I have a 91 RRC with stock open diffs. I was driving it yesterday and started hearing strang buzzing grinding sounds while steering. Then it started vibrating and grinding like hell. I stopped had a friend put it in drive and give it some gas. At a stop the front drive shaft spun freely(with the breakes applied). The CV joints look good. What did I do?

Tim

You broke something, time to start taking it apart and find out what you did. It's all gotta come apart anyways, no matter what you broke.

You broke the cross-pin in your differential methinks.

Tear the diff out and see.

Won't be fun. A good way to initiate yourself to the PBB.

Welcome newbie!

:flipoff2:

EDIT: How do you know the CV joints look good? Did you tear apart the hub to check them out? If they actually are intact, then pull the third member out and see how much metal is in there with the diff oil. If you didn't blow the carrier pin, you might have stripped out the ring gear/pinion (highly unlikely tho).

Ahhh, Spoke to soon. I pulled one cv and that looked fine and the other seemed to be intact, Wrong. Went to drain the fluid from the swivel and there was none. The drivers side cv joint exploded leaving schrapnel in the swivel houseing. Can this hurt the diff?
Sorry for jumping the gun.

Tim

While your in there you should drain the front diff fluid and check to make sure you don't have any metal in there.

Edit: Fixd mi bad spellig!

LWG is right, you ought to see if any of the metal got into the diff. Doubtful if you are still running the outer axle seals, but you never know.

There's not much to hurt on the inside of the swivel ball when the CV explodes. Clean it all out really good and make sure you know the proper procedure for filling and checking the level of fluid you put in.

While you're at it, do the other side so you now they're the same. Chances are the other side suffered some negligence at some point.

A weird thing happened to my 2nd '94 LWB RRC. When I got it, one of the level check plugs was missing. Went and got another from the dealer and all was good. It was weird that it was missing though, so don't take it for granted that they're actually there. You gotta check.

Drained the diff fluid and there were not meatal schards to be found. The next question is fluid to use in the swivel. I want to change to the grease. What can I use? I have found a light weight lithium based grease will this work? cant get ahold of the rover and john deer stuff for a couple of days.

Tim

90wt. It'll work fine until you can get the corn head grease, and it'll drain easily when you put the new stuff in.

Some like to run 50/50 cornhead/90wt. Others like to remove the outer axle seal so that the 90wt from the diff can flow out to the swivels. That's what I do.

You guys run 90 wt in the cv's???

Interesting, Most of the Birfield style joints that I know of prefer grease. I suspect that is principally to keep everything IN the knuckle :D

Actually I would imagine that a birf would "prefer" oil of some type, so long as it could be kept uncontaminated. Oil dissipates heat and flows better than grease...

Originally posted by Serious One
Others like to remove the outer axle seal so that the 90wt from the diff can flow out to the swivels. That's what I do.

I'll second this. Just make sure you get a good seal on the drive member or you'll grease up your entire wheel. I've been running this for 2 years with no problems.

Originally posted by 64rovr
Actually I would imagine that a birf...

BIRF!! :flipoff2:

These aren't Toys!

Um, I believe that it was Mr. Birfield that designed these joints ;)

Originally posted by Jason M
Um, I believe that it was Mr. Birfield that designed these joints ;)

Nope!

Rzeppa did.

:flipoff2:


-Jeff

edit:
http://www.cvcoupling.com/images/rezzepa.jpg

Originally posted by Jason M
Um, I believe that it was Mr. Birfield that designed these joints ;)

Figures a Toy guy would say this.:D

Hmm, I am going to have to look into this more..

:D


One more thing,
Do the rover Birfs wear out?
I was just thinking about the grease vs oil thing. You almost never hear of a Toyota Birfield wearing out. In fact, I have never heard of one wearing out..

Never heard of a Rover one wearing out either, so long as oil level is maintained properly.

Originally posted by 64rovr
Never heard of a Rover one wearing out either, so long as oil level is maintained properly.

No, they don't wear out...they just BLOW UP!

:D

Just make sure you get a good seal on the drive member or you'll grease up your entire wheel
Noob question: Is this the outermost seal on the swivel ball that you can see?

My front differential started howling on deceleration two weeks ago. LR Calgary told me it was likely the carrier or pinion bearings. Gonna swap the rear 3rd member to the front and put a limited slip in the back (no HD axles in the budget). I've never heard of leaving out the inner seals on the front to 'share' the oil from the differential to the CV's.

Sounds like a great idea, I just want to be sure I know what the 'drive member' seal is.

There are a bunch o seals in the axle....

First there is one on the inner half shaft between the axle center and the swivels. Definitely toss this one. They never seal anyway. You'll need to overfill the axle a bit to ensure oil reaches the CVs. Normally, the plan is to jack one side up a couple of inches when filling. By removing, you get the bnus of using the axle vent to vent the swivels.

Then you have the swivel ball seal, which is the big one you see sealing the outside world from the CV.

Next in line is a seal inside the spindle (stub shaft is LR speak) . This seals the outer half shaft and prevents oil from getting into the bearings. Some say lose other no. In either case, I believe you need to retain the seal outer ring as it acts as a spacer for the halfshaft bearing/bushing.

Then leastly there is the hub seal sealing the outside world from the hub bearings.