rear axel not reciving power?

[derekchace]

Hey Guys,
I was out driving my 1975 Air Portable in the woods today and encountered little problem. The rear axle is no longer receiving any power. The Rover will only drive in 4 wheel drive using the 2 front wheels. There was no noise, no grinding and the drive shaft is still spinning fine. Any one have an ideas?

[graniterover]

If the rear driveshaft is spinning fine, the most likely issue is a broken half shaft. I don't know why you didn't hear it, but it could have been cracked half way through and just didn't make noise. I've seen them twisted and cracked and not broken before, maybe yours was like that and the force to finish it off was minimal. Just pull the halfshafts and look. It's like 5 min work.

Mark

[derekchace]

Cool I will have my neighbor/ rover repair guy look at it. I just hope its not that expensive. I guess its a good chance to learn how to fix it with him. It was odd there was no loud noise nothing, but we were by a rushing river and talking so maybe I just did not hear it.

[LH Drive]

Yeah pull the half shafts, these are full floater axles so no need to remove the wheels/tire to repair broken axle shafts. Mine long side snapped pulling from a signal light and it was not that loud of noise like i've heard.
It was an easy job, you will have to remove the third member to get to the broken chunk, tap it out with a long steel punch. I used the red high temp sylicone form a gasket stuff. Worked great and best of all fixed the rear diff leak I had.

[derekchace]

any idea what a general cost would be?

[NepentheSea]

Hmm probably not worth repairing. Lucky you posted on here though, because I could use one for parts and could give you $400 bucks for it.

[jac04]

any idea what a general cost would be?

From your pictures, you have the flat hub caps, which means you have Air Portable specific rear axles. They are about $250 for the short side and $290 for the long side. Ouch!!

[derekchace]

at least they are easy to replace.

[SafeAirOne]

Check the rear drive flanges, too. If you didn't hear your axle snap, it could just be worn/stripped splines in a rear drive flange. These go silently and have symptoms exactly as you describe. Easy fix.

[jac04]

Just remember that the drive flanges for the Air Portable are different.

[Tim Smith]

Driving through a rushing river? Do yourself a favor and drain the fluids in both your axles. Any time you drive through water, you're pretty much inviting it.

[greenmeanie]

Just remember that the drive flanges for the Air Portable are different.

A lot of air portables had the unique half shafts and flanges replaced with stock civvy ones in service. The low profile caps were only to allow two trucks to sit next to each other in the width of the load bay of an Argosy. Even the MOD realised that was not necessary later in the vehicle's life. No need to stick with expensive parts unless you are building a show truck.

[jac04]

^^ True. I just wanted to make sure that he knew that you can't mix & match axles and drive flanges.

[derekchace]

I have the military style. I cant seem to find an airportable rear drive flange on the rovers north site. I will check it out thursday to see if its the drive flange or half shaft.

[jac04]

Check with PA Blanchard. No offense to RN, but I saved a bunch of money on axle shafts and stub axles from PAB. Plus, they have some totally obscure parts for the Air Portables like seats, mirror mounts, speedo cable, bumpers & bumperettes.