Rear drive pinion flange

[sav07]

Hi,
I am looking at putting some loctite on the rear drive pinion flange to remove some of the read drive line slack (a clunk on change in momentum, eg. accelerating from breaking) IAW with the Puma drive line/differential manual. Under the removal section it describes removing the pinion flange and the oil seal. If I wasn't going to remove the oil seal; how much of the diff oil could I expect to come out? Should I drain the diff prior to removing the flange? Will the pressure from the diff oil dislodge the oil seal at all? I have chased this problem with the dealer on three separate occasions and they are unwilling to do any more. Thanks for your time and help.

Regards
Sav

[BilboBoggles]

Personally I'd do the fix, and change the diff oil afterwards. When I last did one years ago those seals were wedged in there pretty tight, I replaced it and had to use a oil seal puller to get it out. I'm assuming here that a puma diff is a similar basic construction in the pinion area to a rover diff.

[chops110]

Puma rear diffs seem to be causing LR some headaches and are a known warranty hot item....it might be worth getting the dealer to do some work for you. I have reported driveline slop to my dealer a few times, most recently they did some diagnostics on the rear diff. Thus included recording the sound it makes and sending the recording to LR for analysis. LR have actually supplied dealers with recording equipment for this purpose!
For me, LR decided to replace the entire rear diff. The service manager told me of one Puma that had five new diffs before LR were happy with the outcome.
Good luck with yours!

[wagoo]

Diffs are not pressurised unless the breather tube is blocked.
Removing the pinion flange and seal will only gain you access to the outer pinion bearing and preload spacers.You won't be able to address the issue of too much drivetrain slop from there, unless the pinion nut has worked loose and there is endfloat at the pinion shaft.BackLash is probably due to worn halfshafts/drive flanges and or differential spider gears.
Wagoo.