Half Shaft Play

Hi, all 4 of my halfshafts are showing significant play in the outer joints, they are two piece on a 2005 TD5 90. The rears appear worse but not sure if this is just me.

Are the one piece items recommended so there is no outer spline to wear or is there a downside to this type? It does some towing but mainly road use, not sure if aftermarket is OK or not..?

Can you see wear on the shaft ? Often most of the wear is in the drive flange.

Yes, the drive flanges tend to wear faster than the half shafts themselves. I've been treating mine as service items and tend to renew them every couple of years to keep that disturbing clunk on drive take-up down to something acceptable. There are more accurate ways to do this of course but I just go by the amount of rotational slack and whether the splines have started looking like a circular saw in profile, rather than nice and symmetrical. Yes indeed the rear ones tend to wear faster than the fronts.

Thanks, the movement is very clear between the splines, I assumed replacing one or the other would help but didn't know if the wear is generally 50/50 or more in one item. Maybe I'll do the flanges first, are cheap ones ok or a waste of money?

When you take them off you will see where the wear is. I would replace with the standard flange putting a good smear of grease on both sets of splines.