Swivel levels.

[aevans692]

Hi all

So I was looking to do a bit of work on the landy before winter hits .. I have defender td5 98

I wanted to check my swivels and was going to top them up, tho no apparent leaks , now I have read places they only need greasing if they have been rebuilt , other say just top them up and the excess grease will go in to the axel ..

I just thought I’d ask to see what everyone else does , I only have a top up plug ...

Should I just leave alone .. ?

Cheers guys.

 

[Si Click]

You don't want swivel grease in your axle. There was a time when swivels were filled with EP90 or thicker and movement into the axle was not a problem. But your diff is designed to run in EP90 not a mix of EP90 and swivel grease.

 

[aevans692]

yeah thats as much as I thought , how do I check the levels to see if they need topping up , and then how much ? as there is no fill level ?

 

[mick the builder]

Empty out and refill with 0.35 ltrs.

 

[Si Click]

The grease comes in a plastic pouch/tube as "one shot" grease and you snip off the spout end and squeeze it in - if you cannot get any more in, it's full. There is no other reliable way to assess how much is in there other than taking the swivel off. If you are prepared to unbolt the hub from the axle (not easy) and release the ball joints, you can pull it off complete with the drive shaft. If you place the wheel flat on the ground inner side uppermost, you can then put the hub into the wheel, holding it perfectly upright to allow you to massage the grease throughout the swivel. This is quite a good way to replace the scraper seals without taking the hub apart.

 

[Huddy84]

If you think they haven’t been done in ages and swivels look a bit weepy it can’t do any harm to put half a pack of one shot in each. Just don’t do it every year...

 

[aevans692]

I didnt really want to start taking stuff apart just to empty out some grease , especially when its not broken lol ... Im not sure when they were last done , I had thought about putting half in each , my worry was over filling them and blowing the seals or causing some other problem .. is there such thing as over filling these ?

 

[Si Click]

Nope, with grease you cannot over fill. If you do not know when it was last done, I would suspend the front on the axles to take the weight off the hub. Then take off the swivel pin (two bolts) and squeeze as much one shot in as you can. Remember to put all the shims back on.

 

[lightning]

Take off the filler plug and put in the contents of one grease pouch.

Note that the steering needs to be on full lock to un cover the grease hole.

As already said, if it becomes full then that’s fine just put the filler plug back in.
Grease shouldn’t get in to the axle from the hub, there’s a “seal” to prevent it.

However my axle was full of swivel grease after years of filling the swivels and having half the grease leak out of the seal on to the brake backplate due to pitted swivel balls, and the other half go into the axle.

Now all rebuilt and the axle is still fine after probably 50,000 miles with a mixture of oil and grease in it.

 

[zeaphod]

Take off the filler plug and put in the contents of one grease pouch.

Note that the steering needs to be on full lock to un cover the grease hole.

As already said, if it becomes full then that’s fine just put the filler plug back in.
Grease shouldn’t get in to the axle from the hub, there’s a “seal” to prevent it.

However my axle was full of swivel grease after years of filling the swivels and having half the grease leak out of the seal on to the brake backplate due to pitted swivel balls, and the other half go into the axle.

Now all rebuilt and the axle is still fine after probably 50,000 miles with a mixture of oil and grease in it.

Ditto - I must have gone at least 20k on the mix. It's a bit thicker than EP90, but not much.

 

[aevans692]

I think I will go with half and half , I’m going to do the diff oil , hopefully this week , so will add to my jobs . Cheers guys. . .

 

[Si Click]

By half and half do you mean putting half of one grease sachet into each swivel? If so why would you not fill each with its own sachet until either the sachet was empty or the swivel was full? Putting in half the required amount is likely to result in a swivel containing half the required amount and you thinking the job is done.

 

[aevans692]

My thinking behind this , was because I can not be sure what’s already in them , and didn’t like the thought of over filling as the grease would have to go somewhere , I didn’t think that the swivels were to be filled right up as the grease is then pushed out pass the seals when moving, ...

 

[Huddy84]

Half and half refers to topping up the grease filled swivel with EP90. The resulting mixture is thicker than EP90 alone so may not leak out as much. I’d call it a stop gap measure to buy time until the swivels can be refurbished.