Please help. v.c.u or faulty ird????

[jamieb61]

the ird on my 2000 1.8 freelander went recently, and being a builder and not a mechanic there was no way i was going to try and do it myself! i put the car into the nearest garage to where it broke down which was an official opel service gragage(i live in spain)

i sourced a replacement ird second hand from ebay as the scrapyards here didnt have any and a new one was over a grand and had it sent over. when he had fitted it the mechanic called me and said that it was working ok but i needed a new gearbox too, nightmare..but i got on with it found a gearbox again on the internet and sent it too him.

on fitting the new gearbox he tells me that when testing the two together he heard a loud banging from the bottom of the car and sure enough the casing of the ird was cracked and spilling oil out. now he is saying that this has happened because the replacement ird i bought must have been faulty and all he meant when he had previously told me it was ok is that it 'looked' ok.

i have no reason to mistrust the guy i bought it from as i bought it as working and the fella has masses of positive feedback on ebay and not one thing negative, which leads me to believe this mechanic could have mis diagnosed the problem. 1000 euro's later and my car is if anything worse than it was when he started!!

i am reading lots of posts about the v.c.u being a known killer of i.r.d units...is it possible that this is the problem?? this of course would make him responsible for breaking my new ird and i could claw back a bit of money at least...he hasnt once mention this section of the car, i have been under the car and to the untrained eye it all looked o.k but i am no mechanic.

please please any advice on this would be very much apreciated, as i cannot afford to buy yet another ird just for him to break again because he hasnt fixed the real problem:(

[jules]

the ird on my 2000 1.8 freelander went recently, and being a builder and not a mechanic there was no way i was going to try and do it myself! i put the car into the nearest garage to where it broke down which was an official opel service gragage(i live in spain)

i sourced a replacement ird second hand from ebay as the scrapyards here didnt have any and a new one was over a grand and had it sent over. when he had fitted it the mechanic called me and said that it was working ok but i needed a new gearbox too, nightmare..but i got on with it found a gearbox again on the internet and sent it too him.

on fitting the new gearbox he tells me that when testing the two together he heard a loud banging from the bottom of the car and sure enough the casing of the ird was cracked and spilling oil out. now he is saying that this has happened because the replacement ird i bought must have been faulty and all he meant when he had previously told me it was ok is that it 'looked' ok.

i have no reason to mistrust the guy i bought it from as i bought it as working and the fella has masses of positive feedback on ebay and not one thing negative, which leads me to believe this mechanic could have mis diagnosed the problem. 1000 euro's later and my car is if anything worse than it was when he started!!

i am reading lots of posts about the v.c.u being a known killer of i.r.d units...is it possible that this is the problem?? this of course would make him responsible for breaking my new ird and i could claw back a bit of money at least...he hasnt once mention this section of the car, i have been under the car and to the untrained eye it all looked o.k but i am no mechanic.

please please any advice on this would be very much apreciated, as i cannot afford to buy yet another ird just for him to break again because he hasnt fixed the real problem:(

It takes allot of transmission wind up to blow the IRD from the VCU but I have blown about four apart racing freelander (is the original IRD casing any good as you may be able to rebuild the first one from the second or vice versa)

The biggest mistake you made was taking a Land Rover to a normal car garage the guy wouldn't know what the IRD did and the VCU would have been totally alien to him. (Sorry but that the problem he should have said he didn't know what he was doing) I don't think Opel make any 4x4 cars anyway it was possibly asking allot of the guy to diagnose the problem.

I don't know the current price of IRD's what made you think the first one had gone or did it blow its casing open as well in which case it's one of two things either the VCU has locked up or in my case I was racing and landing with front and rear wheels going at different speeds just destroy's them

A cheap fix would be if you don't use the car off road then simply take the whole rear prop off including the VCU and run the car with out it once the IRD is fixed.

Try to check it by trying to rotate either side of the VCU in different direction if you can rotate it a few mm then its ok but you will need a cough bar to do it.

[jamieb61]

It takes allot of transmission wind up to blow the IRD from the VCU but I have blown about four apart racing freelander (is the original IRD casing any good as you may be able to rebuild the first one from the second or vice versa)

The biggest mistake you made was taking a Land Rover to a normal car garage the guy wouldn't know what the IRD did and the VCU would have been totally alien to him. (Sorry but that the problem he should have said he didn't know what he was doing) I don't think Opel make any 4x4 cars anyway it was possibly asking allot of the guy to diagnose the problem.

I don't know the current price of IRD's what made you think the first one had gone or did it blow its casing open as well in which case it's one of two things either the VCU has locked up or in my case I was racing and landing with front and rear wheels going at different speeds just destroy's them

A cheap fix would be if you don't use the car off road then simply take the whole rear prop off including the VCU and run the car with out it once the IRD is fixed.

Try to check it by trying to rotate either side of the VCU in different direction if you can rotate it a few mm then its ok but you will need a cough bar to do it.

thanks jules

the reason i thought it had gone in the first place was that the mechanic told me and on reading up on the symptoms it seemed to fit..

yes the casing from the first one is ok. the smsller wheel turns, the one providing the drive to the front wheels i believe, but the bigger one which goes to the back doesnt. is it an easy enough repair job then?

sorry whats a cough bar?

cheers jamie