why always me ?

Greetings all,
where do i start? coming home sunday night, doing about 60, suddenly a 2 second "light vibration" large crack, loss of drive and a jingling from under the car. Tried to slow down in a controled manner when suddenly there was a dredfull bang and immense knocking under the gearbox tunnel, there was sparks coming under the console and a large red glow from beside the passenger seat. The car was full of smoke, we pulled over and got out asap. After a calm down i looked back inside,no fire but passenger seat airbag had deployed. Under the car the front prop had parted at uj on g/box end and wedged itself between g/box and tunnel. Had real good look this morning and removed prop, there is a 6"x4" gash in tunnel wall,gear selector switch smashed to bits and cable linkage and bracket broke,Gear selector shaft into g/box is also bent but prob will strieghten. Now for the advice, is it likely to have caused any other damage ? ecu etc. What activates the seat airbag and will it need replacing? does anything need hooking up to a computer to reset anything? im thinking of replacing the seat rether than the airbag. Any info or ideas gladly welcome. new prop/switch and cable ordered. cheers phil

New pair of underwear would be my first move....

Feck that...hope you and any passangers are OK....

You'll need to reset the SRS ECU...or maybe replace it, not sure how they respond to activation.

I would also check the diffs, as something caused the prop toand UJ to shatter...

Also check your VCU for correct operation too...

Hope you all are OK after what would be a pant soiling event!

Cheers , lucky for me we had some poop bags in the car

Sh..............t
wow glad youa are all ok.

Take your time and chack everything that turns.

Check oil levels and all V8 has advised.

be very diligent in your process. i think other than the mechanical check, all should be well. but get to the bottom of the problem..

best wishes,

AA winched it on to the flatbed. with no grating or hesitation from the drivetrain, all wheels n propshafts turning as wheels rotated with no problems. cheers phil

Jesus... Please let us know what caused this, I really do not want this to happen to me or any other one for that matter. If you find a weakness at some point I am sure that we will all have a look just in order to be on the safe side!

Good luck!

F##k me id have sh## it and run too
If its all transmition id try see if the air bag has prevented the car from starting. Prob need to have it reset dont know if the bag needs repalcing first though
Was waching topgear other night when clarckson was driving a bmw on a rough road and his air bag went off too. Seems heavy vibration can set them off.
Anyway once car starts and visual damage repaired and all fluids checked
put it on axle stand and run it in gear slowly look for any vibration knocking ect.. Then Drive it slowly turning through a figure of 8 forward and backwards slowly building speed
You said it was winched onto truck with np problem so i think youve just suffered the visual damage and the gearbox itself should be ok
Hope all goes well, and glad your all ok

A fired airbag means the SRS ECU will have to be replaced, cheap enough on Ebay but make sure you order the correct one for your car and specify that has not fired.
UJ's fail due to poor or lack of maintenance, the originals need grease at every service or after off roading/wading.
If the front one had failed, you could have pole vaulted when it dug in, easy in a lighter vehicle.

thanks for all the advice, quick look this morning showed a circlip missing from the propshaft yolk, could have come out during the incident, or may have caused it. i was under the car on thursday fitting new trans cooler pipes and made a point of giving the prop a good workout, but all seemed well (but didnt check for missing circlips!!!).Where does the srs ecu live at? Would it be likely the auto ecu would have shoted when the prop smashed the gear selector to bits?? cheers phil

phil13 said:

thanks for all the advice, quick look this morning showed a circlip missing from the propshaft yolk, could have come out during the incident, or may have caused it. i was under the car on thursday fitting new trans cooler pipes and made a point of giving the prop a good workout, but all seemed well (but didnt check for missing circlips!!!).Where does the srs ecu live at? Would it be likely the auto ecu would have shoted when the prop smashed the gear selector to bits?? cheers phil

Click to expand...

SRS ECU is under the centre console below the rear ashtray, a bugger to get at.
Auto ECU is most probably OK, gear selector switch can be a bugger to adjust though.

just a couple if pics

Looking at the pics, but to me it looks like that UJ hasn't seen a grease gun in years....

No residula on the nipple, the yoke legs looking rusted and the general look isn't greasy at all....

You are one lucky mofo...get down the local church or whatever and say thank you to whatever divine being you want, cos somebody was looking after you that day!!!

As Saint.V8 said, that has not seen grease in years, mine are black with grease where it leaks out of the seals.

It was greased just before christmas, i did it myself !!. I'm a fitter in a quarry with 40t dump trucks i know how important it is to keep ujs greased, i think the missing circlip could be the cause . Who do i ask for when i get to the local church??? Cheers phil

phil13 said:

It was greased just before christmas, i did it myself !!. I'm a fitter in a quarry with 40t dump trucks i know how important it is to keep ujs greased, i think the missing circlip could be the cause . Who do i ask for when i get to the local church??? Cheers phil

Click to expand...

Appreciate that you may have greased the UJ, but it sure looks like if you did it was the first time it was greased for many a year, hence why there is no build up of old grease apparent...

When you get to the Church no need to see anyone, just walk in say 'Thank You' and walk out.....!!

not the worst ive seen but you can grease them it doesnt mean all bearing cups are going to get grease , its not uncommon ,i must have re-cased half a dozen auto boxes were the prop had knocked a hole in the case

i aint been in years ,maybe i should go once in a while!!!

phil13 said:

It was greased just before christmas, i did it myself !!. I'm a fitter in a quarry with 40t dump trucks i know how important it is to keep ujs greased, i think the missing circlip could be the cause . Who do i ask for when i get to the local church??? Cheers phil

Click to expand...

You should see grease weep out of all 4 seals, you may have put a gun on it but the grease did not get to where it was needed.

Do props let go like that there is always a warning that its bad like a rumble or somthing even when there's is a little play or dry they Squeal.

Yes i've had both those symptoms on a defender and they came with pleanty of warning. also tractor PTO powered equipment that if pushed to the limit (with no sheer bolt protection)would spiral the pto shaft rather than the uj fail. It does look like the circlip, for whatever reason has come out and allowed the bearing cap to move allowing the uj to uncouple itself. The yolk on the prop has minimal damage and both bearing caps are still intact and sat in the yolk. Im keeping the parts to show our driveline specialist that we deal with, on his next visit to the quarry to get his opinion. Next question folks----will the airbag deploying imobilise the vehicle in any way or should it start up when a new gear selector switch is fitted? cheers phil