Just to update, Bell's replaced the diff with an exchange unit with larger nose bearing while I waited. They also cleaned out and serviced the Haldex. I was surprised by the amount of crud in there, particularly in the coarse filter on the pump. About 2000 miles since repair. So far so good. Impressive job.

MRRover75 wrote:

I got contacted by a friend recently who complained about some rear end noise in his FL2. We did a test drive and could clearly hear a whine from the rear. We could definitely hear and feel "knurling" from the rear diff after jacking up the car and rotating the rear wheels. No need to say that this diff is knackered. I am just surprised how quickly that noise have developed over a short time The RH rear wheel bearing seems also to have had better days.

So now I am rebuilding 2x rear diffs`s these days which I have had laying around. One of them is the later Evoque diff which I have had in my car earlier, and I can confirm that this one has a larger nose bearing fitted. This casing has a deeper bearing face to accept the larger pinion bearing (SKF 32206J2) and a shorter collapsible spacer fitted between the bearings.
We will fit new wheel bearings together with one of the rebuilt diffs to this car when the diff is ready.

Update will be posted

Hi all!

Just a little update. We have now fitted one rebuilt diff to this car but are awaiting some brake parts before we can finalize the job. The diff which came off this car felt really bad on the input shaft. No need to say that the bearing is knackered. This car is a -09, but the diff casing is marked "13" and other traces can confirm that it has been replaced before. Diff opened and a worn nose bearing found, of the larger type! What surprizes me, is that this bearing has worn out in the same manner as the other ones I have seen, despite it is the larger type! What really causes this, after only 60.000kilometres??

When I had the diff done on warranty the dealership (M Fews Charfield) said that LR had been supplied with inferior bearings sourced from India. Not sure if that was or the truth but for sure the bearing on my model year 15 motor with less than 30k was knackered. MY 09 GS manual in Lago Grey, Wood Co arm rest and side bumper strips - now sold.

MY 15 SD4 SE Auto Orkney Grey with colour coded Bumper Door Mouldings

MrRover75

The answer to your question is Brinelling

The spacing on the damage matches the spacing of the rollers

This means that the damage occurred when the bearing was not turning

It’s possible that the damage occurred during assembly but if that was the case the failure rate for Land Rover and Volvo should be similar

The Volvo message boards indicate otherwise

Another possibility is that a cyclic load was applied to the bearing

A good example of a load that could damage the bearing is the joints on the rails while traveling on the train

I don’t know for a fact that this is the root cause but it is what I would look into if it was up to me to find the cause

Seeing this makes things a bit hopeless. That car has never done any offroading and the diff was replaced by the dealer before the current owner bougth it. it has only done 50-60000kilometres and the larger bearing fails!! It could be a one of a kinf failure, but it makes me loose the faith in this design. Seems that it does not matter if its the small or larger bearings fitted....

In my professional view, Paul G is correct.

Avoidance of brinelling is why you often see wind turbines turning round when there is no wind - They are being powered round to avoid brinelling.

Brinelling during transit (i.e. not rotation) explains the wear patten shown here and why it is only on a quarter of the circumference. It also explains why the damaged area is the most in the centre and then incrementally decreases in the 2 areas either side. FL2 HSE Auto Galway Green
Evoque SD4 Auto Blue.
FL1 HSE TD4 Manual Black - Gone.
RR Classic V8 EFI - Gone

MrRover75,

Hopefully what I wrote and what Pedro wrote make sense. (Pedro's example is an excellent one)

Here is the good news.......The failure was almost certainly induced when the differential was shipped to the Land Rover factory for final assembly.

For the differentials that you rebuild in your repair shop that shipping step won't happen and the ones that you rebuild should last a long time.

I do recommend that you upgrade the Gear Oil and use a magnet.

My 2008 LR2 is at 114,000 mile on the original bearing and its worn but serviceable (and quiet).

The gear oil that I selected is designed for mining equipment where metal to metal contact is to be expected.

It also meet the specification for the Mercedes Sprinter delivery Van.

