I have some time this week to crawl under my vehicle and catch up on some maintenance issues and am thinking of servicing my rear drive shaft which is the original one with 120K miles on it. I figure I will replace the Rotoflex coupling, R.North has both OEM and aftermarket and I will install a new greasable U-joint.

Is the U-joint at the front of the shaft the same as the 3 Neapco greasable models that go in the front drive shaft? Also the u-joint shaft front flange attaches to the hand brake drum on the back of the transfer case and I only see that I can loosen the locking nuts. Are the bolts held firmly in place? I don't want them to fall into that drum. The RAVE manual says to remove the 4 nuts and bolts which seems odd if the bolts are installed through the flange and drum.

3. Remove 4 nuts and bolts securing propellor
shaft to transfer gearbox flange.
and
3. Fit nuts and bolts securing propeller shaft to
transfer gearbox and tighten to 47 Nm (35
lbf.ft).

On the section for R&R the hand brake pads it doesn't say much about the drive shaft or the bolts and the picture doesn't show much.

 

When I swapped out my Rotoflex for a double u-jointed shaft I recall the bolts staying firmly in place.

The centering pin / peg or whatever you call it on the other hand. That ***** f$Cker...fought me like it was welded in place.

To answer your other question. Not sure if the u-joints are similar.

 

Just remove the nuts, the bolts won't move.

 

for u-j's yes same. 1300s

 

Having just replaced the UJ and rotoflex coupling I can assure you that the bolts on the handbrake drum are captivated and won't fall out inside the brake drum. They appear loose for alignment purposes but are firmly held from disappearing. Unless you are doing offroad driving the rotoflex is fit for purpose providing you use a good quality make, typically, a GKN OEM. I have done 120K miles of which 20K was towing heavy loads at motorway speeds and only just replaced the original rotoflex which had minor cracks/splits in it. I cannot comment on offroad usage as the D2 hasn't participated in serious offroad sport activity apart from farm tracks for access purposes and then probably only amounting to 50 miles in 10+ years.

 

The three u-joints on the front and the one on the rear are all the same.

When you go to remove the front or rear driveshaft always start removing the nuts and bolts at the differential end of the driveshaft. That way, when you go to remove the nuts at the transfer case end you can more easily move the driveshaft to gain better access the them. I use an impact on the 19mm nuts and bolts on the back end of the rear driveshaft and a crow bar to separate the driveshaft from the flange. Then, with the one end of the driveshaft free I continue with the impact to remove the four nuts at the brake drum assembly.

For the front, I use a generous amount of heat (propane or MAP gas torch) applied to the nylock nuts securing the driveshaft to the differential. Then, with an open 9/16" wrench around the nut and a boxed end 6 point 9/16" around the bolt, I remove the front of the driveshaft from the differential. Then I have room to use my impact on the four nuts holding the driveshaft to the transfer case. On a lift, this can all be done in minutes. On your back with the truck on axle stands, a little longer but not by much.

 

As Paul said, an impact will be huge for you on this job. The rotoflex bolts often seize, and they're definitely torqued on.

 

I do find that my LR Discovery does seem to have a mix of metric and imperial size nuts and bolts, as if it was just put together with whatever they had lying around. When I go to work on mine in the driveway I always end up taking an assortment of wrenches and sockets because it is so unlike my wife's Toyota Avalon that mainly uses metric sizes in 10, 12, 14, 17 and 19mm! And once and a while a 22 or 24mm!

 

They are SO unalike in SO many ways!

 

The problem is that there are many newer 'metric' parts and some older parts derived from the series LR's which still have imperial or unified bolts requiring sets of AF spanners, (typically the propshaft flange bolts 9/19AF) and you also need metric spanners and sockets in millimetres. A friend races old British motorbikes and cars and his machines have unified threads, 'cycle' threads, BSF and some BSW - mind blowing. As you will note many temperature sensors still use tapered BS gas threads usually 1/8" - BSP (British Standard Pipe) Thread Data BSP and BSPT taps. The penalty of life's rich tapestry for messing with your own cars.