Thread: 87 Rangie rear diff weakness

not that Im aware of it should do the axles or the pinion gears in first then the shrapnel takes out the crown and pinion gears.

If its a rebuilt diff maybe...

I had a IIA that sheared off the threaded part where the pinion nut goes on, made for lovely graunching noises on over-run as the pinion was sucked into the diff, and a very interesting drive home towing a tandem trailer loaded with fire wood. I had it drilled out and an unbrako capscrew welded in. When the mate drilled the pinion he commented on how soft the metal was (landcruiser owner).

I have only ever had the star gears let go in my RRC and it destroyed the rest of the diff including opening the back of the housing up like a can opener.

Originally Posted by strangie

I have only ever had the star gears let go in my RRC and it destroyed the rest of the diff including opening the back of the housing up like a can opener.

Yep me 3

I don't know how the crown wheel bolts are secured on the Rangie but ..............

We had two Defender front diffs go on our recent Desert Trip - one on the way and the other one on the way home. Onne was a 1999 model and the other was a 2002 model.

The cause of the failure is something to sound a warning to other Defender owners - and maybe Disco and Rangies also.

The bolts securing the crown wheel to the hemisphere came loose, sheared the head off one or two and this loose metal floating around in the housing then found its way between the crown wheel and pinion with obvious disastrous results.

Now on the old Series Landies, these bolts were wired together to prevent them from coming loose - sounds like a superior method than the current one of apparantly using Loktite.

Guess what I'm going to do as part of my preventative maintenance servicing when I next inspect the front wheel bearings.

I have never heard of it before and I do not think its common.
Most common diff failure is from drivers wheelspinning. The cross shaft in the planetary gears loses lub, grabs/turns and spits a circlip out. It then falls out with predictable results.
Maybe Captain Airwrench got overenthusiastic with rattling the nut up.
Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by PhilipA

I have never heard of it before and I do not think its common.
Most common diff failure is from drivers wheelspinning. The cross shaft in the planetary gears loses lub, grabs/turns and spits a circlip out. It then falls out with predictable results.
Maybe Captain Airwrench got overenthusiastic with rattling the nut up.
Regards Philip A

I don't think so - the bolts actually came loose, causing movement between the CW & Hemi and I believe this movement is what sheared the heads off the bolts.
Both vehicles had done about 130,000kms - one with some pretty tough trips but very good maintenance the other one had not seen anything too challenging but did not receive the same strandard of maintenance. Both vehicles had, however, experienced some form of rear drive problem (one broken axle and one failed prop shaft uni) in the past and had been driven on the front diff for a number of weeks.

Roger
I think Phillip was responding to the previous question.
I suspect that the original rear pinion failure was related to a 20 year old diff that had done God knows how many miles possibly with a suspect/unknown service history, as already stated the pinion failure is not common.

I find it interesting with the later Defenders though, when the Defenders were with rear drive train problems were they in the desert fully loaded or were they just being driven in suburbia.
Was the failed rear drive train standard or aftermarket?
I have never heard of this type of failure on a Land Rover but have seen it with large 4x4 trucks