Good Luck

Paul

Great write up👍

As my experience as a ASE Certified Master Euro Tech ,Volvos beings a major part of my career for 30 years .
I will share some of my thoughts on why the pinion bearings get “brindle” wear patterns on several Haldex units.

I have noticed that my customers that don’t drive car often or don’t have a reason for Haldex to engage or drive car with broken pumps have more pinion damage.

I attribute this to several factors

1. Extremes in Climate temps and condensation inside housing
2. The pinion not being engaged so the roller/needle bearings sit in one place for long periods of time allowing rust to start on bearing race. Then when Haldex is engaged rollers tear into rust on races.
3. Customers that don’t drive cars often . Again rust starts on races
4. There very well could be imbalances in the Haldex clutch assy at higher speeds and engagements but I think the engineers would have tested for harmonic vibration over time and would have noted if the bearing would meet the criteria for application.
I do feel climate and rust formation over time is a outlier that engineers have no way of knowing unless they have years of on job experience with failed bearings. I would think repair techs see these things first hand and would have more knowledge of possible related failures do to environmental conditions.

This sort of reminds me of Volvo 4.4 liter MY 2005 V8 ballance shaft end roller baring failure due to water puddling under intake valley. Maybee the engineers should have contacted the marine engine division before making this one 😂😂😂


I don’t attribute driveshaft cv joint binding to this wear because I feel the harmonic imbalance of such could be dampened by the Haldex clutch assy.

I’m thinking if the firmware was reset to let the rear driveshaft spin more often , even at the expense of MPG.
It would lower the % of pinion wear for certain customers.

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed but
I specialize in selling high miles Volvo’s ,Toyota’s, and Chevy Suburbans
Most over 190,000 miles
So you could say I get to see often how certain climates and customers have a direct connection to vehicle repairs.
Sorry I don’t have any photos of pinions I have seen .
Anybody could do a experiment and buy a junk yard rear differential.
Put in your back yard for a year .
After a year take it apart and inspect pinion bearing race you will notice a certain rust pattern where the bearings sat 🤔😂
Anyways Maybee we could get a computer tunner guy to have Haldex firmware and make it run more often 🤷🏻‍♂️
Just a thought
Of coarse there will be other issues that will come up due to the often active unit .
Or we could just spend $50K on a custom built old school FJ40 😃

So my dropping into sand mode (therefore engaging the Haldex) every couple of days on the motorway just out of boredom could have contributed to the longevity of my Haldex ? which at 180k was noise free. Tangiers Orange - gone, missing her
Replaced by Ewok what a mistake - now a happy Disco Sport owner

So, in normal use, other than when pulling away, there is no reason for the nose shaft to rotate, and if the diff never gets warm enough to dry out any moisture we get corrosion and brinneling. Sounds like a good reason to do some off road driving to me.

Common guys... Nose shaft always rotates. Basic differential 1-0-1. https://www.howitworksdaily.com/how-do-differential-gears-work/
Also the main (front/rear) driveshaft always rotates, as it's connected with the gearbox output (or front diff input).
So the input and output of the Haldex always rotate. Sometimes with different rotational speeds, but always rotate.
The Haldex, through its clutch pack, only rigidly connects its input with its output when needed, therefore making a solid power transfer between gearbox output and rear diff input.

Great write up marked for future reference, thank you for sharing

Always nice when somebody find others posts useful

I have now done my 6th diff rebuild. the first 4 are in daily use and the feedback is superb so far.

Yes, thanks from me too.

Helped me a lot when I did one recently for my FL2 that I bought from a scrapyard, although I opted to buy the JLR pinion nut tools instead of making my own. In the end my problem was not my diff so I have a spare diff and the tools so should be ok for the next few thousand miles

Big article on how to do this in one of this month's landrover magazines. FL2 HSE Auto Galway Green
Evoque SD4 Auto Blue.
FL1 HSE TD4 Manual Black - Gone.
RR Classic V8 EFI - Gone

Hi Pedro,

Which magazine will this article be in?