expensive-sounding growls

[redmesarobbie]

Driving home last night, my 90 (300tdi) started making growling noises. At first, I thought it wasa tire going flat, but got out and the tires were fine. Limped along a little farther at 30mph and then decided to call a tow.

Under the truck, I can't see anything that leaps out at me except that there seems to be oil leaking from the transfer case. So, my question is, how to I determine where this noise is coming from? Is there a way to check the transfer case bearings? Might it be the clutch or transmission? I'm still learning my way around my Defender, so advice would be appreciated.

[redmesarobbie]

I neglected to mention that the growls start at around 15mph and there are some shimmies, shakes and vibrations when the growling occurs.

[Guest wunntenn]

Check wheel nuts are tightened properly.

Check handbrake is not jamming on slightly - can heat up and expand slightly and get worse.

Check propshaft uj's are properly greased and not binding.

[zim]

Jack your wheels up off the floor, and have a feel of the wheel bearing(s). See if there's any side to side / up down movement as well as spinning them over.

G

[redmesarobbie]

Have spent the day under the truck. LH wheel nuts weren't tight enough, but that didn't make any difference. The ebrake doesn't seem to be binding. The U-joints are a mystery to me. The front U doesn't have a grease fitting and I can't tell whether the others are bad or not.

Haven't jacked it up to check the wheel bearings, but will do that as soon as I get something to eat. The RH rear bearings are new, but it sounds like the noise is coming from the front.

[Les Henson]

I would agree with Zim - 300TDi Defenders and Discoverys have a nasty habit of completely lunching wheel bearings before they make any noise that you can hear inside the vehicle. Unfortunately that quite often means that one of the bearing tracks has friction welded itself to the stub axle.

Les.

[Mutley]

How much fluid has leeked from the Transfer box? When was it last changed and how much fluid is in it now? Plus check engine oil is up to level, I know sounds obvious but often over looked.

[redmesarobbie]

CHecked the LH front wheel. Nothing very unusual sounding. Perhaps I should have made a recording. Hard to tell anyway given that I couldn't get the wheel to move all that quickly. Thinking about pulling the bearings to check.

The transfer case should have been topped up a month ago. I don't trust the shop I took it to though. worth checking.

[redmesarobbie]

I did try to get the filler plug out yesterday, but couldn't get in there with a tool.

[lrfarmer]

sounds a bit like a diff

mine started making that type of noise the front pinion bearing need ajusting

[redmesarobbie]

Irfarmer, looks like you're right. I ended up taking the truck to the shop and they're telling me it's something in the rear diff. Unfortunately, they don't do that kind of work. So, looks like I either need to take it to a dealer (200 miles away) or do something myself. Is there another axle that can be switched for the one that's there? This is a 1984 D90 that's been converted to a 300TDI, R380, but I think the axles are original. Would a classic Range Rover or early Discovery axle work? I'm in the US and Defender parts are seriously hard to come by, especially at the salvage yards.

[lrfarmer]

any 10 spline diff will fit

very easy to do on the rear just drain oil, pull half shafts out, undo rear prop, undo ring of nuts holding diff in.

diff will be out, refit in reverse

first time sould be done in an hour

i've got to do it on my 110's front diff keep putting it off

[redmesarobbie]

Excellent! I'll have to see if the local salvage yards have any Disco diffs around.

[redmesarobbie]

So the noise problem was not the diff. It was the clutch. I had the clutch replaced last Christmas, then again in October it went out, now once more. It's at a different shop this time around and the first shop is looking at some litigation. Unfortunately, i don't think the new shop, despite specializing in drivetrains, really knows what they're doing either. The clutch is definitely no good anymore. There's a good sized chip out of the middle. The pressure plate has burn marks around the outside. The shop thinks it was either the wrong clutch ot begin with or the transmission has the wrong bell housing or wrong length shaft (WTF?)

[ejparrott]

WTF indeed, I'm guessing 300TDi 90 from factory, with factory LT77 or R380? Either way, bellhousing wise as far as the LT77 goes, there's the short shaft/short bellhousing which you should have, then there's the long shaft/long bellhousing disco version which as far as I'm aware wont fit in a 90! there are no other combinations I'm aware of, if you put the short bellhousign on the long shaft 'box, you'd never get it bolted up! The R380 I think is the same, a long and a short and swapping them won't bolt up. Sounds to me like bad fitment in the first place.

[redmesarobbie]

My 90 is an'84 that originally had a V8 in it. At some point, it was converted to a 300tdi with the R380 and LT230 transfer case. I bought it July of 2010 and drove it with no problems for 15K miles and then the transfer case went out--bad bearings. Found a decent LT230 from a Disco in salvage and had it put in. The shop had to change over the output shaft and some other things of course. A month later, the clutch went. Had that replaced. Brakes went out in May, after the school year, so I was able to do that myself. Then the clutch went out again in October. The pivot pin was worn and the shop hadn't noticed. So replaced everything except the clutch disk (which the shop said was fine and could be reused). Should have replaced that too, but went against my better judgement. Now the clutch problems again with possible gearbox and transfer case problems. Like I said, I don't really trust that these guys know what they're doing either since the owner was convinced that the 300tdi is a 3 liter engine.