IRD internal rebuild - anyone done it?

Hi,

My freebie has been sounding like a milk float four the past 3 day, so i took it into the local garage.

Problem was obvious, out bolt missing from IRD pinion houing, other finger tight. Oil no where to be seen, apart from the wet patch on the underside of the car.

It seems that the nice mister at the evil garage has stripped the threads on all except one bolt that holds the pinion in, so no there us noting to hold the bolts into the IRD housing. Joy.

Plan A : Cut new threads in to the IRD houing. If that fails....

Plan B : New IRD is 880+vat from ashcroft, but my IRD was rebuilt only 6 months ago. Can I get a used IRD and transfer the internals of mine to a casing with threads? Is this difficult to do?


Plan C : IRD blanking plate from fleabay, and bye bye IRD

Cheers all

surely worth talking to ashcroft - maybe they will sell you a casing ?

I did call them to get the price, OP. They only seen interested in selling an exchange one.

Suely they can't be so difficult to rebuild, ashcroft do it all the time! It would just be a big learning curve I would guess.

There's video's on youtube of the contents of the ird. It can be difficult changing the bearings inside. Changing the internals would be easier. If it were mine I'd try to cut new threads first. Less pain and may work.

You could try helicoil or thread inserts they both work well

as above

Thanks guys.

The tread inserts/helcoil solution look interesting if the cutting of the threads doesn't work.

Cheers

Dave

Just heard from the garage.....proper pinion is back on and tight, but the filler bolt head is rounded off....ggrrrrr

Bell Engineering do recondisioned ones fdor £650. that's pretty good.

Will.

Have the car back, the bolts in the pinion would have been fine had the been longer. They were only held on 2 or three threds. Replacing with the correct and longer studs has the pinion fastened in again.

Front VCU bearing is buggered again though...grrrr

Thanks for mentioning Bell Engineering. Will try them if I need an IRD in the future

Vertuas said:

Just heard from the garage.....proper pinion is back on and tight, but the filler bolt head is rounded off....ggrrrrr

Click to expand...

Hammer and chissel to undo it. Be careful and it's poissible Many on ere have had to do it. Make sure you use 6 sided sockets as they don't round off nuts as easily as 12 sided ones do. Only undo ird drain if you can undo ird filler first.

Hi. Hope this is of some help. This link leads you to a guy that rebuilt his own. Pics etc seem quite good. Fixes to the Freelander
Regards, George.