New rear halfshaft - now have awful grinding noise!

Neither of my TD5’s were fitted with one piece rear drive shafts

But it seems from the above replies that LR did fit them to some versions, so my previous comment (that LR didn’t fit one piece drive shafts) is incorrect.

Ok. Quick update. Managed to have another go this morning. I took a couple of mm off the shaft. It is now definitely shorter than the original.
Refitted again. Lightly tightened bolts and checked the hub still turned ok by hand without any binding. All good.
But as I progressively tightened the bolts up it got stiffer and stiffer until it fully locked up the axle on that side.
Repeated procedure on the other side. The same result.
Put the old ones back on again and followed the same procedure as above - still good - no binding or tightening up issues.
Properly stumped!

Sounds to me like the shafts are not square to the drive flanges, worth a look.

Shrubby69 said:

Ok. Quick update. Managed to have another go this morning. I took a couple of mm off the shaft. It is now definitely shorter than the original.
Refitted again. Lightly tightened bolts and checked the hub still turned ok by hand without any binding. All good.
But as I progressively tightened the bolts up it got stiffer and stiffer until it fully locked up the axle on that side.
Repeated procedure on the other side. The same result.
Put the old ones back on again and followed the same procedure as above - still good - no binding or tightening up issues.
Properly stumped!

Click to expand...

Got any pics of the shafts side by side?

Could the inner part be catching onto the bearings?
+1 photos

Or could the end be sat on the stub axle when tightened. Check the depth ?

There just has to be something wrong with the new shafts if the system is fine with the old one's. Where did you get them from?

Hi all. Thanks for the additional suggestions - all will be checked out next time I have a chance to take a look.

They are Bearmach one-piece shafts - they should be decent quality.
In my rush to have another go at fitting them before the storm arrived Saturday morning I didn't think to take any photo's. Next time I have a go I'll do side by side pictures of both sets.
I would agree that there must be something different about them compared to the originals - both sides have the same issue - would be pretty unlucky to have manufacturing issues on both sides.
I also checked that I couldn't have inadvertently ordered the wrong set - but I think that the same spec one-piece flange/halfshafts have been used for donkeys years.

Are the flanges the same thickness, if they are thinner they will pull shaft in further. Or I recall someone having a problem with the bolts being slightly too long for the flange and catching at the back, try fitting bolts with a temporary washer to see if it cures it. Or did I dream that.

Scooby22 said:

Are the flanges the same thickness, if they are thinner they will pull shaft in further. Or I recall someone having a problem with the bolts being slightly too long for the flange and catching at the back, try fitting bolts with a temporary washer to see if it cures it. Or did I dream that.

Click to expand...

On mine the bolt holes into the hub that the flange bolts go into are 'blind' - they don't come out the other side. As people have said above I'd be wondering if the neck of the shaft where it joins the flange is fouling on the end of the stub axle. Are there any 'witness marks' where they've been touching?

When you take the shafts back out, roll the shafts on your kitchen worktop - it will show up any bend in the shaft or out of square flange to shaft. Crude but effective.