Freelander 1 Yet another VCU thread

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Madmustang said:
Be very careful with that. I did just that thinking there was nowt wrong with mine until it sounded like ww2 under my car when the outrigger collapsed. Saftey first use known jacking points. Now I have a double pain in the a$$. I have a welding job on and no car becasue the MOT is out :-(
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The Haynes book shows the rails as "official" jacking points, as well as the pressed-in mark in the middle of the rear cross-member thing, and the lashing point at the front. Can't see how you'd bust an outrigger by lifting on the rails.

Anyway, it's done now :). All off the car without too much trouble. Had a bit of a moment where the VCU suddenly dropped a bit - turns out you can't hang it from one bolt, cos it's all swivelly flexible bearings. But on the plus side the sudden drop yanked the rear flanges apart, which I'd been having trouble with, and I already had a bit of string around the shaft ready so it didn't hit the ground.

So the car's OK and I can get to work tomorrow, which is good, but the parts on the bench are putting up a bit of a fight. The rear shaft popped off ok, but the front one does not want to let go. Also the rear bearing won't move, but that's not a big deal as I can leave it on there for Mr Bell to deal with, I have new ones coming. Front shaft is rather important, though.

IMG_0701.JPG

I've trimmed away the rubber around the bearing to move the bracket and get better access. I've been hitting the end of the shaft as hard as I dare with the hammer and bar in the picture. I've also tried putting a nut against the face of the splined VCU shaft as a spacer, and then levering between that and the propshaft lugs. No apparent effect from either of them. I've given up for the day now, and left it up on end soaking in PlusGas - but does anyone have any other cunning ideas?

Thanks,

Pete
 
A bit of heat should help. Use the bolt as a levering point and apply some heat to the UJ yolk. That should get it free. If not then heat and a hammer will do the trick;)
 
Have you loosened the bolt and removed the collar?
If so wind the bolt out until the head is proud, then jam a cold chisel in between the bolt head and the UJ and take a heavy hammer to it. If you're lucky it'll shift fairly easily but don't be surprised it you have to beat merry hell out of it and end up ruining the bolt and possibly the UJ.
 
Alibro said:
Have you loosened the bolt and removed the collar?
If so wind the bolt out until the head is proud, then jam a cold chisel in between the bolt head and the UJ and take a heavy hammer to it. If you're lucky it'll shift fairly easily but don't be surprised it you have to beat merry hell out of it and end up ruining the bolt and possibly the UJ.
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+1

Worked well for me. As shown in the Freelander Specialist video "with the glove". Loosen the bolt first, take out the U 'washer', probably do the bolt up a bit, jam a chisel down the join of the UJ pressing against the bolt ans slightly poking past the UJ on 'exit' side - hit with hammer. This will push the prop away from the VCU a little bit. Withdraw the chisel, undo bolt a bit more and repeat. This looks to be much more 'friendly' towards the UJ than just whacking it directly with a hammer.

Pete_TD4 said:
Had a bit of a moment where the VCU suddenly dropped a bit - turns out you can't hang it from one bolt, cos it's all swivelly flexible bearings.
Click to expand...

Maybe next time...

GrumpyGel said:
Then losen the 4 bolts on the support bearings a bit, then get a trolley jack under the VCU and remove the 4 bolts. Lower the VCU on the trolly jack.
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GrumpyGel said:
Loosen the bolt first, take out the U 'washer', probably do the bolt up a bit, jam a chisel down the join of the UJ pressing against the bolt ans slightly poking past the UJ on 'exit' side - hit with hammer. This will push the prop away from the VCU a little bit. Withdraw the chisel, undo bolt a bit more and repeat.
Click to expand...

Ah - so hitting the chisel downwards using it as a wedge, rather than sideways using it as a lever?

I actually took the bolt right out (it just fit), though I'm not really sure now why I did that :). Will have to see if I can get it back in in order to do the chisel-wedge trick.

GrumpyGel said:
Maybe next time...
Then losen the 4 bolts on the support bearings a bit, then get a trolley jack under the VCU and remove the 4 bolts. Lower the VCU on the trolly jack.
Click to expand...
I always planned to lower the VCU on the jack, just got a bit ahead of myself taking out too many bolts before I was ready to drop it :)

Cheers,

Pete
 
We have all done it (Except those that are perfect) so you will need to take the lot off the car. Clamping it down helps when you are smacking it about. Put the bolt and the u washer back in. Open the bolt up just enough so you can get the chisel in. SMACK! The chisel a few times. If the chisel fly’s out, reposition and repeat. It will edge forward a mil at a time off the splines. Open the bolt a little more and keep Appling the loosen juice until it’s off…. Simples.
 
Madmustang said:
We have all done it (Except those that are perfect) so you will need to take the lot off the car. Clamping it down helps when you are smacking it about. Put the bolt and the u washer back in. Open the bolt up just enough so you can get the chisel in. SMACK! The chisel a few times. If the chisel fly’s out, reposition and repeat. It will edge forward a mil at a time off the splines. Open the bolt a little more and keep Appling the loosen juice until it’s off…. Simples.
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I found that the chisel wouldn't fly out when hitting it - quite the reverse, it got lodged in there and needed a tap to get it back out - but the forces holding it lodged in then ejected it very rapidly once dislodged!

