my way...

Fitting the Series 2 axle housing (which had the MaxiDrive) is pretty much to blame, I never manged to set up the castor angle for the front axle (had it rotated to 5deg when it really should be 10deg) properly. Ever since I fitted the axle I had this slight vibration from the misaligned axle flanges. And I figured I was gonna be able to make the 2000km drive like that... Well, I was wrong.

I had the car pretty heavily loaded with all my stuff and about 200km out of sydney the drive line vibration deteriorated rapidly to the point where I had no option but to stop. We pulled over at a caltex servo in the middle of some place I can't remember to check the underside. I suspected the front and on checking the front universals I found the very expensive double cardac joint to be shot (it had a huuuuge amount of play!).

My friend (who joined me on the drive) and I scrambled all the tools I was carrying and ended up using a shifter and a socket set (which I got for christmas) to take the front drive shaft off. THANkFULLY the shifter was just barely upto the task and we managed to get all 8 bolts out and remove the drive shaft. I engaged the CDL and off we went driving on the rear shaft.

Everything went well, got to sydney, drove around a bit of sydney and a couple of days later we made the drive to melbourne. It all went without a hitch, I got into the melbourne suburbs and about 20Km from the destination ANOTHER vibration rapidly developed and it was also accompanied by heavy clatter when you coasted. Thankfully it was peak hour and traffic was slown down to a crawl so we were able to limp to my new home.

After unloading the car I turned to the drive line problem... fond it to be the rear universals... Again a huge amount of play.

So we removed that and dropped both drive shaft off at Statewide Driveshaft Services, they were great and got the rear drive shaft back to me with new universals and balancing in 24hrs. However... the front drive shaft is still with them.

So since doing the trip the damage tally is... Front drive shaft (shot double cardac and universal)... $450 (quoted), rear drive shaft (shot both universals) $330... my rear differential input seal leaks badly, and so does the front and rear output seals on my transfer case...

ARGH, land rovers... Anyway does anyone have any advice on what would be the best method to deal with the diff and transfer case seals? Normally I would do it myself, however I have moved into an empty house and all the tools I normally play with are back at my parents place in QLD. And another thing... Does anyone know where I can get some 10 degree castor wedges? I should set the diff angle up properly before getting the front drive shaft back.

I'm currently using the car to drive to and from work just on the rear drive shaft which isn't smart but I currently have no choice.
Stirling

www.snakeracing.com.au
Andrew