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RPoul87

Member Since: 24 Feb 2025
Location: Woking
Posts: 4

Intro along with transmission woes

Hi all, relatively new defender owner as of March and have enjoyed the tinkering much more than I did with the Freelander 2 but unfortunately its one of those intros along with a problem.

Over the last few months I have been fixing / swapping out various bits n bobs and came to the most recent being addressing the transfer box intermediate shaft leak and front diff pinion seal. I attempted doing it the short cut way by just sliding the box back far enough to tap through the shaft through to get at the o-ring, I thought all went successfully until I went to test.

Initially I tried to gently move off but it would only rock back and forth until something gave allowing me to drive off (yes in hindsight I should have stopped as soon as it snagged). Cautiously taking it up the gears a vibration became apparent when in third and higher / around 40mph up. No vibration in the gear stick and, at the time, it felt like it was coming from the rear.

Fearing I had done some serious mischief that I could not pinpoint/address I booked it in to the garage where they put in two refurb'd TBs, new prop shafts and went through the front axle build. With no change the defender is back home.

This morning, I took it out to get to work (out of necessity) where I found it was juddering when coasting to a stop in gear but with the clutch engaged (pedal down). I tested out the TB by putting it into neutral and took it through the gears which produced some nasty sounds which stopped when engaging the clutch. Only sometimes was it a struggle to get it into gear and seemed to run ok up to 30-40mph.

From underneath (TB in neutral, engine in gear) I could see a small flowing oil leak coming from one of the gearbox-transfer box bolts with bubbles coming through the joint, the box itself was also moving in an oscillating fashion which opened and closed the joint between the boxes.

All of this has lead me to think I have damaged / bent the gearbox output shaft when splitting the two boxes causing the transfer box to move / leak, damage the gearing and/or worsen the worn clutch setup.

Before looking into another gearbox etc. I was wondering if anyone has had similar experiences or if at least able to confirm that I'm barking up the right tree, can't seem to find any similar situations or solutions on the site search. Any advice would be appreciated.

13th Sep 2025 4:56pm

RPoul87

Member Since: 24 Feb 2025
Location: Woking
Posts: 4

Photo of the stricken beast

Click image to enlarge

13th Sep 2025 4:59pm

blackwolf

Member Since: 03 Nov 2009
Location: South West England
Posts: 17952

2007 Defender 110 Puma 2.4 DCPU Stornoway Grey

Re: Intro along with transmission woes

IT's a little hard to follow all of your saga, and, for future reference a clutch is "engaged" when the pedal is up, and "disengaged" when the pedal is down (for some reason a lot of folk nowadays are confused by this) so:

RPoul87 wrote:
... Initially I tried to gently move off but it would only rock back and forth until something gave allowing me to drive off ...

This makes me think that you have mixed up the bolts holding the transfer box to the gearbox, which are of different lengths. If you fit a longer bolt into a hole from which a shorter bolt was removed, the bolt will foul the gears and lock the box. I don't know what will happen if you attempt to drive in this condition, but the outcome won't be good.

RPoul87 wrote:
...the garage ... put in two refurb'd TBs, new prop shafts and went through the front axle build. With no change the defender is back home. ...

The garage has fitted not one but two refurbished transfer boxes, and it hasn't made any difference? Really? Given that the garage has returned it to you with the fault you took it in to have fixed, and presumably has charged you a bundle for labour, and has returned it with the transfer box incorrectly installed, then firstly I would be having a conversation with the garage and secondly I'd be finding a different and competent garage for any future work.

RPoul87 wrote:
... the box itself was also moving in an oscillating fashion which opened and closed the joint between the boxes. ...

This indicates that not only is the transfer box not properly bolted up to the main gearbox but also that the input shaft is probably bent. I do not see how a competent garage could return the vehicle to you in this state.

From what I can interpret from your original post I think it is possible that you have mis-located the bolts resulting in internal damage to the first transfer box, and either this, or you by driving in this state, have also bent or otherwise damaged the input shaft.

I would suggest as a next step that you find a competent garage familiar with Land-Rover transmissions, tell them the whole story, and ask them to investigate and rectify the problem. I don't think it would be difficult to diagnose with access to the vehicle but it is likely that the transfer box will have to be removed for a reliable diagnosis.

13th Sep 2025 6:49pm

RPoul87

Member Since: 24 Feb 2025
Location: Woking
Posts: 4

Thanks for the reply.

Ha, yes confused myself on the clutch engage and disengage side of things which is why I had put pedal position

.

It is quite a saga and now you mention the different bolt lengths that does make sense and I had completely forgotten about that. That is likely to have been the initial cause, kicking myself.

The garage was recommended but will look into another

13th Sep 2025 7:12pm

RPoul87

Member Since: 24 Feb 2025
Location: Woking
Posts: 4

Found a puddle of oil under the TB this morning. Looked be coming from the hole in the gearbox flange above the bottom bolt.

Click image to enlarge

Drained the oil, it was glittery with coating on the drain plug. Thinking/hoping that just general wearing in.

Click image to enlarge

Drained the gearbox again glittery oil with quite a bit of buildup on the plug.

Click image to enlarge

It looks like the gear box shaft is bent leading to the seal to fail and damaging the gears

14th Sep 2025 12:31pm

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