MK wrote:

Julie wrote:

Red Ashcroft kit being installed yesterday replacing the blue one from 2018.
Design failure of the blue kit are quite obvious

Can you explain the flaw of the blue one?

ksv wrote:

Hi all. I watched the output shaft wearing over and over again changing the original clutch kits, and changed it to the original with a mileage of 180000 km, ( my Defender is 110 Puma 2.4, 2007). Inspection showed relatively uniform wear without any anomalies.
The next change for Ashcroft set was made at 306000 km mark. And here is the most interesting thing, the changed output shaft looked like ABSOLUTLY NEW! And it was lubricated with transmission oil, wich dripped from the gear box seal. There were no traces of oil outside.
So I can suppose I caught a very good gear box extension and two aspects are important: coaxiality and the presence of lubrication.

just a thought.....( ).
would the easiest option simply to be seal the extension casing in place, add a drain and fill plug....and bingo. lubrication sorted - no more wear ? (and obviously half fil with oil).

ashtrans wrote:

MK wrote:

Julie wrote:

Red Ashcroft kit being installed yesterday replacing the blue one from 2018.
Design failure of the blue kit are quite obvious

Can you explain the flaw of the blue one?

Hi,

I am happy to be open about this, there have been 3 designs,

1) silver cup, we used a normal LT230 input oil seal, we had leaks as both parts were static, the seal is designed for one part to be rotating,

2) Blue cup, the inner diameter of the cup was machined to clear the ground diameter on the inner coupling shaft and sealed with 2 O rings, we had some fail and when we investigated why we found the ID of the collar diameter had been fouling the inner shaft on half the diameter, ie the shaft was being held to the side of the cup due to misalignment from accumulated error / tolerances.

3) Red cup, same as above but with more clearance on the ID and much bigger O rings,

This later design works much better, we rarely have an issue when fitted correctly.

You will struggle to correct the misalignment, I dont like the idea of holding it solid, that may load the MT82 bearings excessivly or cause the bolt to fatigue.

Caterham wrote:

just a thought.....( ).
would the easiest option simply to be seal the extension casing in place, add a drain and fill plug....and bingo. lubrication sorted - no more wear ? (and obviously half fil with oil).

Caterham wrote:

just a thought.....( ).
would the easiest option simply to be seal the extension casing in place, add a drain and fill plug....and bingo. lubrication sorted - no more wear ? (and obviously half fil with oil).

blackwolf wrote:

Julie wrote:

... Pour quality of the shaft material is most probable...

This is definitely a possible factor but it is hard to explain why two vehicle coming out of the factory on the same day could have dramatically different coupling expectancy. When the original forum survey was produced there was clear evidence of some early vehicles getting high mileages and others getting dismally low - under 10k - mileages. If it was down to material variability then something has gone catastrophically wrong in the QA department!

Mind you something clear has gone catastrophically wrong in the QA department, if such a department exists at JLR, for the shafts to behave as they do.

Caterham wrote:

just a thought.....( ).
would the easiest option simply to be seal the extension casing in place, add a drain and fill plug....and bingo. lubrication sorted - no more wear ? (and obviously half fil with oil).

blackwolf wrote:

Caterham wrote:

just a thought.....( ).
would the easiest option simply to be seal the extension casing in place, add a drain and fill plug....and bingo. lubrication sorted - no more wear ? (and obviously half fil with oil).

This would not be particularly easy as the extension housing is not sealed, there are cut-outs in the area near the gear selector mechanism. I know of at least one main dealer which, in the early days of this becoming a problem (i.e., prior to 2010) was fitting diametrically-opposed grease nipples and drilling the housing to allow a grease-gun to be used. I don't know how effective this would be long term but suspect that most owners now don't know what a grease-gun is.

In most cases thorough lubrication with a suitable grease followed by careful assembly (I am sure that some joints are not properly assembled hence the partial separation we've often seen) will make failure so rare as not to be an issue. My own joint is the original and has now done 280k miles, it was greased with molybdenum disulphide grease when I last changed the clutch (about 140k miles ago).

I do however believe that a lot is still down to luck and on some vehicle the aggregated tolerances are such as to mean that the shaft is not straight and will consequently wear. The best answer to this is to keep the joint wet-lubricated and for this the Ashcroft coupling is the best solution.

I was thinking - fill the drain point with a dab of weld. gasket sealant on the faces to seal it and a fill point / breather and a drain point and you're good to go

BUT. why bother is good grease / correct assembly will get you 100k miles?

Johan_B wrote:

We used to have a highly regarded Land Rover mechanic in the south of Sweden, sadly he passed away last year, but just before I asked him for advice on my intermediate shaft. What he did then was to start the engine, put the transfer box in neutral and the main box in gear, releasing the clutch. He then listened to any noise coming from the transmission and quickly concluded that everything was fine with this shaft. According to him, a worn shaft would start to rattle and make a noise. Can this be confirmed as at least being some indication that something bad is about to happen?