Britpart VCU Damper Repair

i have a freelander with a suspected vcu proble. The car feels "heavy" to drive. It feels like it's driving with the handbrake on. Suspect VCU. I've seen that Bripart do a VCU damper repair unit £85.00 +vat.

Has anyone fitted the unit? Has it worked?

thx

can I ask yu a Q?

if you think the VCU is goosed, why do you want to replace the damper? Or are yu sure its only a damper problem.

first thing to do is remove the propshaft until you can confirm what the problem is.

Quick way to test if th VCU has siezed, draw a chalk line across the VCU then drive the car a short distance ensuring there is a couple of U-turns then chaeck to see if your chalk lines are still in line. If they are out of alignment the vcu has not siezed

I have done the chalk line test on my 03 TD4 auto and can confirm that the VCU is turning OK. However if I jack up one rear wheel (handbrake off) and try to turn the rear propshaft with a screwdriver across the yoke, then the effort required almost bends the screwdriver. Is this normal? If so what affect will this have on MPG and tyre wear?
The car does drive normally, but it cannot be pushed when on full lock.
Maybe I'm getting paranoid about a problem which does not exist
Any comments would be much appreciated.

Kennevy

The rear wheel test. I can turn mine by swinging on the rear wheel but it is stiff I can imagine a screwdriver across the yoke would have less leverage than me swinging on the tyre

Gaylanders are permanent 4 wheel drive with about 20% of drive going to the back wheels, the rest to the front. Try jacking up both front and rear wheels on the same side, at the same time and repeat the test. This was demonstarted to me 'cos I thought I had a problem when I got mine.

Oh yes, one other thing the fitter who looked at mine was using a 3foot power bar to turn the prop, so had quite a lot of leverage.

Have tried to be a bit more technical and have used a torque spanner on the wheel nuts set to the wheel nut torque, about 115 N/m. Its not really enough to turn the wheel. Maybe 125N/m would turn it, its that close.
Obviously those figures have to be multplied by the radius of the wheel studs, but it still seems excessive to me.

What to you think.

Never tried with a torque wrench, but I do know that it takes a lot of effort. I thought I may have had a problem with my VCU so have gone through exactly what you are now. Spoke to loads of people- Land Rover dealers and independants as well as people such as Ashcroft Transmissions. Have satisfied myself now that it is just the nature of the beast.
Quite a few people did mention that they did not like pushing Freelanders around the work shop. I work alongside quite a number of recovery specialists who have also stated that they will not try to manhandle Freelanders and just put them onto the winch.