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Snapped Front Propshaft


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From my '85 90 2.5NA. Was driving uphill and going from a stop and BOOM, snapped it right through the flange. Been replaced now but thought maybe yall would enjoy some of the gory photos. Obviously UJs and propshafts fail but anyone ever seen a failure so serious? Seemed to go straight thru the flange. 

Cheers from Umbria, Italy

 

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6 minutes ago, crwoody said:

Looks to me like that's been waiting to let go for some time, the amount of rust and wear suggests it not seen any fresh grease in a long while.

^ This, that has worn down over a looong period and finally milled its way out rather than snapping.

Grease guns are your friend, as are quality UJ's.

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Serious neglect/chronic maintenance-failure. That must have been creating one hell of a noise/vibration for thousands of miles before it failed!

Just be glad it didn't let-go at any high speed; I've seen the aftermath of a UJ-failure where a flailing prop entered the passenger compartment - one person dead, the other with catastrophic life-changing lower-limb injuries.

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12 minutes ago, Tanuki said:

a flailing prop entered the passenger compartment - one person dead, the other with catastrophic life-changing lower-limb injuries

Ouch, injuries incompatible with life is term they use in major trauma centres :blink:

 

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  • .........so there are injuries that are compatible with life ?

Not the first one of those I've seen by any means , many of us on here remove props at the annual service to fully check the joints and grease , seems a ball ache but removes the risk of this type of failure.

At the very least grease with it jacked up and in neutral , did it trash any brake lines and wiring?

cheers

Steve b 

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3 hours ago, steve b said:
  • .........so there are injuries that are compatible with life ?

Not the first one of those I've seen by any means , many of us on here remove props at the annual service to fully check the joints and grease , seems a ball ache but removes the risk of this type of failure.

At the very least grease with it jacked up and in neutral , did it trash any brake lines and wiring?

cheers

Steve b 

Thankfully I didnt get up to any speed before it snapped, then of course all the power went out. Had to park it and remove the prop and drive home with the diff locked. 

 

As to the danger of that thing flopping off at speed and basically becoming an airplane propeller in the cabin has left me with not such a great feeling while driving after that, but luckily I replaced it asap. The rear looks much better but will replace anyway soon. 

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How often do you grease your props? I do mine twice a year and they guy who did my MOT said they looked a bit dry. Could it be that mine too are worn and they are just flinging the grease out when I put it in? 

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Just one caveat I will add to the 'no grease' chorus.

This is based on the fact that the other two pins of the spider look greased.

When there is one route in (the grease nipple) but four routes out (each pin), if the greaseway to one pin, or two pins, gets blocked with dirt or dried grease, then any new grease will easily pour out of the 2 or 3 pins still open, while the blocked pins get no lubrication at all.

I'm saying it isn't enough to grease every 3, 6, or 12 months as the fancy takes you. Grease has to be seen to be forced past all four seals if you are to be certain each pin is getting new gease.

I have seen it asserted that if the spider ends up pushed hard against one of the caps, this is enough to stop the grease flow. The apparent possible cure is to lightly hammer the opposite leg of the yoke towards the cap that isn't showing grease, then applying more grease to see if it will now flow.
I've never been concious of this myself, so merely present it for consideration and comment.
I understand some people don't like, on principle, dislodging a seal by forcing grease through it, but how else do you ensure each pin is being greased?

Regards.

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I just got the truck a few months ago, my first foray into both vintage and LR world. Obviously now I know how important the UJ greasing is so I will stick a schedule for that maintenance. Obviously the previous owner didn't really take too much to the maintenance side of things which Im slowly rectifying on my own. Side note, anyone recommend an EU based LR parts site? 

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On 12/13/2019 at 9:50 PM, monkie said:

Ouch, injuries incompatible with life is term they use in major trauma centres :blink:

 

Why can’t they stick to “fatal injury”?  More concise and a damned sight clearer...

I’m surprised at how few vehicles have guard loops to constrain a flailing prop shaft.  Easy to fit at transmission end, not so easy at the axle, but even if only done at the one end, that is a 50% risk reduction (more if you considered the front end of the front prop is far enough away not to pose a direct threat).  It’s also surprising how little emphasis is made of maintaining and checking prop shafts by comparison to steering or brake components.

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2 hours ago, Snagger said:

Why can’t they stick to “fatal injury”?  More concise and a damned sight clearer...

I’m surprised at how few vehicles have guard loops to constrain a flailing prop shaft.  Easy to fit at transmission end, not so easy at the axle, but even if only done at the one end, that is a 50% risk reduction (more if you considered the front end of the front prop is far enough away not to pose a direct threat).  It’s also surprising how little emphasis is made of maintaining and checking prop shafts by comparison to steering or brake components.

This is a really good point. Anyone fitted any such guards and maybe some steel plate above? 

Don't blame me for the terms the trauma doctors use! I think it's a term mainly used by the military anaesthetists and surgeons😉

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If it came from military medicine, then the term was probably started with dark gallows humour taking the tiddle out of a lot of excessively long military designation parlance.

 

I don’t think it would take much to make a simple basket affair that could be attached between a transfer box drive flange and prop shaft yolk.  It may be possible to do the same at the diff ends, though they would be more prone to issues off road should the diff contact the ground.  They’d need dynamic balancing, of course.  A stationary basket attached to the front end of the transfer box for the front prop is simpler as it wouldn’t need balancing, but the hand brake drum gets in the way of doing something similar at the back, so that would have to be chassis mounted.  Static baskets attached to the diff housings would likely need to be too big to be viable.

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On 12/14/2019 at 12:10 PM, David Sparkes said:

Just one caveat I will add to the 'no grease' chorus.

This is based on the fact that the other two pins of the spider look greased.

When there is one route in (the grease nipple) but four routes out (each pin), if the greaseway to one pin, or two pins, gets blocked with dirt or dried grease, then any new grease will easily pour out of the 2 or 3 pins still open, while the blocked pins get no lubrication at all.

I'm saying it isn't enough to grease every 3, 6, or 12 months as the fancy takes you. Grease has to be seen to be forced past all four seals if you are to be certain each pin is getting new gease.

I've had an U-joint disintegrate and destroy its yoke in much the same way as in driveallknights pictures, despite having greased the U-joints often.

Exactly as David explains, the grease only ever made it past one or two of the four pins of that particular U-joint

It seems that grease follows the path of least resistance, so regular greasings in itself is not enough to guard against this type of failure.

I've replaced U-joints once they started to loosen up or to make noise/vibrations, checking them every time I happened to be underneath the LR. Its only failed me that one time.

 

 

 

 

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12 minutes ago, mmgemini said:

Any comments on "sealed fot life U/J s

 

For the life expectancy of a beer swilling, chain smoking, pizza-munching octogenarian playing Russian roulette while skydiving with a homemade parachute...

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21 hours ago, monkie said:

This is a really good point. Anyone fitted any such guards and maybe some steel plate above? 

Don't blame me for the terms the trauma doctors use! I think it's a term mainly used by the military anaesthetists and surgeons😉

Used by civilian doctors everywhere.

Mo

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A propshaft loop is common on drag vehicles, fitted roughly half way down the length, and only big enough to allow for normal suspension travel range. 

You could do the same on a LR quite easily, though it would be larger of course.

If the prop is in the loop it won't flail enough to hit the floor or the tarmac, so no need for floor plates. 

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