I've mostly been driving the Disco around lately, for a few reasons. Firstly because it's ride is far more comfortable on the shoddy roads I drive during my daily commute. Secondly, those roads were underwater for a couple of days. (Although I didn't attempt any water crossings because wet carpet smells fucking horrible.) Mostly though, its because of how much easier it is to drive around in. In a 4WD it's surprising how many people will give-way or change lanes to get out of your way (as opposed to into) when you come barrelling up behind them on a motorway.

I know its annoying to be tail-gated, but being annoyed doesn't make me change lanes. It just makes me drive slower, much slower. (Yeah, I'm that guy.) At least that's the case in a normal car. In a 4WD, looking in the mirror is more to see if your boat is still attached than to worry about other road users. I do actually mirror check before changing lanes, but a lane splitting bike rider that I can't see has to ask themselves the question, "Exactly how much damage am I going to do to this 4WD, and how much is it going to do back?" Sup, Marc.

Another reason, of course, is because I don't have to worry about police chasing me in my driveway for an random breath test.

"Good afternoon, Sir. You've been stopped for the purpose of a random breath test."
"You know this is the second time I've been RBTed in my driveway."
"Yeah? Well maybe you shouldn't drive a car that shoots flames."
"... uhhh? Right-o..."
"Oy, where do you think you are going!?"
"Uhh... Just checking my mail. I live here..."
"Well, stand somewhere where I can see you."
"I'm not going to run am I? I live here."
"Well I don't know that, do I?"
*holds tongue for the 10 minutes it takes for the GPS to get a signal*

The Disco isn't exactly flawless though as I hinted in the last post. I bought it with a shagged front-right CV. Really not that big a deal. Parts are cheap for these things, even new. So I picked up complete front and rear axles for not a lot of money from a later model (which have tougher running gear). I figured it'd be easier to change the whole lot over than to fuck about with CVs, and swivel pins and all that caper. It was also a decent strength upgrade, so I shouldn't have to worry too much about snapping bits and pieces if I run bigger wheels and tyres.

I headed around to the parents place, because there's a lot more room there (the Disco doesn't fit in my garage) and all the better tools I haven't yet stolen are there. Last I heard the parents were in Melbourne, or somewhere near there, so I also didn't have to worry about doing things properly either.


Before I put it up on stands, I had a look underneath to see exactly what had to be done. The Haynes manual is pretty much useless for this, as most things are described in a single line without a diagram. Gregory's are far better, though swapping an axle isn't exactly rocket science. Under the car I noticed a couple of disturbing things, firstly a bunch of bolts were missing entirely from housings, and a couple were loose. The really scary thing was the track rod tie rod end on the drivers side. I had noticed that the steering had a bit of wander, well a lot of wander. I ignored it figuring it was something to do with the CV on the drivers side or something. It was actually much worse than that as the video on the right shows. The nut which is supposed to be locked in place with a split pin had come loose, and undone itself and the joint had been cracked. Or more likely, someone had gone to replace it, undone it all and cracked it and then promptly forgotten about it. I'm not sure what had stopped the nut from coming all the way off, but if it had it would have been a spectacular failure at speed. The wheel would have been dragged back to full right lock and who knows what it would have done. I thought the steering felt a bit odd, pays to actually check things I guess. I would like to find the person who left it like that and punch them in a face though. It's possible they just reused a shagged out split pin, or they didn't fit it properly. Whatever, I think I'd punch them right in the ear, because that fucking hurts.

The next thing I did was pull off the wheels, which turned into a Matt Dale-esque saga. The easiest job in the world, right? Straight off the bat I didn't have the right socket. Raiding the old man's tools for sockets, all I could find were imperial. (Strangely enough every nut and bolt I've found so far on the Disco is metric, how very progressive of British Leyland.) I ended up going to a hardware store to buy the correct (27 mm) socket for an absolute steal at $10. The next part was even more fun. I had two new front tyres fitted in order to pass the road-worthy, and the blokes who did it clearly decided that they were such good tyres they'd never need replacing and fitted the wheel nuts with what I can only presume was the world's most powerful rattle gun. It's really embarrassing how hard it was to remove those wheel nuts. Using a 400mm breaker bar on the socket did nothing, even adding a length of lead pipe I couldn't budge them.

I eventually got them off after like an hour of putting my entire weight onto the end of the lead pipe, and bouncing. (I actually bent the breaker bar doing this, and then sheared the centre pin clean off, but luckily I had a spare.) Seriously, why the fuck did the wheel nuts need to be that tight? Tyre shop mechanics, if you are reading this (unlikely, I'm pretty none of them can read), you've got an ear punch coming your way. Cunts.

After that drama, the rest of the bolts fell off pretty quickly. Under the front of the Disco there are about a thousand different arms to hold the wheels where they need to be, but most proved to be no resistance. It helped that by that stage I had found a rattle gun and an air compressor. I was also using a ball joint cracker tool, which is pretty much cheating, but it goes to show how much easier things are with the right tools.

A couple of bolts were hidden behind the the hubs, which made getting the rattle gun on them a bit difficult, so I pulled apart the CVs to see what shape they were in. The drivers side one was completely minced. The cage that holds the ball bearings in place was gone, completely pulverised. All that was left of it was sitting on the bottom of the housing. (Drivers side one compared to the passenger side CV.) The joint was dry, so I'm thinking that was the likely cause of the failure. There was that much junk in the bottom that before I pulled it apart the wheel would catch turning it left and right by hand. So, really I'm surprised this car could steer at all. That might explain why people got out of the way. Maybe they knew something I didn't?

With the hubs off, the next step was to undo the final four bolts holding the diff on. This is where I hit the wall. They attach the traction arms to the diff, and even with the rattle gun I couldn't get them to shift. My last remaining breaker bar was just about ready to give it in so I called it a day. I'm going to have another crack at it next weekend with a much more serious socket + breaker bar. 3/4 inch drive or whatever it is. If that bastard doesn't break them, I don't know what will. After that, its just a matter of lifting the new complete (and working) diff into place, which I'm sure will be really easy, and bolting it all back up. Easy.

Also, I've enabled anonymous comments on here. The new login code has been broken forever, and I can't be arsed fixing it. Porn spammers, do your worst.

you bent a breaker bar with your own weight?

have you let yourself go a bit carroll?

Comment:

Captcha (calculate this) :
Name to post as (not unique) : (Set default name here.)