New Diff Fitted - strange noise before I road test!

2001ytd4 said:

I sympathise with ya mate. After spending alot of money on my td4 I have decided to get rid of it due to the continuouse droning noise coming from somewhere. Does my head in. similar noise as your getting. Now trading it in for a normal car. My td4 is mint and only getting £1500 for it trade.

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Mine is not so much a droning but a bearing/growl/wob wob noise with a vibration at 55mph.

I have a rubber damper on the back of the vcu as seen in this vid:
YouTube - viscous coupling test.

The Mad Hat Man said:

Tyres - you have sawtoothed tyres - it is a common problem.

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I have 4 brand new tyres so thats not the problem.

pic of my assembly:

2001ytd4 said:

I have 4 brand new tyres so thats not the problem.

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ok - so its not sawtoothing.
when did the noise start?
did it coincide with any work carried out?
have you only noticed it since the rear diff change?
did they carry out any other work?
has it always been there, or only after diff change?
have the half shafts at the rear been checked?
rear wheel bearings?

Rebuilt rear diff, ird, recon vcu, rear cv joints renewed. Noisewas there before all work carried out by myself.

Im gutted. I love the car put im ****ed off with the paranoya i have of it. Im constantly listening for noises and just waiting for something else to go wrong. My advice to anyone who ownes a good freelander with nothing wrong with it is to get rid of it while there IS nothing wrong with it. .

NO!

youve got it all wrong - they are lovely reliable motors - the saviour of Landrover!























so we keep being told .

well I got under mine tonight and loosened both VCU bearings..cut some 1/2" diameter pipe to length (61mm and 91mm) and put them between bearing and VCU to ensure they were set at right angles to the VCU. they were both slightly off! took out for a drive and the noise has reduced by 50%!!! PROGRESS!!!!

there is still a noise though but quieter..you think I've knackered the rubber in the bearings by running them offset and making them noisy for the past 3weeks?

It will be the bearings themselves not the rubber mounts that are knackered. I've always had a suspicion it was noisy VCU bearings but you said they were OEM which don't normally give up so easily.

If your sure thats where the noise is from (between the seats) then only option is to replace them unless your prepared to live with the reduced noisy level for the time being.

spoke to garage who originally fitted VCU and they said they fitted branded bearings! possibly gkn or spicer. Landrover bearings come in at £75each so if I want them they will replace at no charge and only charge me the £30 difference in parts price between branded and Landrover!. not bad idea to try hey?!

I think they are deliberately being a little vague saying 'branded', you'd think they would know for sure if they had used OEM quality. Many people have reported that the cheaper pattern bearings have failed within months or been noisy from the moment they were fitted.
I'm pretty sure GKN are the OEM for the Land Rover ones. Maybe somebody else can confirm that.
Take them up on the offer if they are going to used LR boxed bearings. It seems you are on the right track now and hopefully this will be a result. If not then for a relatively small cost you will be able to safely rule them out.

FIXED!!

Got it back from the indies today. As requested they fitted me some genuine landrover bearings (I even saw the Hunters van arrive on friday at the garage when i dropped my truck off - they were delivering my bearings!)

Picked it up yesterday and they said they had fitted the new bearings but are sure it was just road noise and dont think there has been any change! I told them id take it home and report back, settling any charges if it hadnt been fixed!

Well I drove it home awaiting the dreaded growl/drone.......NOTHING!! I tried it a few times at slow speeds, stopping slowing down and speeding up...nothing! I couldnt get the noise to come back! great!
So I then took it on the road up to speed...NO VIBRATION at 55!!!

So, it looks like the GKN/Spicer branded ones were either fitted poorly or were faulty - either way all my woes are now over with the drive train.

I now have a fully overhauled rear diff in the garage if anyone wants to buy it )

Thanks for all your help chaps,

Is there a better way of aligning the VCU mounts other than by eye?

What's this method you mentioned with bits of pipe?

joe27979 said:

FIXED!!

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Congrats.....

you can align them using a good ruler, just measure left and right from the back of the bearing housing to the vcu. when both measurements are the same the bearing should be square.

Nice one cheers.... just couldn't quite get my brain to think 'outside the box' on that one!