Should my front axle have any lateral movement?

Swivels all good and no play. Here are some pics of the front hanger both look the same. I think dropping and checking might be the next step, although out on the roadside in the cold and wet is not much fun, the joys of ownership.

That looks odd, what's going on with that washer that is off centre?
I had to do mine at the road side, just put a bottle jack in between the spring and chassis then put a block of wood in. You can do the whole job with it still on its wheels and its a lot safer.

It does all look a little odd, weirdly I remember there being 2 nuts per thread, were as now there is clearly only 1 and some washers, must be getting old. I have axels stands and a couple of jacks so it will be well supported.

Abetter look in daylight and no rain revels what must be a record of 3 nuts holding the thing down!!!!

Doesn't necessarily mean the nut doing the actual tightening is tight.

And that's why they are all coming off. I assume that the proper shackles would be a little shorter as the springs have only 2 leaves. I have also noted that the drivers side is more D shaped at the top yet all the shackles that come with the springs are rounded. Is there a reason for this that anyone knows off?

The squared one is due to the shape of the axle at that point. You need to get some U bolts to suit your parabolic springs. Normally if the spring axle joint has movement you can see red oxide where the two parts are moving in relation to each other.

Extra nuts are larger and just used as spacers, doubt it is your issue, but I would say poor from an engineering point of view.

Back to the front spring eye, all that rust suggests to me something is moving in there.
I see slack and loose u-bolts all the time at work, before I even start hitting things it is the fresh rust that is the giveaway sign, more of an issue on the toy trucks rather than the full size ones.

I tried polybushes once on my 90, it was never right aftewards, several months later and back to std metalastic bushes and normal service was resumed, this bought about a big downside to the polys, they let water in lots of it, and this helps the bolts/sleeve rust badly making things a right barsteward to get apart.
Do not see polys on commercial vehicles, says it all for me.

This is the front lower arm off a D3 that had polys fitted, they do not do well on polys!

I am with you on the polys, I intend to rebush them with original land rover parts. From what I have read it seems on general that many people revert back to original but use poly in the chassis. Thanks for pointing out the rust problem , for me its deal beaker for poly.

bultacobob said:

I am with you on the polys, I intend to rebush them with original land rover parts. From what I have read it seems on general that many people revert back to original but use poly in the chassis. Thanks for pointing out the rust problem , for me its deal beaker for poly.

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Check first, as I can vaguely remember some of the para springs had different size bushes to the std l/r srpings bushes?

The metalastics are very cheap and if you change them every few years its a quick easy job. The problem is they last so well they rust in then its not an easy job. In industrial applications I've found the metalastics way outlast the poly-bushes.

rob1miles said:

The metalastics are very cheap and if you change them every few years its a quick easy job. The problem is they last so well they rust in then its not an easy job. In industrial applications I've found the metalastics way outlast the poly-bushes.

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The early cars had two metalastic bushes in each spring eye, they were so good I only replaced one eyes worth on my 59 about 6 years ago, the rest are still original!

The plan is to drop the spring and then extract the bush and measure it. I have found a site with different sized bushes so hopefully will get a match. Plan B is to just buy a complete new front set with the proper U bolts and start again without the hassle.