When I came to removing the support bearings I needed to secure the VCU so it didn't move - but I don't have a vice. I had a good look round the garage to see if there was anything that could help and eventually came across my ramps (the steel frame type). The VCU/damper fits snugly in one of the 2 'holes' at the top of the ramp and it worked perfectly. I could then "delicately" (ie with as much force as I could muster with hammer and chisel) knock the bearings off.
Pete_TD4 said:
Ah - so hitting the chisel downwards using it as a wedge, rather than sideways using it as a lever?
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That's the way :)
 
Thanks guys - just got the shaft off with the chisel technique :)

The chisel didn't escape unharmed though - this was straight when I started:
IMG_0704.JPG
No way the bearings are coming off, so I'm going to leave them for the reconditioner to deal with. Sure he's better equipped for the job than me.

Just hope I didn't knacker the UJ with all that rough treatment.

Pete
 
GrumpyGel said:
Once again this is probably another issue caused by salt on UK roads! Its probably corroded it a lot more solid than the prop I was dismantling. No sign of warping on my chisel!
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Chisels ain't all the same. A good quality one would be fine whereas our cheap Chinesium ones bend easily. :oops:
 
GrumpyGel said:
Once again this is probably another issue caused by salt on UK roads! Its probably corroded it a lot more solid than the prop I was dismantling. No sign of warping on my chisel!
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Obviously not wishing to troll the freelander section! :oops: :D

But just out of interest, is there no road salt in NZ? I thought Sarf Island was quite cold, especially the higher bits. IIRC there are quite a few ski resorts, which to my mind would suggest snow and ice?
 
Turboman said:
Obviously not wishing to troll the freelander section! :oops: :D

But just out of interest, is there no road salt in NZ? I thought Sarf Island was quite cold, especially the higher bits. IIRC there are quite a few ski resorts, which to my mind would suggest snow and ice?
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Yeh, you're right. Where I am in Christchurch its a coastal (sea level) town, so we may not get snow every year here in Chch but we often do - rather like the south of England. Winter temps here will go down well below -5 and most mornings we'll have a hard frost - in fact the hard frosts are great because it means its going to be a fantastic day :)

Within a 90 minute drive of here we have access to at least 1/2 dozen ski fields.

We're in the middle of the island - if you go further south, it gets really cold! That's where the well known ski towns of Queenstown and Wanaka are.

We don't have so many rainy days here though as in UK which helps when it comes to keeping cars on roads!

At the end of the day though there are lots of days where there is snow/frost on the roads and councils do not put salt down. They do grit roads, but not salt. There doesn't appear to be lots of cold weather related accidents either.

This is a Christchurch pic...

PICT0005.JPG
 
Turboman said:
Obviously not wishing to troll the freelander section! :oops: :D

But just out of interest, is there no road salt in NZ? I thought Sarf Island was quite cold, especially the higher bits. IIRC there are quite a few ski resorts, which to my mind would suggest snow and ice?
Click to expand...

Absolutely no need for salt on the roads anywhere. It does little to get vehicles moving and cause 99% of all vehicular corrosion.
Winter tyres are a far superior way to keep vehicles moving in winter and don't rust the vehicle away in the process.
 
It is really amazing the difference.

My '99 car looks almost brand new underneath - where as much younger UK cars look atrocious.

A simple test is removing the bumper. To a Tratterer removing the bumper is probably 8 hefty bolts. On a Freelander its 12 silly little screws, 3 scrivets and 2 small bolts. Every time I read about someone removing the bumper in the UK, the screws need drilling out. On my car, and the 2000 parts car, they have all just unscrewed without any hassle or even WD40.
 
andyfreelandy said:
Previous post question got missed in the banter !
SO ...........
Did anyone compare the time for a 45 deg turn with VCU on the car to the time for a 45 degree with VCU off the car?

If rear axle ratio is about 3:1 then would it be about 1/3 of the time - or is it not that simple??
Just thought that if we knew the conversion factor for on or off the car we can test when refurbed before fitting !

Just bought a tight VCU to refurb and it times at 25 secs on the bench. would this have been about 75 secs on the car??
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Bench test figures in this post are approx to about the nearest second. I will delete the values in this post and replace it with a link to the full bench test results with different weights in the main vcu testing fred soon, when I put them up after timing them all. Figures are the same when my vcu was brand new and after a few thousand miles.

The test is all about force applied
force in Nm applied = length of bar x 9.8 x weight on bar

owut with 5kg on a 1.2m bar is 35.5 seconds
bench test on vcu with 5kg on a 0.38m bar is approx 41 seconds

owut with 8kg on a 1.2m bar is 16 seconds
bench test on vcu with 8kg on a 0.38m bar is approx 20 seconds
 
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