Front prop shaft play

[rbonnett]

After 15 years of ordinary cars, I finally have another Rover. '64 109 - 2.25 petrol. I bought it assuming I'd have plenty of chances to get greasy (isn't that half the fun?). Anyway, here's the first of I'm sure many bits of advice I'll need:

I did drive it around for 45 minutes when I first looked at it. No issues except for soft brakes. Ran in 2 and 4WD - no startling noises or clunking that I noticed. I didn't even think to try low range though. After, I crawled around underneath and under the bonnet - no obvious leaking or fresh looking fluids.

Sunday I picked it up and drove 250 miles home - the only problem I had is a slow drip where the gas filler mates onto the filler pipe from the tank. After I got home I was underneath again and noticed fresh lubricant all over the bottom of the oil pan, the whole length of the front prop shaft and the bottom of the cross member under the transfer case. The tranny and TC themselves were clean. There was quite a bit of oil, not enough to be dripping but i was beading up and very fresh.

I checked levels in the engine, both diffs, tranny and XC. All seemed fine, but it must be coming from somewhere. Something posessed me to check the prop shafts. The rear shaft has no play or wiggle at all. The front shaft has no play side-to-side or back-to-front. However, it does have play rotating it - maybe 5 degrees or so. Also, the rubber boot on the front shaft is just 2 bits of rubber under the clamps - the middle is just totally gone.

Before I go overboard and start taking everything apart, I wanted to get some advice on probable causes for this. Again, there were not any noises in 4WD that weren't there without it during my test drive. I'm going to do a 4WD test again this evening, when I have someone to help get it home just in case...

Any ideas?

Thanks

[jac04]

If you had the emergency brake on, that would explain the lack of rotational 'play' in the rear propshaft versus the front.
You will always have some play when rotating the propshaft - it is due to the lash in the drivetrain at the gears and splines. Just make sure that the u-joints are still good. Replacing the rubber boot is a good idea as well to keep from getting dirt into the splines. (let me know via PM if you need one - I have an extra one from my current restoration project).

[TSR53]

Welcome to the forum, good post! My guess would be to clean off all the excess oil and then run it a few miles and check to see again where it could be coming from.

[Cosmic88]

the nose knows

What color is the expelled oil? Find a bit of oil down there which hasn't been contaminated by old road dirt / old oil and, if you can, give a fresh sample a good sniff. Does it smell like heavy gear oil or engine oil?

This should help narrow down your search....