As some of you might have read on a previous post, I bought a used front drive shaft for my 1995 Disco I.

I don't have experience on LR / 4WD and I bought this LR with an already missing shaft so...

-Which end of the shaft goes towards the gearbox?
-I don't have the screws/nuts to it. Should I buy them at the dealership or can these be bought at a local autoparts store?
-I see two purge nuts on the shaft. One at one end of the shaft and the other one at the center of one of the U-joint... How should these be purged or for now, I should not touch these?

Any insights/advices/insults?

Will I be correct if I say that a broken front drive shaft is a part that commonly brakes?
If I bought this LR with a missing front drive shaft I can assume that this Disco I was heavely off-road used?

Thanks

 

Ed, how long have you owned this truck and why is the drive shaft missing???
The end of the shaft with the slip sleeve, goes toward the t/case, make sure all the u-joints are good and have been lubed along with the slip sleeve. You may be able to order the parts you need from an auto parts store but I would rather see you go the a Rover shop and get them there, least you will know you have the right parts.
Before you put on the new drive shaftmake sure nothing is broken in the front diff, you may have a can of worms in your hands.
Mike

 

Thanks for your reply.

The questions you ask, I asked them on another thread but I did not receive an aswer.

How long have I owned this Disco I? 1 year
Why is the drive shaft missing? Don't know. Previous owner did not know either (or did not wanted to tell me)

I bought this Rover almost with peanuts money... The guy owed me money for more than two years and instead of lossing my $3,000, I took over on the Rover (it was his daily driver to a 5 mile round trip commute).

As far as I might have a can of worms in my front differential, I asked this but did not receive and aswer. I asked if there is a way to test the front differential with out the shaft (I bought the shaft anyway but, perhaps is best to try testing the differential before installing the drive shaft).

Since the truck is moving (meaining the front tires roll forward and backwards) can I assume that the differential is OK?

I also asked if you all recommend for me to best get rid of it and not fixing it... If the fix requieres 3-4 or even $500 dollars and my mechanical time (and some proffessional mechanical time/money spent) I am willing to keep trying.

As you can read, I am atrying to learn how to put this Rover back in a "normal" daily street driver condition. I think that with this forum's help... I can do it!



Should I sell it?

 

Ed,
I bet you hold the record for driveing on one drive shaft in a Rover.
You might want to jack up the front end, turn the wheels and listen for any weird noises, I would suggest you drain the diff, checking for metal in the oil, and refill.
Past that,if nothing shows up, you will probably only be looking at $100 or less in parts and a half hour of your time to install it.
Once installed, make sure the first thing you do is to shift the t/case from High lock position back to High so you won't hurt the drive train while driving on hard surface.
Good luck.
Mike

 

Disco Mike (and all fo you)

I was out on a vacation and also I was money drained so I did not do anything on my Disco until this past weekend. As always, I need your thoughts... This was the outcome:

I did jack-up the front end and upon turning the wheels, the dif did not produce any strange noises.

I drained the fluid... not metal residues on the fluid! I refilled with new fluid.

Front dif shaft was installed (the one I showed to you guys from eBay)

Upon engaging the front dif, the truck was like if I did not replaced the shaft. It did not move, it made a slight noise (same as before installing the shaft). The noise just does not seem right although it is not like scraping metal nor something breaking up... it was more like... "friction"!!??

This am I took the Disco I to a local Precision Tune shop which is known locally as 4X4 experts... the owner/mechanic of the shop owns like 7 heavily modified trucks (always parked in front of the shop) which he uses them on mud racing.
Well, about 5pm he called telling me that he does not know what is wrong with the truck so far and if I wanted him to go further, he was going to charge me $300 due to he has to disassemble the differential. By now, he already disassemble both shaft (for right and left wheels) and looked inside the diff through the limited shafts orifices but, I quote: “I don’t see nothing wrong yet, no broken parts, the shafts gears seem ok with no sign of malfunction, no loose metal or residue on the oil… -maybe- this dif was worked on before and is missing ###*** (part name I can’t remember) but I will only know for sure until the diff is open.”

What do you think?
I know so far this guy is my only option but… with the above info, would you pay $350 plus parts or would you just sell the Disco the way it is?
If it was my other car (that I know very well), by all means I will pay that much and fix it but… Land Rover? I’m not familiar with!

This disco was flooded… has some electrical malfunctions… no big deal for me right now but just FYI (no high beams, wipers won’t stay on unless the handle switch is held, non working alarm/central locking system), tires are bald.

Would you guys pay the $350 and go further?

 

Why don't you PM me and let me have your tele number, I think we should talk.
Mike

 

Seems odd. Probably something going on in your center diff. Did you play around with the diff lock shifter? Check Locked and Unlocked High and Low gears...

 

I did.... talk to you soon!

 

Before I go on, on your post you said "center diff"... Im assuming you are refering to the transfer case.

When moving to H, N and L on the "diff lock position", the truck moves and seems working fine. No strange noises and It has tons of torque and can be driven with no problems and at any speed (although at higher speed the engine is loud); on the contrary, when shifting either on H, N or L -NOT- on diff lock, the truck does not move at all and there is the "friction" noise... more like the right and left shafts turning insde (not likely other wise this will mean that the truck will move since the shaft ARE turning... it is just my explaination of the "friction noise"

 

The guy at the shop called me. He said that the "T" at the spider gears is broken... that is why the wheels don't turn.

He can only find the replacement part at the dealeship and it is $300

What to do.... what to do...?