Brain Wracker

Has anyone ever come across a Rover axle diff piniion split pin, which secures the castellated nut, shear and the nut undo itself, dropping the front end of the propshaft onto the deck?
Fortunately, it happened at arouind 3mph as I was turning off a main road, instead of at my usual motorway speeds.
I have recently hads my gear and transfer boxes totally refurbed by Ashcrofts, and have done less than 400 miles since.
I have been informing the garage over a period of a few weeks that I was getting as noise, and had an oil leak, and was taking it back to them on Saturday morninng when it happened.
She is a 1989 110 Hardtop, with a 12J NA engine driving through an LT77 gearbox, Rover front and Salisbury rear axles.
Any comments would be welcome, as I have never known this happen to anyone, anywhere, ever, and I get the feeling that the garage will try and say that it is 'age related'!!

Takes a bit of force to shear a split pin, something is wrong in your diff if the nut work loosened and got to the point where it sheared the split pin. Just my opinion as never had anything like that before as I tend to spend more time fixing mine than driving it

It’s a good way when in dismantling and have to remove the castellated nut but the split pin won’t move, keep undoing and the split pin shears, and then clear whats left in the hole afterwards.

The only way to shear the split pin is to rotate the nut, which is prevented in your case by a split pin (although there are other methods that can be use now), and as there’s nothing to undo the nut once fitted and locked, that’s how it stays, so are sure that a split pin was fitted.

Many thanks for your responses my friends, which hgas reinforced my own thoughts.
No doubt the garage will say that it wasn't their fault, even though they are the only ones to have removed the prop, both when they did the chassis swap and when they replaced the gear and transfer boxes.
Even when I had a diff 'explode' years ago when I was 'up the Blue' I didn't lose the prop!!

Oldseadog said:

Many thanks for your responses my friends, which hgas reinforced my own thoughts.
No doubt the garage will say that it wasn't their fault, even though they are the only ones to have removed the prop, both when they did the chassis swap and when they replaced the gear and transfer boxes.
Even when I had a diff 'explode' years ago when I was 'up the Blue' I didn't lose the prop!!

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unless they had undone the nut and refitted it with or without split pin then it wouldnt be their fault,ive seen quite a few nuts come loose but yours the first i think ive heard that the flange came off

The pinion drive flange was still attached to the propshaft, with the nut and washer felt to be still inside it.

Yes for a nut to loosen that much in such a short space of time it must not have had split pin in place.

Why would they have taken the pin out if only the gearboxes were being changed? Unless maybe doing the pinion oil seal - did you ask/pay for that to be done?

boguing said:

Why would they have taken the pin out if only the gearboxes were being changed? Unless maybe doing the pinion oil seal - did you ask/pay for that to be done?

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a) No idea why it was removed, unless it was done by one of the trainees as the garage also ruins an apprentice training college
b) As far as am aware, the pinion seal did not need replacing and the work was not requested

What was it like to drive for the few miles you've done?

I rang them the week before to say that there appeared to be a noise from the gearbox, which waas also leaking oil, and I was told to take her in on the Saturdsy morning, which is when it happened.
I had just about stopped on the main road before turning in, when there was a bang and her body was lifted maybe an inch or two before crashing down. There was no obvious movement anywhere half an hour before, as I checked the UJ's on both shafts to make sure that there wasn't any rotary play ... and there wasn't, which meant, as far as I was concerned, that the problem was in the gearbox.
I have to admit that I did not check for lateral movement on either, as they had only recently been re-attached, and any lateral movement would have been obvious at the time.

Why did you check the UJs? Sorry to keep firing questions, but I've got a hunch and don't want to lead you...

To see if there was any obvious play on the transfer box bearings, and the UJ's are the nearest things to grab hold of to try and rattle aroound

And that was because of the rattle, or did something else feel wrong?

There wasn't a rattle as such, it was more of a rubbing/scrapeing noise as if the gearbox was running without oil, and there was also an oil leak from the hand brake backplate, which suggested that the noise was gearbox related.