Joys of buying 2nd Hand cars

Had a Jimny a couple of months now, seems to do all I want it to do which is start first time & take me to the farm a few miles away so I can see to my daughters horse & my granddaughters pony. Once the weather improves this will be done on the bike, but for now the warmth (relatively) & the dryness (relatively) of the Jimny suits, but it's not come without it's interesting features.

First when I bought it the lad said it had got hot, so I swapped out the thermostat before I drove it, what a stupid place to put it!
Second was the wandering, but this has been tamed with a steering damper & castor correction bushes in the front radius arms, it's now acceptable, although the back does seem a little loose, so maybe new polybushes in there is required.
Third was the CL only working on the key, this has been replaced with a Chinese unit from Fleecebay which works on the fob
Fourth a 2nd hand towbar minus the special bolts, simple fitting, what was weird AFTER fitting it I found an unused set correct special bolts in the back of the Jimny, go figure
Fifth Topped up all the fluid, front diff, rear diff, gearbox, transfer case, although the transfer case was only topped up as the studs holding the heavy duty protector are sheared.
Sixth swapped out the standard electric motor mirrors for a set of heated electric motor mirrors

Which then leads onto the next issue, since filling up the front diff it has started to leak oil out of the NS hub, now was it cause & effect, did it not leak before only because there was no oil in it, or did I cause the seal to go by adding too much oil?

Anyway as I was going into the hub I bought two sets of the Koyo kingpin bearing & a driveshaft seal, it's not a bad job, hardest part is removing the circlip on the driveshaft one of the holes is so small none of my pliers would fit & I ended up damaging the clip removing it, I NEED 2x new ones, does anyone know where to get them, or the part number? Not doing the other side till I have new ones. Anyway on pulling out the driveshaft I found



Which could explain why it was leaking, the kingpins had SKF bearings in so somebody has been in before, maybe they didn't seat the oil seal correctly?

Which then led me onto the next discovery, the question of whether my vacuum hubs worked or not, well it appears it doesn't matter either way as somebody on the past has welded the bloody things so the diff is being driven all the time!!!!!

 

So now do I try to get a set of vacuum hubs or admit defeat get manual ones & resign myself to the fact I will have to get muddy & or wet if I want to engage them.

If it is only relatively warm & dry there is something wrong with it!

It is Japanese- the heater works very quickly, and it was put together properly (unless you have a Spanish built convertible) so it doesn't leak.


You don't need to remove the circlips, you can snatch the whole driveshaft out with the hub, but it is a bit awkward to handle with the driveshaft sticking out and flopping around!

You could simply refit the welded vacuum hubs if you are only doing small mileage, others run around with them locked and have no problems, it will do a little less to the gallon, but you won't notice unless you are driving hundreds of miles each journey. It worries me that there are no bearings at the ends of the axle tube to support the driveshaft like in a LandRover,which puts all the load from bending the driveshaft on the oilseal, and there is only a plain bush between the CV joint stalk and the inside of the stub axle- but you can change it if it ever wears out....

My guess would be that the vacuum system failed somewhere in one of the lines and rather than repair it someone bodged it by welding up the hubs, rather than paying £150 for AVM manual hubs.

Personally I would go manual hubs, if it looks slippy or icy engage them before you set off and then use the in cab 2/4WD control to switch between them, that’s what I do on mine. TBH since fitting manual hubs they have stayed in 2WD apart from when going off road and twice in winter when there was snow and ice.

Robin

I've always left the CV shaft in the hub when doing kingpin bearings. It does make it more awkward to handle but it saves a good amount of time and hassle with removing the vac hub and circlip.

If it was mine I'd get some good vacuum hubs, run new hoses and get the original system up and running. It's not complicated and I find it very convenient. But that depends on what else has been "fixed" by the previous owner.

facade wrote:

You don't need to remove the circlips, you can snatch the whole driveshaft out with the hub, but it is a bit awkward to handle with the driveshaft sticking out and flopping around!

So you remove kingpins as normal then pull the whole thing out? Does that not make it hard to get the shaft & bearings back together?

Phaeton wrote:

facade wrote:

You don't need to remove the circlips, you can snatch the whole driveshaft out with the hub, but it is a bit awkward to handle with the driveshaft sticking out and flopping around!

So you remove kingpins as normal then pull the whole thing out? Does that not make it hard to get the shaft & bearings back together?
 

Grease the kingpin races, drop in the top one, put a clean towel under the axle end and have the lower bearing in easy reach.

Feed in the driveshaft and fit the hub, you might need to slightly rotate the wheel flange and wiggle the hub to start it in the diff splines, then you pull the bottom of the hub back out enough to slip in the lower bearing.

If you drop it, it lands on the clean towel.

Some people rely on the grease to hold the lower bearing in place but it usually falls out a microsecond before you have the hub far enough on to hold it.

You are trading the time taken to remove & refit the vacuum hubs and that circlip against the awkwardness of cleaning & regreasing the Hub & CV assembled and refitting as an assembly.



tbh, I'd undo the circlip, I don't recall it being a significant problem.