Drivetrain Woes... Suggestions?

Hello

First-off, apologies - my very first post and it's to ask for assistance, but I'm sure I'll be able to contribute to the forum meaningfully as time goes by.

Anyhow, the drivetrain on my Defender (1985 2.5 N/A diesel 90) is making some odd noises:

When the vehicle is 'rocked' back and forth in 1st gear, there's a noticeable 'clunk' from what seems to be the front differential.

Putting the vehicle in neutral with the handbrake off and rotating both front and rear prop shafts by hand, there's a measured 12mm of rotation in the front and 23mm at the rear, is this normal?

I've checked the drivetrain for lateral free play and it seems nice and 'tight' and the UJ's are well greased/in good order (minimal play), too.

Can anyone offer some pointers, before I start stripping things to pieces unnecessarily?

Thanks in advance.

There's a lot of places for the slack to add up in the drive train. If it drives ok without nasty vibrations or screaming like a banshee yours sounds normal.

Check your drive flanges. Also check the slip-joint on the driveshaft.

Can you identify if the sound is coming from the front or back?

jabber said:

Check your drive flanges. Also check the slip-joint on the driveshaft.

Can you identify if the sound is coming from the front or back?

Click to expand...

I did have a look at the slip joint and flanges and everything seems quite 'tight' and in order.

The thing that got me was the amount of rotational slack in the half-shafts when rotated by hand - is this normal? The 'clunk' does seem to be coming from the front end, as opposed to the rear.

:confused2:

Yes, there's usually quite a bit of rotational slack on things like the propshaft. if those measurements are taken at the circumference if the propshaft tube, yours isn't too bad at all. Sometmes you get a bit of a clunk taking up drive, but on mine I found this got a lot quieter once I had replaced the drive flanges. A tiny bit of movement on the splines translates to quite a bit of propshaft rotation.

Brown said:

Yes, there's usually quite a bit of rotational slack on things like the propshaft. if those measurements are taken at the circumference if the propshaft tube, yours isn't too bad at all. Sometmes you get a bit of a clunk taking up drive, but on mine I found this got a lot quieter once I had replaced the drive flanges. A tiny bit of movement on the splines translates to quite a bit of propshaft rotation.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the information and assistance on this, everyone.

I think I'll replace the flanges and the UJ's (for good measure), then see how things develop from there.