Who needs a workshop?

The Land Rover Defender’s replacement rear propshaft finally arrived today.

It was supposed to be with us last Friday, but that’s couriers for you.

The new propshaft had to be fitted immediately. I’m off on the 120-mile round trip to the abattoir tomorrow and I didn’t want to do it with a duff propshaft on the Defender.

Of course, when a Land Rover has a must-do job, there’s never a heated workshop in the vicinity and the weather always throws something interesting into the mix.

Today’s special treat was a layer of ice over the bitumen hardstanding, plus a  sleety drizzle to keep everything nicely slick.

The ground temperature was -2ºC, the Land Rover’s chassis, driveline and fittings were also just below freezing, and I couldn’t find the plastic sheet I normally put under my hessian sacks and packing blankets.

Somebody had to get under there and freeze so when no one else came forward, I volunteered myself.

It wasn’t too bad at first,  but then my body heat melted the ice. My waterproofs, the blanket and the hessian were soaked. Again, not too bad. Then the ground started to win. The hessian froze to the ground. The blanket froze to the hessian. And my clothes froze to the blanket. Lovely.

As I was taking the old propshaft off it fell apart, again. It did the same last week when I replaced the handbrake cable, which was when I discovered just how worn it was: it fell apart and on being reassembled went from being mildly clunky to horribly clunky.

When assembled, I was able to rotate the front of the propshaft about 1.5mm against the rear. There should be no rotational movement between the two.

As well as being narrowed, the splines were also flattened, nicked and scored. Surprisingly, they weren’t at all rusty.

The old propshaft’s universal joints were worn but not badly, so I suspect they were replaced at some point before we bought the truck.

The changeover wasn’t too difficult, helped by my having had the old propshaft off last week, and I was able to fit in a five-mile test drive before lunch.

The improvement was huge: the ‘KERDUNG-CLUNKETY-CLUNK!’ on changing up the gears was gone as was the monumental ‘KER-LUNK CLUNK’ on changing down at low speed.

Downsides? It’s even more obvious the clunky rear halfshafts and drive flanges need replacement. The fronts were done last year and the rears were down for this year. They’ve now climbed higher up the budgetary priorities list.

There’s also a lesser clunk from the front propshaft. There’s another from the transfer box. And another from the gearbox. And a fairly decent one from the rear diff. Ho hum, they’ll have to wait until I’m rich and infamous.

Five clunks down, six to go.

Related articles

• Chilling with the Land Rover (stoneheadcroft.com)
• Pear shaped on the croft (lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com)
• Transmission slack (www.jojas.co.uk)