Tell your broken axle stories

[thixon]

Just how weak are rover axles in everyones opinion? I've never broken one, but I know others have. What were the circumstances when you broke it? If you've converted to something else, what was it, and how are they working out? Just curious/wanted to start a new thread.

[Eric W S]

Merc Jim did a study on the 10 splines and the LR axles are good. It appears as if the diameter is the weak link, not the construction or material.

[BackInA88]

Let my 17 year old daughter drive my truck for the first time.
She backed out of the drive, put it in 1st, let out the clutch and BANG!!
Right at the bottom of the drive!

Engage the hubs, put in it in 4x4 and pulled it back in the garage.
Short first trip for her.

[Mercedesrover]

I sent an original Land Rover axle out for composition analysis and destructive testing a year or two ago. I wrote something up about it on this board I thought but can't find it. Anyway, as said, these shafts are pretty decent, all things considered. The weakness comes from being a relatively hard shaft with the combination of a small diameter. Failures occur from work hardening and in the end all original Land Rover shafts will succomb to this. They're a good shaft, and good enough for people with small tires that don't off-road too much. Even so, the shafts should be changed every 20k-30k miles and a spare set should be carried along.

With bigger tires or moderate to heavy off-road use you're best off to upgrade to something stronger. Here's what I use:

[yorker]

They aren't just small in diameter- the coarse splines concentrate stress at the bottom of the spline. They are made of a good material as per Jim's analysis but they are just too small for the work that is asked of them. What is the closest US axle design? Dana 30? Heck even the Dana 30 has more splines...

They are somewhat similar to US 1/4 ton Jeep axles from the '40s and '50s.

Somewhere I have a bunch of these axles that have broken or are close to breaking, when I get a chance this summer I'll but up some comparative photos.


They often will start to twist when you apply a lot of torque- like when offroading but won't break right away- you'll find they'll pop at a stoplight on the way home or some other inconvenient time. I'd check them at every oil change and after ever serious offroading event.

[leafsprung]

They are comparable to a samurai axle which is 1.09 but finer spline. (and the sammurai guys swap those out)

[Tim Smith]

My most recent breakage was about 6 months ago (uh oh, has it been that long already?) while on my way to work.

I was taking a little side road that exits at a steep angle onto a steep hill. There must have been 3 or 4 cars behind me. As I proceeded away from the stop sign, I got about 10 feet forward and *BANG*. I knew what it was and immediately started laughing to myself as I held the truck on the brakes.

Unfortunately I had the front hubs unlocked and couldn't do anything but roll back wards. So I waved the franticly late driver behind me to go around and began my decent off the side of the road and into the woods adjoining it. Also unfortunate for me, there weren't any rocks or other decent obstacles to hold the truck against such that I could hop out and lock them. So further into the woods I rolled.

By the time I stopped (in someones woods about 30' from the road) there must have been at least 10 cars at the stop sign all gaping at me as if I had gone mad or had one too many before heading out the door that morning. Half of them were on their cell phones to what I can only presume were the cops.

I hopped out, locked the hubs, hopped in again and proceeded to exit back onto the road. The nice thing was, no one tried to cut me off. The bad thing was, I could now hear police sirens in the area.

[yorker]

I'd be curious to see how they held up on Bobby Long's machine- anyone have any to send him to pop? Mine are all under 3' of snow and ice... Jim- you must have a spare front axleshaft and drive flange laying around from your 88 or current 109 project?

[JAy]

I had just gotten my truck, I was I think 19 years old. I had had the truck for about a month and I was at a party at a friends place. When we were leaving I backed onto his lawn, put it in first and dropped the clutch. But the wheels didn't move. I locked in the hubs and drove home, wondering what I had done to my new toy. It was easy enough to figure out, and I asked around to get some new shafts through the usual chain a newbie goes through (notes on trucks around town). About a week later and a bunch of notes and phone calls, someone I didn't know showed up at my door with a new set of rear axles. They were thicker than my old ones, they didn't reduce in diameter at the end of the plines like the ones I originally had in the truck. I ran them for about 5 years with no problems, lots of off roading, but with fairly small 30" tires. They are still in the truck, but it's been in my garage since then, having the motor rebuilt in my typical procrastinating fashion.

