300tdi defender went bang!!

Today whilst travelling to a local rugby match,I stopped to speak to a friend. Having spoken, I pulled away turning left on a bit of a gradient and the landy sounded as if the rear step or tow bar was scaping on the road. I had no hand brake and no drive in normal high range. In diff lock I have drive. I managed to limp home but there is obviously something wrong. Anyone have any ideas??

if you had to drive with diff lock then sounds like you have lost drive to front or rear wheels, guessing its the rear wheels as you dont have a handbrake which is inline with the rear prop, so possibly rear diff has gone or the rear propshaft has broken,well could be a rear drivshaft either,hope this helps

either you'r half shafts on you rear or your rear diff.

You eill have to start by taking out the rear half shafts to get the diiff out any way. You could check bu jacking up the rear axle and poping them on stands then try turning one of the wheels at a time, if it is the half shaft then you wont get any movement on the prop, if neither offer any resistance then could be your diff.

good luck.

kneel down at the side of yer landy, make sure the prop is still there, if so, i would put my money on a half shaft seen as you said it went bang. diffs seldom go bang, they usually grind and grate

i have to concurr with mr disco here. the only way it could be yer prop would be if someone had stole it. are you sure the friend you were speaking to wasn't just distracting you while a n other **** stole it?? as for the diff well , you have to strip a lot of teff off it for it not to work, unless mr other stole that aswell as the prop. so that leaves you with a broken half shaft...

99% sure, half shaft broke.

if ya prop goes when driving boy do you know about it, I have had this before, not pleasent, sounds like it is trying to get into the car with you as the prop underneath as it is beeing flung round!

aye. stands to reason dont it? 110bhp trying to fling a lump of metal pole around thats tied at one end with a uj and loose at the other. thats gotta make one hellava racket?

eventually (PDQ) itll stop on summat and rip the other uj to bits too.
that will also make a bit of noise.

if the fecker digs in whilst spinning it will tip yer over

luckly all was fine I was pulling off from lights at the time so it was low speed.

must be pretty frightening to have one let go at high speed on the M6!

thanx for all u help. It was a half shaft - the splines sheared in the flange!!