Series 1 front diff troubles

[skejam]

All wheels off the ground / front driveshaft disconnected at differential / either front wheel spins freely with no effect on opposite wheel or the thingy that the drive shaft U-joint bolts to. Not the slightest noise from inside the axle housing when I spin a wheel or the pinion gear shaft. It's as if there's nothing in there!

What should I do first:

Option 1: Remove wheel; disassemble front hub (must I remove brakes and backing plate to do this?) and check the condition (or existence) of the bronze fork coupler - or u-joint, or whatever they were using then?

or

Option 2:
Remove pinion gear shaft to see if the shaft has failed?

or

Option 3: Remove differential cover and see what's inside?

Got to get my shop manual out of its deep hibernation - it's for an 80 incher, but I'm hoping the axles are the same.

BTW: I'm back in the game! Brought a 1957 (or 56) 86 incher (definitely 86 inches) home to annoy myself with.

[John]

There is no diff cover and you'll not pull the diff without first pulling the half shafts so you might as well start at the wheels (hubs) and go from there.

[skejam]

'Kay thanks. Don't suppose anyone out there has S-1 manual pages for front axle? I've got pages for S-111 which is helpful, but otherwise I'm proceeding using my memories of my 80 incher front axle tear down from 'way back in '73.

[John]

Maybe something here that will help

http://landroveroneten.com/index.php/ge ... r-manuals/

[LandyAndy]

I can scan the S1 manual pages over the weekend if you like. PM me your email addy.

Andy

PS... Interested in another '54 project ;-)

[skejam]

Thanks Andy: My email address is: [email protected]

I have found a Series 1 shop manual on line, but the chapter and illustrations for the front axle is not included. (??)

Jim

[John]

Jim,

I suppose that there is always the chance that the diff has been removed from your front end so I guess you could try pulling it out without touching the hubs and axles. If you need to go into the hubs then aside from the 80's using Tracta joints instead of u-joints there is not much difference as far as tearing it down that you need to know. If you need to reference a manual then a S1-S3 manual should give you the details that you need to know. You could also pop off the hub caps, maybe there are no half shafts.

[John]

Maybe you have already made a diagnosis but if not ...

An assumption I made immediately is that you do not have free wheeling hubs installed on the front but if you do then they need to be engaged if you expect to see the pinion move from a wheel rotation or vice versa.

Less effort than actually trying to pull the third member to verify the presence of a differential would be to pull the filler plug in the axle housing and look in to see if anybody is home.

You could also probe in through the axle breather (after removing it of course) to verify the presence of the inner half shaft on that side.

[skejam]

The hubs are not free wheeling. I'm away until early Sept and will try the simplest attempts first, like looking through the filler hole to see what's there - or not.
Thanks for the help.

[swamijake]

If you need a series one front axle, I have a spare.

[skejam]

Thank you very much for your kind offer of a front axle. I looked into the filler hole and noticed the gear on the axle goes round, and the crown gear goes round. I'm about to pull the whole business out of the diff casing. I'll bet the problem lies with the pinion gears. (When I bought the rig, it came with a towbar attached. D'you suppose I should have taken note of that???)

[skejam]

Because I could not see the gear for the off-side axle turning, I decided to pull that axle first, and found that the splines on the end of the axle AND on the driving member have been worn so badly that the cannot turn the wheel, thus the non-action of the front axle. Now fixed, on to the brakes, then the awful performance of the engine - having sat for 3-5 years, it runs very unhappily.