ajh Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 I've been chasing some very odd handling issues on my 110 and I keep finding little wear items but haven't yet found the exact problem yet. Today I removed the panhard and ran a string around all 4 wheels and aligned everything as close as I can get it; the fronts look as they should as does the rear right hand wheel... the rear left however has an outward crab of around 5mm. My question is, is this kind of thing 'within tolerance' or an indication that the axle has been hit too hard and the left tube is out of alignment? I've also noticed that the clearance between the trailing arm and the bracket is slightly different on the two sides, if it were a bent trailing arm or just arm adjustment I'd expect to see the issue with the right rear wheel as well which leaves me to believe that the rear two wheels are not perfectly parallel. I assume this can be fixed by drilling out the welds at the diff housing pulling the tube into alignment and re-welding and because of my location getting another Salisbury housing would be likely to be prohibitively expensive. If I do need to replace it I'll have to use a D1 rear housing and then import either a 4 pin diff or put in an ARB/similar stronger diff. I'm not doing much offroad at the moment so I'm unlikely to see a strength issue and later I could swap in a set of HD halfshafts. Have I missed anything else that could cause this? Opinions on replacement/fixing etc? This is my daily driver and I put 50K a year or more on it so getting the handling stable is a high priority for me. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Discovery axles are not rated for the weight of a 110, you must use a Salisbury or a late axle...TD5 or post-TD5 can't remember which Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 I thought the housings had remained the same; just the internals changing. If I'm wrong that makes it harder as the TD5s never came over; I'm thinking of putting a D2 on the front eventually but for the rear it's probably be cheaper for me to just pick up a used D60 and put on the brackets if it comes to that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejparrott Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Discovery axles are the old Rover type...are we talking the same vehicles? D60 as in Dana 60? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 Yes, it is a 1992 110, the rear is currently a Salisbury which is a D60 housing with weaker internals.. shipping one over by itself is likely to cost nearly as much as shipping an entire vehicle Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertspark Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Never tried this so zero experience but I guess you could align it as you describe and reweld the flange square Just a thought though if you could find a tube about the same diameter as the stub shaft internally if you pulled the half shafts and the diff you may be able to feed the shaft through the stub axle on the good side and it would act as an alignment jig for grinding the weld on the poor side and then rewelding using the stub for alignment maybe Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snagger Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 The D2's rear suspension is completely different, using a Watts link and a different trailing arm arrangement than the D1 or Defender, so would be a lot of effort to fit anyway. The TD5 Defenders started off with Salisbury axles and changed to 4-pin diff Rover axles during their production run (as used in the 110 Wolf). Both would fit your vehicle, though the latter would need a longer rear prop shaft. It moght be cheaper to straigthen your existing axle, unless you can find a Defender being broken up over there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertspark Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 If suggest only partially removing the grind so that you can pull it square the reweld. Removing the grind entirely would obviously loose the eccentricity of the flange. You could also weld a flange plate to a shaft and then bolt that to the good side flange but I don't thing I would feel comfortable at getting a square weld on the guide tube / shaft and bang centre of the flange plate (but that says more about me than others) The problem you also have is time if it's your everyday car HTH as an option of thought Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 Snagger, yeah I was looking at using a D2 housing in the front; not the back. Originally I did want to get Richards to do a chassis with the watts linkage bracket but it was too unusual for them to do at least at the time given their workload. Rob, I was thinking remove the housing, put it in a press to get the tube square again then re-weld. Drilling them out was more to get the space to re-weld. A brace could also be welded on at the same time. Not sure if I can find a press big enough in town here though. I guess I should find someone who builds Dana 60 housings and see what they recommend. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 The other question was; with only the one wheel crabbed by 5mm; is that something I'm likely to 'feel' while driving? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muddy Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Perhaps you could machine a 1-6mm shim to bolt on under the stub axle to perform a handling test with before starting to hack up your axle case? