There I was, reading all of the posts regarding driveshafts. Then, one day about a week ago, I notice a squeaking sound while I am driving at a slower pace. (oh yeah, I live in San Diego and drive a '99 Disco II, pretty much stock, 'cept for my roof basket and bike rack.) I only hear the squeaking when I am driving under about 25mph. A couple of days later I notice that there is a slight "clunk" when I go from neutral to drive. I don't notice it anywhere else while shifting, just going into drive. It starts getting worse after just two days. I thought it was possibly the transfer case or maybe the diffs since my driveshaft looked good. That evening I had I put it in neutral and chocked the back wheels and then got under the truck to check for play in the driveshaft. I couldn't budge the shaft at all. I changed the fluid in the transfer case and differentials to Royal Purple synthetic 75w90. It made the overall shifting/driving a tad smoother, but the squeaking was still there and the clunk was still there, but it "seemed" slightly less perceptable. Now, I have read the horror stories about driveshaft failures and decided it was a good time to get the driveshaft professionally checked out. Since I live in a smaller Condo in San Diego, working on my own vehicle is somewhat off limits. I took my truck to a Land Rover repair shop close to my house. (British and European Car Repair) They seemed to be pretty cool guys and very knowledgeable about the Land Rovers since their shop is usually chock full of them. Anyhow, I got there at 11am today. It was in the air on the lift at 11:05am. We looked at the drive shaft and Charlie was able to show me that my rear two bearings in the U-joints on the front driveshaft were completely GONE. it was painfully obvious now that it was on a lift and daytime. Anyhow, he had a couple of Disco II driveshafts in stock and was able to change mine out in a matter of about 10 minutes flat. I told him about some suspension noise and we found that it was the loose bolt holding on the driver's side of the front anti-sway. He tightened it and then test drove my truck. I could have been out of there by 11:20am if I hadn't cared to hang out and B.S. with him about the other cool looking Land Rovers in their garage. Anyhow, I was out of there with a very respectable $459.00 charge. When I got on the freeway, I noticed something weird...... My Disco drives much, much smoother now. I didn't notice any vibrations or anything really abnormal before, but now it drives extremely smoothly. It is an amazing difference. The new driveshaft comes with 6 or more zirk fittings. Anyhow, if you live in the area near Point Loma or anywhere in San Diego and want a honest and very cool shop for your Rover, take it to these guys. Steve (owner) and Charlie have been great. (It's not often you can say that about any garage.) Oh yeah, their pricing is very respectable too. (How about that??)

 

Good tip for people in your area.

 

You could have had it rebuilt for under $200 or bought a much better drive shaft from Tom Woods for $320.
Need to shop around.

 

I saw that Tom Woods had those pretty inexpensive. Two issues though.
1. I need my truck for work since I am a field sales guy. If I was to rent a car and wait for the other driveshaft, I would have spent about the same or even more.)
2. There is a place just down the street that wanted $3150 to re-build mine. (would have taken several days also.)

I figured that I saved time (time = $) and might have spent a tad, but now I have peace of mind knowing that I am not going to be like that poor guy I read about on here who punched a hole in his tranny! It was a respectable deal for me. I am very happy with the quality of the new driveshaft and knowing that it will last me for the life of the vehicle now. Drives great now too. NO I won't worry about taking it on trips this summer!!

JSK

 

I'm starting to think that I should start my own driveshaft rebuild business. [sm=smiley29.gif]

I've been meaning to put a plug in for www.dap-inc.com. Their service has been good to meand they do offer a driveshaft exchange service to get your shaft rebuilt without any down time. Plus they're local soit helps meto support them. It's a tad expensive but worth it ifyou can just do an exchange; justinstall the shaft they send you and mail yours back to them. They don't always have an exchange shaft in stock so I guess it's hit or miss. This is the email that they sent me about their shafts, pretty interesting:

"We replace all three joints with the military issue versions as supplied to M.O.D. which have grease fittings. The centre ball is also replaced with a newer version. If the core is not damaged, this service runs $250. Right now, all the exchange shafts for the early DII are out, so I would need one to come back or you would have to send yours in for us to rebuild first. We choose to rebuild the stock ones because the ‘aftermarket’ replacement shafts that people claim are heavy duty actually have a high failure rate. Mostly because they are larger diameter and get extremely hot because they are closer to the catalytic converter. If yours has the CDL nub on the transfer case, it could be manually locked and the car driven without a front shaft."

" FWIW I’ve had two 04 Discos and both needed new joints within 40K! One of them was done at 27K under warranty and again at 43K under warranty. Our shop has seen probably half a dozen where the shaft came apart and damaged the transmission, oil pan, cats, and in one case took out the gas tank as it left the vehicle."

 

Awwww come on Disco Mike, the guy received good and fast service from a guy and wanted to share with others in the area - even at $450 the mechanic has to pay rent, salary, overhead, etc. so saying he could have got one from Tom Woods for half the price is not really fair - unless Tom Woods is going to fly out and install it for him like this guy did.

Remember Mike, not everyone is as mechanically savvy as youhttps://landroverforums.com/micons/m11.gif

 

Sorry But I gotta ask. If you only needed U joints. Why the new shaft? 459.00 for the shaft and 10 minutes work? holy moly. a small tranny place might have been cheaper...I think.
gTAGG

 

The guy is happy, he got good service, which is rare these days, he needs his trk everyday for work so who cares what he paid?