Help in identifying my front axle?

I have a Defender Td5 and l need to change the swivels, however, axle doesn't look to be standard to the vehicle. The existing swivels are chrome and not Teflon, the wheel bearings are the old adjustable type, and the axle serial number is stamped with a series of little dots that make up numbers, but it’s unreadable.
Is there other anyway I can identify the type and age of the axle so I can order the correct swivels?

I believe tto make td5 type bearing adjustable you just throw away the spacer and fit the two nuts and lock tab off the earlier cars?
Some people also did away with the seal in the stub axle to allow the axle oil to get to the bearing as per the series motors.

My car has one chrome and one teflon swivel.

There are some knowledgeable people on here, so a bit more detail may help them identify what you have so that they can give accurate advice. Probably worth letting them know the year of your truck and take some photos of your swivels and swivel pin housings.

I have just started working on my defender and unfortunately it is not always easy to identify what you have. I am not sure how many different types of swivels there are. Mine is an older one that has a rialco bush at the top. My swivel seal retaining ring is held on with seven M6 screws and the top of the housing is higher than the others. This is on an axle with 10 spline diffs, so much older than yours.

After this they started to have a bearing top and bottom and I think they had six M6 screws on the seal plate. I can't tell you how many types of this swivel there are, but at least you should be able to rule out the rialco bush type.

Thanks for your reply, l will try and post some photos. But l forgot to mention that the swivel housing has a drain plug and a level plug in addition to the fill plug, which l’m assuming is for ep90? The defender was registered in 1999 and rebuilt on a galvanise chassis by the previous owner, who worked in a scrap yard, the defender is a bitsa.

Some pics of your axle may help. Pre tdi landys like mine [ as noted above by Lynall for series ] are oil lubricated from the axle, a better system I recon as after 180k [ farm truck ] it is still on original bearings. When I do a seal I do blob in some grease on bearings to keep them happy until more oil works its way in. As far as I know all ball housings are the same except for type of coating, not sure about later Puma models though. EP 80/90 lube.

andy vash said:

The defender was registered in 1999 and rebuilt on a galvanise chassis by the previous owner

Click to expand...

it is common for people to build a 'rolling' chassis before transfering the landy - this is done by using axles etc from a breaker landy as parts are generally cheap

the origonal axles etc then get sold on afterwards....

Rich.

I’ve taken some photos, l apologies for the quantity. I think the axle number is 7CLA96S?A although it’s hard to read.

And the swivel seal retaining ring is held on with 6 bolts.

Looks pretty much like my 1990 model axle except for the [ looks like ] recently added anti roll bar. Swivel balls look good. Only way to know what you have for sure is to strip a hub/ swivel housing and see what you have. Seals needed anyway. See if you have Raiko bush top pin or the later bearing. See if you have 10 or 24 spline shafts

I stuck a later diff in my 93, and I had to do some grinding on the casing as two of the bolts/studs were not long enough to get a full nut, so assuming my 93 axle is original and the diff was from a later car might be a reference point to look at?
Of course my new diff might have been from a different model d2 for example.

Just a note on axle numbers. I have just replaced my rear axle case. I used the main parts from my old axle (10 spline) so the axle number will now have no bearing on the actual build of my axle, so your number may not be as helpful as you think.

Bearing type


Railko type - note the extra height at the top.

I emailed the previous owner and he tells me that the axle is off an 04 110. But if this is the case, would the swivels be Teflon coated and there wouldn’t be a drain plug and level plug in the housing?

After so many years you just can not be sure what parts have been fitted in the past by others, new Teflon housings could have been fitted to the axle.

Hi, stripped it down and l look to have the bearing type swivel housing with a Raiko top pin bush, the drive shaft looks to have 24 splines. My question is, l’ve bought a DA3178 swivel kit, the top bearing type, will it fit the swivel housing?

I think the DA3178 replacement kit changes the bush for a taper roller bearing the same as lower one and should be good for an 04 axle. The bearing outer race fits where the female part of the bush sits. However you should check with supplier.