Thread: What did you do on your Landy today?

Originally Posted by johntins

wow, that's nasty. I'm curious, how were the rest of the CW bolts? Were they tight?

Checked all the remaining bolts with a torque wrench - the majority were 20 to 25Nm, one was 45Nm and one broke at less than 20Nm. The picture below shows the bolt head that broke at less than 20Nm alongside the one that had been tossed around for a while.
The torque setting for these bolts is 58Nm

I wonder if the bolts have broken due to the crown wheel moving as the result of undertorquing rather than overtorquing?

And is this diff 'as manufactured, or has it been worked on before?

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I wonder if the bolts have broken due to the crown wheel moving as the result of undertorquing rather than overtorquing?

And is this diff 'as manufactured, or has it been worked on before?

John

AFAIK this is the first time the diff has been out of the vehicle, having done 200,000 kms.
I think you're correct as far as movement of the crown wheel being the root cause of the shearing but I doubt that it would have lasted 200,000 kms if they had been undertorqued. The other two Defenders that I know of that experienced the same problem had each done about 147,000 kms. I know of a fourth Defender that has done 150 to 200k kms and I think has had the same problem a few weeks ago - haven't removed the diff yet so not sure.

That bolt looks like it's only been holding by about 30%, or am I seeing is wrong? You did say that one gave the appearance of being sawn through. Long shot, but I'm wondering if there was a faulty batch back then.
Dave Ashcroft would probably be the best person to answer. You could PM him.

I have rebuilt many diffs. I do them up with a rattle gun and I have never had a bolt failure.

Having worked in an assembly environment, it's quite possible to get a faulty batch of bolts. We used to get this a bit, especially when we'd have to change suppliers for whatever reason. QC's would check incoming parts, but sometimes, offending boxes could be missed. Its then not hard to miss them on the assembly line.


Theoretically, you could have the bolts checked for spec, especially if you had a whole one, but having being stretched/distorted, it would'nt be quite right anyway. But they could certainly check hardness.

Removed the front diff from a friend's 2006 Td5 Defender a few days ago and found that the heads of six CW bolts had sheared. Although there was only minimal damage to the CW & P, the pinion bearing had lost about 4 or 5 rollers and the bearing cage was jammed between the CW & P.
After inspecting the sheared and almost sheared bolts, the local recommended diff expert confirmed that the bolts had been over torqued, probably by using a rattle gun.

Some pics of the second diff I've removed in the last week.

Hmm - something missing here. Maybe I was a bit vigorous when I backed into a sandbank on Cooloola beach to avoid an incoming wave last Saturday. Oh well, guess I'll add a new mudguard to the list of jobs for the 80,000 km service.

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