Roamerdrive (Defender) noise

[Snagger]

Or cost!

[FridgeFreezer]

6 hours ago, Snagger said:

I think you will find all the bearings locally if you visit a bearing supplier.

Same here - almost no-one is having custom bearings made when making something like this, it may take some digging but I've not had one yet that can't be sourced, either straight or close-enough functional replacement.

[Peaklander]

It is only that caged needle roller for which I still needed the part number and I have it now. I will ring a couple of places tomorrow to see if there is stock but there are a couple of promising search hits and there's a reliable place in Sheffield and @Nonimouse has recommended a place local to him and I have made contact with that business.

Ray will supply the individual 120 needles for the planet gears as he buys in bulk with a 100,000 minimum order quantity. Hopefully 120 won't create too much of a hole in his stock.

I am going to receive further details overnight from Vancouver, so things are about to move on.

[Peaklander]

Anyway, to lighten the mood, here's a photo from earlier...

[reb78]

Haha. Strange coincidence, but I had meringue earlier too. 

[Peaklander]

I have received a parts list from GR Corp which includes a new synchro cone which they say incorporates a significant improvement in the internal oil passages that increase oil flow to the planet gears by utilising centrifugal force. I now need to find a way to remove the old one, which I have to do anyway to get the planet shafts off.

They really do look horrible and I think (assume) the close-up shows high temperature damage.

 

 

Getting behind those dog teeth to pull will be tricky and I will need to heat it up or maybe cutting a slot would be better as it's to be replaced

[ashtrans]

Hi Tim,

maybe check those female threads above, shouldn't be deforming the screws like that,

I have found an old one of these in the workshop which we can have a look at if you still need some parts,

I really dont understand why they use Chinese bearings, to save £ 2 on a £ 1500 item ???

Dave

[Peaklander]

Thank you Dave that's good of you. I will have a think and let you know (and I will be at your's on 16th).

I think it's a combination of the camera and loctite / no loctite. I will heat one a little, to wipe off the threadloc and take a closer look; then check into the hole.

[Peaklander]

@ashtrans I think you are right - experienced / eagle eyes, thank you.

I have cleaned-up the threads on one of the screws and I can see where they have been pulled. I can't screw-in by hand past that point. If I try using one of the rear cover screws, it will go in and feels secure. So I think the carrier side is OK but it might be simpler all round if I get a replacement as then I don't have to remove the synchro cone or the planet shafts. I will see what GR Corp. say about it.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Peaklander
Reloaded pic

[ashtrans]

or the wrong pitch ? look at the top left 8 thread 'peaks', the deformed step on the right flank get progressively bigger as you move to the right, maxing out at peak 8, ie the depth it was screwed into,

if you can wait, don't buy anything yet, you might be able to salvage the parts you need from the one I have,

 

[Peaklander]

Dave, they are from the original - as built. I don’t think anyone has opened it up before me, so I don’t know what’s happened. As I said though, if I try the others, they do run in properly.

I have just received the price of the finalised parts list and also an option from GR Corp.

51 minutes ago, ashtrans said:

If you can wait, don't buy anything yet, you might be able to salvage the parts you need from the one I have,

I will give you a ring tomorrow. Thank you 😊 

[elbekko]

If they are the wrong pitch from the factory, could that maybe explain the premature failure?

At this point I'm wondering if new customers aren't better off buying a bunch of parts from the catalog and assembling it themselves with proper bearings and bolts.

[Peaklander]

This is where I am. I have had a few email exchanges with GR Corp this week but occasionally a question has been misunderstood or an answer missing in the replies I received. The initial parts list omitted the cost of the planet gears, which Ray advised to be changed, so I was waiting for that cost.

Sun shaft, 3x planet gears with shafts and various dog/thrust washers. 2x baulk rings and upgraded synchro cone 120x needles to build-up the planet gear bearings. Oh and 6x new screws for the planet carrier / assembly, which are the ones we discussed earlier.

 

The synchro cone is the upgrade design mentioned earlier and sits on the planet carrier in this photo that was also shown earlier - you can see the dog teeth.

This is my next problem, as I didn't think about how I would remove the planet shafts until I realised that they would be supplied as separates. I have asked about removal but not received any advice. They look as though they would need to be pushed back towards the synchro cone and so that would also need to come off and to my inexperienced eye that will be tricky.

