Gearbox removal rear main replacement

All of these bolts were seized and rounded off or snapped.
I tried drilling the bolts out but snapped about 10 drill bits.
I tried grinding off the bolt heads but couldn't get the grinder in without grinding the cross member so stopped and thought what to do.
At this point I called Hunters Land Rover in Norwich ( those of you who see that I live in Essex will wonder why I called them and not the Chelmsford dealer - I went there a few years ago to look at buying a disco 3, the salesman showed me a disco 3 and asked what my budget was, I told him I was looking about £18,000, with that he gave me his card and said 'take my card and come back when you've got some more money'. See ya, not going there again if I can help it ). Anyway, I called them and asked for a price of a cross member, after I was told it was £450 the very helpful parts manager asked the workshop controller who said that they always rust and seize.
They said that you can get to the captive nuts above the cross member.

He said that the cross member has captive nuts that seize and you can get to these captive nuts and chisel them off with a big chisel and large hammer.

irwin socket should shear them they are only 8mm then chisel

I would stress that you need to take care doing this.
I chiseled off 7 bolts, some came off with no problems, some were an absolute nightmare.
In total it took me a few hours to do all the work and then the rest of the day to chisel these bolts off. On the 7th bolt whilst setting up to chisel the nut off the chisel slipped, went one way, my thumb slipped forward and I got my hand caught as I was bringing forward my club hammer.

Broke my thumb in two places and had three weeks off work, luckily I have an understanding boss.

Anyway, after a while of staring at my car through the window.
Back under the Land Rover and mark the front propshaft.
I would have liked to use paint, but both my pain sticks were dry as I haven't used them for years, so I had to scratch marks in the propshaft.

I slid my pry bar through the joint in the propshaft and then undid each bolt at a time, and moved the pry bars position as needed.

I think that the rear bolts on the front propshaft are captive and held in with a large circlip.

The rear propshaft bolts onto the drum brake and again I slid the pry bar through the joint to undo the 4 bolts.

The rear bolts on the rear propshaft are 19mm and mounted onto a rubber mount, I undid the front three bolts as I wanted to take a look at the splines on the propshaft to see how they were and make sure it was greased and clean.

I thought it would be simple to take the securing bolt off from the drum brake but once again this was seized and wouldn't budge.

impact screw driver is needed for those

I had to hammer a torx into the screw head and again put a pry bar against the bolts in order to undo the screw.

jamesmartin said:

impact screw driver is needed for those

Click to expand...

Tried it, it didn't work.

Brewedintheuk said:

Tried it, it didn't work.

Click to expand...

wrong bit then

I checked the shoes and mechanism and everything looked fine with plenty of meat left on the shoes

Undo the 4 bolts on the back plate.

The book says to leave it hanging to the side.
I didn't think this was a good idea.

I thought it best to take the hand brake cable off the handbrake completely.
So sprayed the rubber on the handbrake cable and poked it through from the top.
Then I took the handbrake off completely.

With this off the handbrake shoes and cable could all come off easily to save them getting damaged