Thread: Land Rover Diffs

Ok, if you had the choice, what would be the best diff to put in a D2 , front & rear. Bob

Originally Posted by Dougal

The important thing is knowing the limitations of the diffs and axles. Goes for all equipment I guess.

I have yet to break an axle, cv or driveshaft. Mostly because I still run 29" rubber. It's a lot cheaper to break traction than break driveline parts.

Could be that you don't do any kilometers In the bush

Originally Posted by uninformed

so a OEM patrol axle is twice as stong as a MD 24spline? what is the dia of the patrol? what are they made from?

I was under the impression that the weak link in the patrol was the bearing dia's and the neck down size at the swivel.

Its all good to blame Rover diff failures on overload/weight etc. But in this day and age of requirements of a vehicle that can legally tow 3.5t, LR current axle assemblies are not what one would call a good design and adequate. Consider engine torque and gear ratios alone.....

H260 has a 260mm crown wheel and 1.5" 35 spline axles, factory Nissan

Hey fellas full respect and credibility to Mike and Mal, in their day they were the greatest, and their willing little series Landies were absolutely fabulous in their performance, those guys were out there doing stuff in places no one had ever thought of while a lot of us were still dreaming of the possibilities.
The loads applied to drive trains of their Landies must have been incredible on that '66 West to East crossing of the continent, the trailer had 2 ton or more of stuff on it, if anything it proved just what great machines these early series beasts were, they punched on through everything.
I have to acknowledge that trashing diff centres is mostly in the realm of abusers, the Patrol I mentioned had spent most of the previous day trying to take all the hardest tracks out of Shotgun Creek on the OTL, the guy just abused it until something broke, and maybe that is some folks idea of fun, but he was stuck in the area till his mates bought back some new CV's.
One Toyota exploded front diff occurred on another OTL trip when a guy tried to recover his mates buried to the door handle 70 series at Canal creek, the nose of the 80 chained to the tail of the ute, he was warned about the vulnerability of the front diff under these conditions, after many attempts there was the sound of "bang !!!" as the front pinion shaft mounted and trashed the crown wheel cracking open the diff centre, again the method used and not necessarily the integrity of the parts were the major factor.
Everything can be broken if you try hard enough, lots of money is spent beefing this beefing that up, so that the next bit down the line gives up.
I sold my old RR classic to a young guy who about one month later broke the centre diff in the transfer box, big tyres, lots of right foot and hopping over big rocks, it's gunna happen, I had done 600,000K in it and never had any problems.
I think I will stick with standard everything on the old Disco and modify my driving habits to suit where I'm travelling, it'll still go places many Tojo's and Patrols and other moded 4 bee's struggle with, I expect a million trouble-free Klm's out of my diff's, but then again I'm an old fart, the exuberance of youth long departed.

Originally Posted by rovercare

Could be that you don't do any kilometers In the bush

No bush where I live. Just mountains.

Originally Posted by rovercare

Could be that you don't do any kilometers In the bush

The Patrol that broke it's diff at Sydney airport had never been offroad,the one I towed at Alice had never been offroad,know doubt they are a stronger diff than a rover but I've never broken a rover,my vehicles are standard. Pat

Hey Gazby

Could not agree more with your sentiments.

But.... Im about to go on another 12 month outback trip in my Defender towing a Van, The Defer did the same with its previous owner & had no issues with the standard diffs (tho he did fit a Salisbury in the rear ... thanks Pricey !! ), Im sure I would have no probs either.

But ... you never know what might happen & what situation I might get into, I need to be able to rely on myself and my rig to get out of trouble, unless I cover all the bases while Im here at home then I don't consider that I'm fully prepared. The price of a diff upgrade is nothing compared to the grief it will cause if it broke in the middle of nowhere.

Originally Posted by gazby

...those guys were out there doing stuff in places no one had ever thought of ...

Actually, previous posts/threads on here (maybe some of them by JDNSW?) have revealed that the Leyland brothers weren't doing stuff in places never though of. In fact IRC that for most of the desert crossing they were driving parallel to existing roads/tracks, so they could pretend to be the first.

That said - good luck to them and I would have loved to be there instead of or with them.

Not surprising they broke (or wore out) diffs given the pics of them "repairing" diffs covered in sand...