My wife's daily driver is a 2001 DII. I was driving it the other day after not having driven it for a week and I noticed a vibration in the steering wheel when I reached about 30 mph. My first thought was the front drive shaft as I have heard they become de-lubed due to their location near the cat. and a/c drainage (?) After doing a little digging on the forums I discovered that it could also be the flex coupling. I looked at that and found some small stress cracks. I also noticed what looks like a grease zerk at the front of the front drive shaft. Is this something that was stock or is this the replacement that so many DII owners talk about? I included a couple pictures. The first shows the cracks in the flex coupling and the second is what I think is a grease zerk. Could the coupling be the culprit for the vibration? Any other ideas on what it could be? Any help is appreciated.

 

See Propshaft Rebuild - Land Rover Forums - Land Rover Enthusiast Forum for write up on the front propshaft rebuild. IMHO your pix shows a crack in the metal. When these fail, they take the shaft into the transmission, poking a big hole in both the transmission and the wallet. You should take a look at this very carefully and not drive the truck until you feel it is repaired.

Your Flex coupling looks like it needs replacement. LAND ROVER PARTS - FLEX COUPLING - REAR PROP SHAFT DISCOVERY


Owner bradical posted about changing his in 30 minutes, be aware of arrow marks going the same way on replaced unit. Said he had been driving these for about a year. Looks like the sport model from the MayPop Company (may pop any minute).

 

I didnt even see that. I was crawling around under there in the dark and didn't see it til I blew up the pictures. Thanks for the catch. It looks like it's cracked in at least two places. Can I just replace the cracked piece or do I need to get a whole new prop shaft assembly? The budget is extremely tight so the less expensive the better.

 

My mechanic checked out my shaft and said it looked fine. A week later I felt a vibration. I was paranoid about vibrations after my dads shaft broke and broke his transmission so fortunately I caught the slight vibration in time. As a result I developed a specific loop to address the problem and end any future paranoia. Check it out:

Land Rover discovery 2 front drive shaft loop/protector. | eBay