clutch clunk

Hi,

Got a problem or it might not be and it might be a Land Rover thing dont know. But maybe someone can advise.

When changing gear and releasing the clutch, I get a clunk, almost as if the clutch is engaging and is a bit sticky. The sound is behind me, if that helps. Is it something to worry about?

Hey Gecko,

The only thing that is behind you would be the rear propshaft.

Could be worth checking for play on the UJ's.

Rich

thanks Rich, my landy although 2nd has a 6month warranty with the garage and I've only been driving it for a few days so I will speak to them to sort out. Just didnt want to bug them more if it was normal, but it doesnt sound like it.

the fuel gauge is a bit iffy too. It works either like a metronome or a seismic monitor, having worked out which yet

Hi Gecko

It could be your rear UJ or excessive Diff backlash. Its well easy to check yourself.

Chock the wheels, release the handbrake, make sure the vehicle is in neutral and climb underneath. Grab the rear propshaft and twist it to and throw. See how much play there is.

There should be none in the UJ and the diff will prob have a slight amount but not excessive.

The most common clonk on defenders is a wearing 1st motion shaft within the clutch plate gears.
This is pretty common.

See how you get on

Jim

Just seen your other fault!

for your fuel guage problem, lift up your drivers seat and gain access to your sender unit.

Whip the gauge wire off and earth it on the vehicle chassis and see what happens. if the guage slowly rises to full with no problems its proberly your sender unit and if the guage still mucks around, its either a wiring fault or a guage fault. let me know if this is the case and ill talk you through how to test it.

Cheers

Jim

Hi Fired-Up,

thanks for the info, I had to wait till the weekend to get some spare time to make the checks

OK here goes, chocked the car and tested the play in the prop shaft. It moves about an 1/8 of a turn in one direction and back again but no more. From your post this sounds the norm. Is there anything else I can check?

With the fuel sender unit, pardon my ignorance, but the unit has three wires clipped into it. Does it matter which wire I earth? I assume to earth I just grab some small gauge electrical wire and connect that from one of the clipped cables to the chassis. The gauge seems to be working a bit better this week, it will read the right level, guessing here, then it will move down a few notches then go back up again. The metronome effect was a little exaggerated. It will stabilise a reading for a minute maybe then start moving again, while driving it difficult to gauge the exact time.

Cheers, Gecko

Hi Gecko

To be honest, your backlash sounds about right. The clunk is pretty normal to most defenders and its worth living with. As said before the main cause is usually a worn 1st motion shaft and without an expensive repair bill, is prob best to go with the flow.

As for your temp sender, ill dig out the wiring diagram tonight and get bck to you.

Jim

cheers fired-up

i spoke to the garage the other day and the man said that it sounds like a normal thing. He said it can happen on new ones or old ones, or not at all, its a Landy thing.

if you could dig out the wiring be much obliged. to be honest it seems to be driving better now and got rid of that annoying clutch squeak too with liberal amts of WD40. Just as a new comer to Land Rovers I just wanted to make sure it wasnt anything too serious with the drive.

I have this clunk thingy once in a while. I just be a lil more gentle on the clutch or rev the engine a bit more before changing up.

for me when this happens i just need to lock and unlock the centre differential while parking facing downwards and park brakes pulled. it kinda 'takes up the slack' in the rear prop. hard to believe, but it works for me.

You may try and see if having the air con on or off make a difference, cos it does on mine.

AIR CON!!! Defender????

LOL... thats what those flaps are for!!

Having aircon means expensive bull bars...

rather than start a new thread...
Been having similar noise, generally in the changing up and down in the 3rd/4th/5th kind of area. Got an R-reg 90 300TDI Hardtop.
Noticed today that there's now a "clonk/chink" pretty much in the middle/under me when I lift off the gas - so there's something transmission related.

Parked up, handbrake off, and rear prop shaft is OK - <1/4" movement. But front one rotates about an inch - 5-10degrees or so. What's likely to be the culprit? Front diff - or something nasty/expensive in the transfer box?

I have been living with it now (for about 10k miles), but the "clink" when I lift off the gas suggests there's a bit too much play in there now.

Ideas? (Or rather "how expensive is expensive?" if it's worst case and replacing the xfer box?) And if I was to change the transfer box for more road use, what to go for?

just be gentle, for me sudden backing off the gas at lower revs does yield the clonk at times. or repeated quick step-release-step (aka jack rabbit style) will do that too. but ya, driving properly and you'll be fine.

I've a custom build air con in the rear which is pretty powerful and is at the fraction of the price of the factory unit, 99% of the air con Defenders in singapore are this way. Only came across 1 td590 with a factory air con and 1 tdi300 truck cab with a OEM 'factory style' aircon.

Even with the air con radiator in the front, it's still non-buldging at the radiator.

Fired-up said:

As for your temp sender, ill dig out the wiring diagram tonight and get bck to you.

Jim

Click to expand...

Right, to get your temp gauge up to maximum, bridge the two larger wires together.

If you want to test the fuel light, earth out the small wire.

Hope this helps

Jim

cheers jim,

will give that a go, as there were 3 wires i wasnt sure which was which, will let you know in a few days how it goes

Les

achuakh said:

I have this clunk thingy once in a while. I just be a lil more gentle on the clutch or rev the engine a bit more before changing up.

for me when this happens i just need to lock and unlock the centre differential while parking facing downwards and park brakes pulled. it kinda 'takes up the slack' in the rear prop. hard to believe, but it works for me.

You may try and see if having the air con on or off make a difference, cos it does on mine.

Click to expand...

hi achuakh,

i have tried very gentle lifting the clutch very slowly and normal driving techniques, it doesnt matter, but the diff idea sounds like a plan, will try it in a few days, probably at the weekend when i get more of a chance.

aircon, yeah echo fired-up, its those flaps at the front, or the windows on the side for my landy, A/C is a luxury still need to wire in a stereo but that is another thread i need to post

thanks to all who gave advice on the clutch clunk and the fuel indicator, it now all sorted.

Clutch failed in a big way last Sunday. The pedal seized about 20 mile from home, so forced to drive another 30 miles the next day to the garage without the clutch. Oh what fun, still another driving experience to add to.

It turned out the clutch pivot pin had punctured the pivot at the ball joint thereby causing the clutch to fail. Still under warranty so that was fixed and I got them to put in a new clutch while they had the gearbox out.

The gearbox feels much smoother now with better takeoff and gear changes as well as no more clutch clunk. Oh and they fixed the fuel indicator as well.

Now off to fit my 'A' bar and foggies to my happy Landy.