Disco Transfer Box

Morning all,

Got the landy back last night after having a reliable gent swap old leaking defender 200tdi LT230 over to Disco LT230 (early but not know exactly what off) the 3rd Diff was smashed so he swapped that over from the original one to the new one and gave it a look over and said it was ok.

Coming to work in it this morning I have noticed that the box now whines. Obviously I dont know what noise it made before it was fitted.

Is this normal?

Couple of blokes at work believe that is the norm for a disco conversion as they remember seeing it on a series 2a forum that has also mentioned that they whine.

Otherwise it drives really nise and is alot quieter.

Thanks.

Morning SpenB

Stuck a disco 230 in me old 90 last week not getting any whining or strange noises from that seems quieter than the old box.

Did he put any new bearings in ! ! ! :doh: i put new intermediate gear bearings in the old ones seemed to have taken a fair old bashing ! ! !

So far seems to have transformed the old thing and me pocket !

LT230 came with suffix T for tapered bearings, if it is a disco box it should be quiet.
I wonder if you have worn bearings or a non Tapered bearing box?

Just a thought, before someone bites my head off

Hi there,

The noise of the landy is now very quiet and is very smooth otherthan this whine.

Have spoken to the man before I got it back and he said that gears and bearings were all good.

I have also been told that the earlier Disco box did whine and that the later ones had a bigger gear somewhere to eliminate this.

Also in the Q&A on Ashcrofts site there is:
Q - I have just fitted a new cross drilled input gear to my LT230 and it whines, is this normal?

A - Some "pattern" gears are not "crowned" during manufacture and will whine because of the edge contact this creates

I did notice on it that it had a cross drilled Input gear which were not fitting as standard on the early boxes so could I have a "pattern" one as per the Ashcrofts answer.

Thanks for the answers and suggestions much appreciated. Keep them comming.

SpenB

Hi Spen i have the same Disco LT230 t/box in me 200tdi (Not sure how early) and mine doesnt make any whining or any funny noises mate.......

Sorry to resurrect this thread but I'm in exactly the same boat, had a disco transfer box fitted to my defender and now it whines, they tried to tell me it was my gearbox, but it clearly isn't as it didn't do it before!!

Anyways, if it helps you at all, mine is speed related too, but you do hear the whining on deceleration too. Is there anything I can do to narrow down the problem?

It could be that the disco T-box is putting more load on the gearbox and that is wot is causing it to whine, but I think it is more likely that the intermediate gear has mating surfaces which have been "worn in" to the old T-box and the noo one is meshing on different parts of the gear teeth, hence causing the whine.
I would be inclined to see how it goes - it may bed-in over the next few thousand miles - or else you might need to change the intermediate gear - a good idea if you dont have the cross drilled one anyway.

I've had it now for about 5k miles, and it hasn't got better or worse but there is an oil leak somewhere that I need to sort (dont think its related but just mentionning).

Is there any way of testing if its the intermediate gear....or at least crossing off other possibilities? I reckon it wouldn't be the gearbox as its road noise related so its surely got to be transfer box end if its not the intermediate gear.

I assume by the way that the intermediate gear is the same thing as the input gear? As I know there is an intermediate gear in the transfer box but I take it you mean intermediate 'between' the two boxes.

If it does turn out to be this will it have permanently damaged my gearbox at all? I just need to know whether or not to boll*ck the guys at the garage that should clearly have known about this

Sorry - been on me hols.

I know mine had a cross drilled input gear fitted (I looked).

But on the Ashcrofts Transmision web site under Q&A they say that if you have a "pattern" input gear that has not been "crowned" then you will get whinning from the air expelling out of the teeth faces.

Also as The Mad Hat Man says the teeth are touching different parts of the other teeth (differing wear rates etc) and this will also cause a contact noise.

Cheers

The crowning thing may be what it is, have just taken the input gear out and it doesn't look very worn, neither does the mainshaft, there is a little bit of play which explains the clonking when changing gears but I can't work out whether its worth changing the input gear or not, there wasn't any of the red gunk either.

Kris