[Jeff Aronson]

The first time an axle shaft broke on me was in the early 90's, about 3 years after I bought the QE I, my '66 Series II-A 88" SW.

I sat at a traffic light in Springfield, VT, hundreds of miles from home in Maine, and when I started up the car would not go - no noise, just no go. I rolled the car back near a sidewalk, found a pay phone and called Rovers North. Lanny Clark told me to lock the front hubs. if that didn't do it, then I had a more serious problem in the transmission. The locked hubs/4 wheel drive lever did the trick. The next day, while I worked in Chester, VT, the shafts arrived and a local gas station helped put them in.

Later that decade, an axle broke with a more traditional bang, again on pavement. It took East Coast Rover to help me out because the shaft end seemed embedded into the differential. Then, in 2005, another one broke with a bang on a below zero morning, and 80 miles later, I was back home. Again, it would only come up with a lot of prodding at ECR.

What I've learned is that in virtually every instance, the axle gives you lots of hints that it is operating loosely in the axle tube. There's plenty of clunking on takeoff, so I was never surprised. The excess movement causes a lot of wear, compounded by the 400,000 + miles on the differentials.

On a few occasions in the 500,000 miles I've owned the car, I've actually taken the 10 minutes or so required to remove both axle sharts and look them over. If the splines are worn, I've replaced them before they break. Preventative maintenance can go a long way to reducing the likelihood of axle breakage.

But, of course, I will now suffer a broken axle - just for claiming otherwise

Jeff

[Tim Smith]

Sometimes it's not the axle at all.

I've had the hub connection plate thingy fail once. You know, it's the receiving end on the outer side of the axle. In that case, the truck kinda' wanted to go but of course wouldn't. That was perhaps the easiest one to fix. And for some strange reason I was actually carrying the part with me.

[Saxondog]

So has rover remedied this short coming on the later Disco , Rangie axles?

[yorker]

The RRC , Disco and D90 were full time 4wd so that reduced the stress on the 10 spline rear axle. Later they changed to 24 spline 1.24"(?) axles which were also stronger. The Series Rovers never benefited from this during their production but some were fitted with Salisbury rear axles which are essentially a 1.24": 24 spline Dana 60 or ENV axles which were related to Eaton axles and very HD.

[jp-]

My first (and only) experience with a broken axle (not really an axle break)was when my father was rolling down the driveway in the 109" and he accidentally let the clutch out. There was a great BANG. He locked the hubs and pulled back up the driveway. This was probably around 1992. A few years earlier, he and my uncle went in on 2 sets of custom rear axles. I don't know who made them, but they were guaranteed not to break.

When we tried to remove the axles (that we thought were broken) they would not come out. In fact, they were so tight, that we had to use an engine hoist, chained to the axle. The engine hoist was laid sideways and was pressing against the rear tire as it "jacked" out the axle. I wish I had a photo. It worked and the axles broke free. Neither axle was broken. Both were twisted about 20-30 degrees on each end at the splines. The differential was destroyed. A few days later my father ordered a Salisbury diff from RN. It is still under the 109" and is doing great. I also still have those twisted axles and the blown diff.

[jp-]

My most recent breakage was about 6 months ago (uh oh, has it been that long already?) while on my way to work.

I was taking a little side road that exits at a steep angle onto a steep hill. There must have been 3 or 4 cars behind me. As I proceeded away from the stop sign, I got about 10 feet forward and *BANG*. I knew what it was and immediately started laughing to myself as I held the truck on the brakes.

Unfortunately I had the front hubs unlocked and couldn't do anything but roll back wards. So I waved the franticly late driver behind me to go around and began my decent off the side of the road and into the woods adjoining it. Also unfortunate for me, there weren't any rocks or other decent obstacles to hold the truck against such that I could hop out and lock them. So further into the woods I rolled.

By the time I stopped (in someones woods about 30' from the road) there must have been at least 10 cars at the stop sign all gaping at me as if I had gone mad or had one too many before heading out the door that morning. Half of them were on their cell phones to what I can only presume were the cops.

I hopped out, locked the hubs, hopped in again and proceeded to exit back onto the road. The nice thing was, no one tried to cut me off. The bad thing was, I could now hear police sirens in the area.

Tim,

I'm just guessing here, but maybe you should have a look at your emergency brake?