Honestly I fixed it by removing the front propshaft and installing it without slack a couple times. Now it "almost" never does it.

 

So, loose center pin on the front dif hitting gears and causing havoc!

 

That looks a rather nasty mess Abran. It appears that the planet gear pinion has either overheated, seized or run without oil at some point and slotted it's location hole where it's pressed in as an interference fit. I can't say I've ever seen anything like that before. It looks like a new diff is required. I would send the photos to LR asking WTF (not that they seem to give a FF these days). That shouldn't happen even with 500K miles on that diff if it's been serviced normally. I have never seen anything like that before it could be just bad engineering. It might be worth sending the photos to Ashcroft and asking them have they experienced the same problem in the past.

PS. It might be worth asking the US vendors, AB, RN etc whether they have seen anything like that before and find out why?.

 

That looks familiar to what happened to me some time ago

 

Bought the car from a nice guy who had overheated the motor resulting in a slipped liner. Turns out he did not maintain it too well as the second owner.

The diff oil was quite thin, almost like water with a lot of metal in it. Pulled both axles and cleaned the tube out as best I could, then replaced the dif with a good use one.

While at it I changed the rotors and pads.

And just before this I started noticing a lifter noise. The hits keep coming...

 

Wow!!! That was close to grenading!

 

Now I'm seriously worried LR engineering standards have seriously dropped or someone has put the wrong oil in the diffs but that can only surely happen in 1:10,000 I think I'll take a peek inside my axles. As Abran says, the hits keep coming .................... back to my old post on another thread ............. maybe time to get rid of 'ole D2 ................

 

When I pulled my front driveshaft, I noticed the truck will move quite a bit when put in Park and the brake is released. So I think that is a significant symptom of front diff failure in these trucks. For whatever reason, the front diff seems to be 'tighter' than the rear diff.

I'm pretty sure both diffs are failing in my truck. I bought a used front, but have just not had enough time to work on it. It looks like I'm leaving for two months, so I may not get to it til December.

 

abran,
i guess you will be needing a center section, luckly there a thousand of them sitting in bone yards. or someone who have pulled thiers to put in 411's.

 

best price I found on used was drillbit (Marty). forgot exact $, but it was around a weeks worth of starbucks.