 

GR instead offered to supply a new planet carrier, so that would make it just an assembly job (carrier, planet shafts and synchro cone) but the price jumped a few notches with it added.

So the parts list from Canada replaces the whole planet assembly, sun shaft and the synchro cone. At this end I need 3x roller bearings and one caged bearing, which I have sourced.

I know now the final list and the delivered cost, in $US and also Ray advised (and I checked) that there will be £0 duty to pay (from Canada) because of the UK-Canada Trade Continuity Agreement but 20%VAT of course.

It isn't cheap.

[Peaklander]

It isn't cheap for the replacement parts but then I looked at the price of a new one - good grief they are now over £2,100.

Mine is fully disassembled and I have confirmed the parts I need from Global Roamer. Dave Ashcroft very kindly offered his unit to see if I could use any parts and sent it to me so that I could have a good look. When I examined it (much quicker once you know how to disassemble), I first discovered that it is the previous model and thus has a longer rear case. Consequently the sun shaft isn't a direct replacement. In fact Dave's unit has suffered rear bearing failure resulting in the sun shaft flapping around inside the planetary housing, chewing its front end and damaging the caged needle bearing. This is the failure mode suffered by @Snagger. He repaired the end of the sun shaft by sleeving it. It would be a good project but you can have too many...

I've decided to stick with my unit but don't want to compromise the repairs. Mine hadn't failed when I opened it and I don't know how long it would have lasted but the Planet housing needs an overhaul and the China brand bearings need replacing. After some deliberation I am changing the sun shaft and the three planet gears, plus the planet shafts, needles and dog and thrust washers, plus though big roller bearings and baulk rings.

Global Roamer have modified the design of the synchro cone that is at the planetary end of the sun shaft, in order to improve oil flow into that assembly. That will be replaced too but it is the only item that I haven't yet removed from the carrier. Yesterday the badly worn plant shafts were punched out.

 

This is the synchro cone that is sitting on the planet gear carrier. Its dog teeth are in beautiful condition but I may as well fit the upgraded one. I guess there are some oil slots or holes. I will find out when it arrives.

 

I am hoping that the cone can be pressed off the carrier by pushing behind the dog teeth, accessing through the three holes that are there, now that the shafts have been removed.

 

 

My collection of parts, good and bad, now looks like this and I am now waiting for the pro-forma invoice so that I can pay the bill and Global Roamer give me a despatch date. I am not going to rush the rebuild, at least not the refit. Ashcroft Transmissions are overhauling the LT230 next week and Dave asked me to run the vehicle without the Roamerdrive for a few weeks to be sure I am happy with it, especially with the noise level, before I refit a potentially noisy Roamerdrive.

[Peaklander]

I paid the invoice for the replacement parts from Global Roamer on Wednesday and they were sent out the same day. Expected arrival is Monday. I have already had the request for tax etc. from DHL and paid that too. For the record, the cost of parts (not shipping) is US$378 and the tax to pay is £73.10. I would have expected no more than £60 VAT (at a conservative exchange rate) so there is at least a DHL fee in there too as the duty is supposed to be zero.

Anyway, they are on the way but I have my Transferbox to refit and an upgraded front 'diff' and then, when the halfshafts are in, I can finish the rebuild of the new swivels by mounting the hubs, calipers etc. So there's plenty to do before I rebuild the overdrive.

[Peaklander]

The parts were delivered at 10:00 GMT today by DHL. They were despatched on Wednesday from Vancouver and arrived Friday at 02:00 Pacific time. That's pretty darn quick.

Vancouver - Cincinnati - East Midlands - Leeds and then minimum of 50 miles in a van to here. Ok so shipping costs were expensive but it's still hardly stopped moving - a truly perfect logistics chain.

[Les Brock]

Hermes have a lot to learn....😃

 

[Peaklander]

I'm ready to rebuild this and hope to do so on Wednesday. Global Roamer advised that I should drill an oil-way in the front cover. This is positioned so that it lines-up with an existing one in the transfer box, used for the PTO.

 

Roamerdrive say that its position is easy to determine as the gasket can be used to position it and the required hole is only 7mm whereas the one on the TB is bigger. When I picked up the front case of the OD to plan the drilling, I found that there's a hole there already. However the gasket I received with the parts that were supplied doesn't have that hole. It can't be incorrectly positioned as the PTO cover-plate holes aren't symmetrical.

