The Rover-Landers of BC

Anyone know how the CV joints are lubricated on a Salisbury axle?

JD

Huh? Salisburies reside in the rear - no CV's. Please verify that you are asking about front halfshaft CV's. What model vehicle. Older ones would be oil splash newer would be greased.

John

John,

OK, thanks for the tune up.... front it is... Thought the salisbury would be front and back. D110 MOD is the truck. CVs, yes mean the front. Couldn't find the information in the Haynes manual, and a google didn't help. Can you help?

JD

What you need is this stuff...

https://www.expeditionexchange.com/genu ... 105340.jpg

You should be able to buy it from the dealers, or just about any aftermarket parts place.

Or, you could be cheap like me and use Don's recipe... half 90 weight, and half axle grease, mixed with a drill in a 2 litre coke bottle. I usually make up about a litre of it at a time, which lasts for about 3 changes of lubricant. I use a large syringe to slurp it up and squirt it in. MUCH cheaper than the Land Rover genuine stuff and does pretty much the same thing.

Dave

IMO, gear oil is better. When the seals are bad it leaks out and you know that you should fix the seals. With the grease, when the seals are bad, you do not know and water/mud gets in and destroys your expensive CVs.

There are front Salisbury axles, but they are rare.

Another thing to note. It is very common for the seal between the axle and CV to leak. As the CV level is higher than the axle, it leaks towards the axle. So if you find the CV levels low and the axle high, that is the reason. It is normal and does not hurt anything. In fact, I normally remove these seals.

Thanks for all the answers! Dumb question though... where is the fitting to put the oil/grease in?

JD

red90 wrote:IMO, gear oil is better. When the seals are bad it leaks out and you know that you should fix the seals. With the grease, when the seals are bad, you do not know and water/mud gets in and destroys your expensive CVs.

True enough about bad seals letting water in, and I know we're talking about CVs on a newer truck, however, in my old series truck I just never got it to seal correctly with just gear oil. Always seeped. And you should have seen it when I gave it a treat of synthetic gear oil... Left Land Rover spoor everywhere!

Dave

Interesting,

Dave, I don't think that was my recipe, andre? Certainly have never done it on purpose.

My 2a leaked badly after a couple years on rechrome swivels, even after a seal change. The seals had burnt through the cheap chrome in no time.

The only way I have found to seal proper 80W90 gear oil the swivels is to replace with new genuine landrover balls. After years of a mess under the front wheels wherever I parked I finally replaced mine and have had no leaks whatsoever in two years with proper oil.

Anyways, back to the initial question...
...the swivel pin housing should have a fill plug, drain plug and possibly a level plug. On a coil truck do not fill the swivel to the fill plug, use the level plug. Should get a factory repair manual if you plan on doing this sort of work.

Later,
DOn

Lucas has a synthetic oil . 140 weight, it is staying in mine fine so far, like a month,rcm

Don's right. Mixing different lubricants is an error. Grease and oil are manufactured from different chemical components. The mixing of the two is likely to breakdown one or both. That info is right out of the apprenticeship text book.

Alan

So if you use grease, how do you get it out? What if you get water in there? I guess you just rebuild them every time you go wading?

Hi Glenn;
Certainly the grease you put into the hub will stay there until the next time you you go in to do work. Water should work its way down to the drain plug area or leak out of those pesky swivel seals. I'm with Kris and Don about sticking with the oil. If you use your truck heavily offroad and spend time in water there is something reassuring about draining off that water and milky oil and replacing it with fresh gear oil. Early Series trucks depend upon splash lubrication inside the swivel housing and grease is not dependable for this function. Alan's point about mixing different chemical compounds is well worth paying attention to. I know from experience that even different greases mixed together can accelerate deterioration of bearings in u-joints. The grease supplied by Landrover for later model trucks is attractive because of the fact it doesn't leak out but let's face it, it is just a way of deferring maintenance on swivel seals or making up for crappy jobber parts. IMHO :roll:

I agree, they started using the grease to cut back on warranty costs.

My 90 with new seal does not leak and I use 75W-90 synthetic gear oil.

As to the locations of the plugs, they vary a bit by model. On my 90, there is a combination level/fill plug on the front around center height. The drain is on the bottom on the back.

Well, it looks like the idea to mix gearoil and grease was passed on from Andre to me and then from me to Dave as a temporary method to stop the leaks.

Sorry Dave, sounds like its been working ok for a while now.

BTW, the Landrover swivel grease is pretty good stuff, very resistant to water. Originates from Catapillar.

Later,
Don

I ended up using the LR stuff in a tube that Dave posted a picture of. I have only a drain plug and a middle plug to fill with. I found the LR stuff didn't go in easily as I couldn't rotate the wheel far enough around to open up a large opening to get the stuff in. I used a couple of brass fittings and a hose clamp to get a good seal on the fill plug hole and then squeezed. Went well enough. No spillage of note anyway. I opened the drain plug on one side to see what would happen. The LR stuff oozed out and didn't stick as greese would so if it fills with water clearing the swivel should be OK. We'll see how the seepage goes.

JD