Drive flange wear

**Jeff** · 16th November 2009, 05:12 PM

Is there a way to tell if the splines on the drive flanges are worn without removing the axles. Do the drive flanges wear more than the axles or do they wear together?

Jeff

**weeds** · 16th November 2009, 05:48 PM

i found on mine that the drive flange was a lot more worn the the axle

you could take the dust cover off and have a look but i'm not sure you will see the full picture

its only 5 bolts and a circlip and your axle is out, clean the splines and have a good look

is it a tdi?

**Blknight.aus** · 16th November 2009, 06:35 PM

they take it in turns.

one (usually the flange) will wear before the other and then when you replace the first item the second one wears faster.

if you get a landy thats got heavily missmatched wear on both then at one stage one has been replaced.

**flagg** · 16th November 2009, 06:44 PM

Speaking of Flanges, is there any reason that someone would not want to fit some of these?

HD Flanges

I saw a few at the LR show in Sydney and they sure did look the goods. I have MD shafts.

**weeds** · 16th November 2009, 07:12 PM

Originally Posted by flagg

Speaking of Flanges, is there any reason that someone would not want to fit some of these?

HD Flanges

I saw a few at the LR show in Sydney and they sure did look the goods. I have MD shafts.

they look identical to maxi drive flanges, maxi drive flanges and axle are a close fit......it would be a bugger if they didn't slide over

streaky · 17th November 2009, 12:52 AM

Many people consider the drive flange to be the sacreficial item in the drive train. They are cheap and easy to replace and it's always worth keeping a couple wrapped in oily rags somewhere on the car. If you replace them with HD items then you can expect to move the weakest link to another more expensive item within the diff, half shafts or propshaft.
Proper inspection can only be done by removing them from the hub and taking a look at the splines.

I keep mne well lubed with copper slip or moly grease or I heard that there's a way to lube them via the axle oil by removing an oil seal. I think this might only apply to HD flanges with the 'O' ring sealable nut cover though?

**harro** · 17th November 2009, 07:01 AM

Originally Posted by Jeff

Is there a way to tell if the splines on the drive flanges are worn without removing the axles. Do the drive flanges wear more than the axles or do they wear together?

Jeff

Jack a wheel off the ground, remove the dust cap and gently rotate the wheel slightly back and forth while observing the end of the axle.
Any free play between the axle and drive flange will be visible bearing in mind it only take a small amount of play/wear to translate into a fair degree of backlash in the drivetrain.

I have done the maxidrive upgrade on both my defenders and worth it's weight in gold

.

**Xtreme** · 17th November 2009, 10:05 AM

Drive flanges and axle splines only began to wear when LR went to greased bearings instead of oil lubed bearings.
Convert greased bearings back to oil lubed and all your drive member/spline wear will be a thing of the past. Can be done on standard or MD axles - just ensure that rubber end caps are in good condition if using standard.

**banksdizzle** · 22nd November 2009, 10:55 AM

Spline wear in the axle Flanges is fairly common in series land rover due to the high loading on the 10 splines. My series 3 had extremely worn flanges and I replaced the with 24 spline maxi drive axles and flanges. The diff side remained 10 spline though but it doesnt seem to wear as badly. Later Land rover changed to a 24 spline both diff and flange end, but also changed from an open bath oil system in the hubs to grease packed, which some say made the problem of Flange wear worse. However Im lead to believe that the axles and flanges in theyre stock form are going to wear and are as such a consumable item. Better quality axles such as maxidrive will not wear as quickly.

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