This is the gasket I used when I first installed the OD, looking at the TBox, with the input shaft already fitted and the hole is there at 10 o'clock and wasn't covered by the gasket.

 

 

The installation instructions are clear - 

 

 

Here is the front case of the Roamerdrive, looking from the TBox. The pen is sitting in the hole.

 

Now with the supplied gasket sitting on it - hole blocked. There is an 'extra' hole across on the other side which makes it look as though it's the wrong orientation but I can't flip over as the six bolt holes don't align.

 

I am checking holes with Global Roamer but in any case the start of the rebuild is to press the synchro hub onto the new sun shaft and then press the new planet gear shafts into the front synchro cone. The first operation is going to be tricky I think.

 

 

[Peaklander]

Well things didn't go to plan and I ran out of time, as it was Easter and then we went on a little trip to Spain for six weeks (without the Roamerdrive). By the time we got back my poor father-in-law had finally been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. He had been complaining of difficultly swallowing for months but the NHS wouldn't / couldn't give him an appointment until 'sometime in August' as he wasn't considered to be an urgent case. A 95 year old not urgent 😢 He paid handsomely for a private check which confirmed the worst and then we spent June and July with him, as he starved to death, There's no other way to describe it.

So I was a little distracted over the summer but this week I got started. I had previously got help again at Mister Gearbox that wasn't mentioned...

 

Synchro hub warming

 

then pressed onto new sun shaft

 

new planet shafts into the new (modified) carrier

 

and the rear-most bearing secured on the back

 

I can't praise this company enough. Mister Gearbox in Sheffield opened their workshop to me and I helped or watched them do this and then chatted about all sorts of stuff and looked at their more specialist jobs with autoboxes and clever clutches.

 

Then it was time for me to get working in my garage and the first job was to build-up the planet gear assembly.

 

needed to check the orientation of the dog washers by looking at the old ones

 

then grease and needles, 20 per stack, and double stacks on each of the three planet shafts

 

 

 

 

and close it up, making sure the dog washers are in the correct positions and not getting trapped.

 

That's the inner shaft / planetary assembly complete

 

[Peaklander]

Next was the bearing between the shafts, a 6009. The old (China) one was noisy but not the new FAG one.

   

 

I needed some stronger circlip pliers and knocked on the door of a Snap-On van wondering if he'd sell to J. Public. As it's a franchise he definitely does and sales and margins are directly of interest. So I bought a great pair of reversible ones.

First job for them

 

 

Then I needed to insert the inner to the outer and get them in the correct position to reveal the circlip groove 75mm down that gap. That circlip is the one that holds the two parts together and is the crux of the disassembly operation.

I made a pick so I could feel for it, as I didn't know the protrusion spec. and it isn't visible.

 

 

That's it...

 

Then fit the circlip using my previously ground-down pliers. It's very hard but not as hard as removal, as it does slide down the inner shaft... needs a zoom lens to see it..

 

 

Then that stage was done. Phew

 

 

 

[Peaklander]

Final bit of this stage was to build this assembly into the front part of the casing. This is a 6017 bearing and again the freezer and Aga helped. Firstly a snap ring locates the outer...

 

 

 

 

 

They just dropped onto each other

 

 

[Snagger]

Well done.

I’m very sorry to hear about your father.  I imagine you must be raging against the NHS.  Many people have similar stories.  I am very lucky - my father was diagnosed with colon cancer in March, and they operated successfully in May.  With so many bad events out there, I expected the worst.  It seems some regions are OK while others are terrible.  My condolences.

[cackshifter]

So sorry to hear about your loss. It underlines that though the people at the sharp end may be able and dedicated, health is essentially a lottery.

But a great freezer, and versatile inasmuch as you can store food in it as well as chill parts for shrink fitting.

Looks like the you have done a totally 100% thorough job on the overdrive, it'll be very interesting to hear how it performs.

[Anderzander]

Sorry for your loss too.

[Peaklander]

Thanks guys. The NHS are not as brilliant as is sometimes made out and that includes end of life care. I won’t rant but where is the value in two palliative care nurses covering most of Derbyshire, in one car at night? When they rang me back after my early hours request to come to us, they were so far away I couldn’t believe it. Value streams and all that.

Anyway, the next step was to put the sun shaft into the rear case, locating the bearing in it. I have slightly messed up as I have dislodged the three slippers(?) that run through the synchro hub. There’s a method for relocating them and I will be attempting this procedure tomorrow. 😄