Thread: Interesting half shaft failure

It does sound a very unusual failure. Are you sure that the failure is actually the halfshaft? Could it be CV joint, splines worn out or drive plate worn out? Or possibly even the differential?

The circumstances of the failure are not particularly unusual where the failure is due to wear - it just gets to the last little bit of metal and then no drive. This would be the case especially with worn out splines anywhere in the system.

Ive seen these vehicles do just this on a number of occasions its usually broken short inner axle they usually fatigue and break when you are doing something mundane.
Broken diffs or cvs are usually accompanied by strange noises.
Funny thing its usually the short axle not sure why maybe the long axle flexes more??

Originally Posted by djam1

Ive seen these vehicles do just this on a number of occasions its usually broken short inner axle they usually fatigue and break when you are doing something mundane.
Broken diffs or cvs are usually accompanied by strange noises.
Funny thing its usually the short axle not sure why maybe the long axle flexes more??

Any misalignment would be more likely to cause failure of the shorter axle, and I would suspect misalignment as being more likely than normal loading to cause the fatigue - after all, the torsional spring in the long axle is also available to the shorter axle via the diff and any misalignment stresses the shaft every rotation not just when drive is on/off. I would be inclined to suspect a bent axle housing or worn bearing inside the CV joint if an axle failed. Problem is, you would probably replace this anyway seeing you had it apart and never even check it for wear!

I had similar in my Rangie. It was the splines on the short outer shaft and the CV joint. There was bugger all left of them.. Not real hard to fix. The outer short shaft are expensive to buy about $650 new in Australia. About $400AUD from Britain. Look for a good second hand item. I got hold of Paddock in the UK and they generally have second hand items for around 10 pound sterling plus freight. About 180pound sterling new if I remember correctly ($400AUD app).
I was lucky I picked up both CVs, outers and inner shaft for $130 from a guy in Vic. Got one and used so was OK. The second was damaged whn he got it out, so was going to send me another from another wreck. Never got the second one though.

Had the same thing happen to me on my stage 1 v8, just came up to an intersection in third gear at about twenty KLH put it into neutral round the intersection into second and nothing happened except the engine revs increasing, no noise at all, drove home on the diff lock. Broken Left hand half shaft.

Originally Posted by djam1

Ive seen these vehicles do just this on a number of occasions its usually broken short inner axle they usually fatigue and break when you are doing something mundane.
Broken diffs or cvs are usually accompanied by strange noises.
Funny thing its usually the short axle not sure why maybe the long axle flexes more??

X2, axles go with a bang then silence, diffs and CV's like to let the broken bits float around and lock up and stuff, more often than not its the short side, and no its not uncommon to go on asphalt, it would have been cracked/fatiqued and just decided to let go then

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Any misalignment would be more likely to cause failure of the shorter axle, and I would suspect misalignment as being more likely than normal loading to cause the fatigue - after all, the torsional spring in the long axle is also available to the shorter axle via the diff and any misalignment stresses the shaft every rotation not just when drive is on/off. I would be inclined to suspect a bent axle housing or worn bearing inside the CV joint if an axle failed. Problem is, you would probably replace this anyway seeing you had it apart and never even check it for wear!

Ummmm NO, short sides are much more common as they are less forgiving over the length there is less room for any torsion increasing shock loads, plus rover axles were designed to twist to reduce shock loads but once twisted 494,342,908,343,437,878 times they suffer a little fatique

Well, I've just cleaned up after pulling it all apart. The common forum experience has been repeated, with the short driver side inner half shaft shearing. The splines were ok, but it just twisted off!
I had to remove the stub axle/cv joint/half shaft from the passenger side to poke a long, strong piece of wire through to push the broken bit out of the diff...then retrieved the three pieces with one of those extendable magnet doodads (phew...I thought the diff was going to have to come out for a few minutes). The long passenger side shaft has no evidence at all of starting to twist.

The swivel seals have been on my list to fix for a while, so I decided to pull the swivels off too. Tomorrow I'll order all the parts I need, and then it looks like a fun long weekend next weekend putting it back together.