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwakers Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 The other question was; with only the one wheel crabbed by 5mm; is that something I'm likely to 'feel' while driving? yes i would think so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reb78 Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 Is it anything like this? http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=83465 I've still not figured out if mine is a real problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 Hrm, a shim would make sense. As long as the tube isn't actually actively moving in the housing... wonder how to check that.... To do a shim though I'd have to figure out the actual deformation through both dimensions... I suppose a laser alignment rack should be able to give that figure? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 5, 2014 Author Share Posted December 5, 2014 reb78, yes... exactly like that. My panhard was off by about 4mm too but that was suspension sag over time so fixed that but the one wheel just isn't right... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reb78 Posted December 5, 2014 Share Posted December 5, 2014 I cannot get to the bottom of mine. Handling is not bad. Bushes were all replaced last year (still to do the a frame) but they made little difference to that measurement. Tracking is spot on at the front. I really don't know if it's a problem or within tolerance as you also ask. That's also a Salisbury rear on mine. My tyre wear in that thread was front wheel alignment as it's stopped since checking all of that and moving the wheels around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSD Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Might be completely off track here, but if the wheels are out of parallel by 5mm at the tyre wall, then thats equivalent to ~0.5mm at the axle flange? Is it not possibly to just have the axle flanges ground parallel? (I can't imagine what machine / setup would be needed in the machine shop, but I'm not a machinist). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Woodward Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 It could be a bent half shaft or a buckled wheel throwing things out. Turn the wheel half a turn and re check just to be sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B reg 90 Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Couple of observations: Build tolerances are massive compared to what you or I would start at, so this may be just at one end of the scale. I have skimmed the flange faces on the end of my C303 axle tubes on my bridgeport mill. I can post up a picture of the set up if you want. If your 1/2 shaft is OK, i.e. no sign of fretting on splines, then I'd think you axle is 'happy'. In which case consider just shimming the trailing arm at the relvent side to pull/push the axle back into alignment. Thinking that you should shim at the rubber block at the chassis end. Adrian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reb78 Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 Couple of observations: Build tolerances are massive compared to what you or I would start at, so this may be just at one end of the scale. I have skimmed the flange faces on the end of my C303 axle tubes on my bridgeport mill. I can post up a picture of the set up if you want. If your 1/2 shaft is OK, i.e. no sign of fretting on splines, then I'd think you axle is 'happy'. In which case consider just shimming the trailing arm at the relvent side to pull/push the axle back into alignment. Thinking that you should shim at the rubber block at the chassis end. Adrian I did consider shimming on mine, but doing that to the trailing arm of the side that's out will also alter the opposite side though and move the problem to there. It appears to be a problem located on one side of the axle. My axle has done about 200k miles now and has been like this for god knows how long. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daan Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 is the 5 mm measured at the wheel diameter? That's a lot. I would measure the wheelbase left and right to see if the axle is bend badly. You could machine the faces, but if it is bend much it will not solve your difference in wheelbase. Daan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
6 pot Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 I did a quick google and found this lot http://www.dfsworldwide.com/Shipping-to-Canada.html shipping does not look to bad I have an rear axle of a ex-military 110 yours for not a lot if you cannot sort out your problem Cheers Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 6, 2014 Author Share Posted December 6, 2014 I just did a quick measure with the tape hooked to the front hubcaps and to the centre of the rear ones is a half-inch longer on the side opposite the one with the gap. So 9' 2.5" on the right and 9' 2" exactly on the left. I also measured from the same point on the front hubcaps to the rear lower corner of the 2nd row doors and they appeared to be identical (which I would have expected considering how picky I was when I re-assembled the vehicle). So I guess the next is to measure from a centre point on the front of the vehicle to the rear axle housing at various points and then determine the deviation of each axle tube to see where the error actually is. I'll try to do that bit tomorrow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajh Posted December 6, 2014 Author Share Posted December 6, 2014 I just took another look and realized there were signs before of issues. The left hand swaybar link is less vertical than the right hand one. I'd noticed this before but I figured that I'd bashed the mount or something in the past but if the axle is actually tweaked (the trailer arms are both tightened to the exact same thread point) then this would make sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TSD Posted December 6, 2014 Share Posted December 6, 2014 LR have a phrase for vehicles with 0.5" difference in the wheelbase side to side - it's called a 'good one'. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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