Garage near Aylesbury (Buckinghamshire) for front axle seals/bearings

That's incorrect. Drive is disengaged at both the hubs and the transfer case.
Towing a Jimny is a different issue. The gearbox is primarily lubricated by the rotation of the input shaft. When it's being towed in neutral the input shaft is staionary and the rest of the gearbox gets inadequate lubrication.

I have a couple of 1" sockets, both only go in a small amount, they get the bearing moving, but won't drive it out before they become stock. I need to take the grinder to one of them, but found a 'drift' works just as well.

This is the set I have
www.amazon.co.uk/Silverline-PC12-Pin-Pun...ef=asc_df_B000LFVNNM

The Torx sockets aren't expensive either, but I understand if you don't want to buy more tools.

I have two torque wrenches, the biggest only goes up to 50lb-ft, at that it needs a good old pull so I tend not to bother, anything tighter and it goes in about as tight as I can manage. I only use my torque wrench for castings and cylinder heads.

Robin

wrote:

I’ve just driven 450+ miles south from Dundee to Aylesbury, moving house for a new job. A few days before the move, I discovered what I now understand is a common issue - a lovely mix of diff oil & CV grease leaking from the passenger side front wheel swivel. I couldn’t get it seen to in time before the move, but the car was still driving fine & I figured the only danger would be if the front diff ram completely dry. I had it topped up at a local garage (took 300ml) & asked them not to over-tighten the fill plug, so I could remove it & check the level myself halfway down & once I arrived. As far as I can tell, it’s still essentially full & there’s only a tiny drip on the driveway this morning.

I’m now trying to find a garage to fix the problem, but I’m not having much luck. I called a local Land Rover specialist (John Dennis) but they said they would struggle to get the parts & they wouldn’t fit parts that I provide myself.

Does anybody have any recommendations? Even if there is a local member who’d be willing to do the work, I’d pay parts & labour. My new job starts next week, so a potentially temperamental car is the last thing I need!

Would have thought pretty much any garage would do the work, doesn't need to be a specialist. No idea how many there are, but probably 20 or more places in Aylesbury itself.

There is also a Suzuki dealer in Leighton Buzzard who'd probably do it, but no idea what their labour rate would be, but might be worth giving them a shout.

Did you get sorted out?

I helped another member (Sir James Rusty) to do his Kingpin bearings and seals, he had been quoted £1,200 to do both sides, although he might have got some slighty better quotes.

I would have thought that your average local family run garage could easily do the job. Mine (in Newcastle) will even fit parts I supply if they are difficult to get hold of. Martin has the Kingpin bearings and seal kits for around £50 per side. It should only be a few hours labour for a garage to do the job.

Robin

Been a bit swamped with the new job, but it turns out that one of the perks is that there's a racing garage literally a few buildings down from us who will happily work on my Jimny if I can source the parts! I'm planning to just buy all the seals & bearings (<£100 total) so they can just replace the whole lot in one go - rather than ending up stuck with a car that can't be reassembled until parts come in.

The only complication they highlighted is that the chrome has been stripped off the CV, so it will instantly tear up a new swivel seal. How much of an issue would this actually be, if the leak of diff oil into the CV can be fixed? Can I get away with it, or am I realistically looking at replacing the CV as well?

Ah ha - a garage used to Landrovers.

The balls on a Jimny are not chromed, they are simply painted black. Its all perfectly normal. They can put some knifing filler in any pitting, smooth it off and paint it black if they really want to.

Landrovers have chromed balls and loss of chroming is an MOT issue for them.