Paul’s esoteric meanderings

Back when I first bought the 100 Series I did something silly and broke the front diff. That was 15 months and 25,000km ago.

Last month saw me in Tassie for a holiday and gagging to try some of the more famous Tassie tracks. After the first decent circuit done and heading up a dirt road I hear and feel a noise - clunk clunk clunk about once per wheel revolution. I had heard a very faint noise 2 weeks before, but it was consistently only on deceleration and I had put it down to the new tyres.

A few tests quickly showed it was the diff and not a CV. 10KM back to Zeehan at 10km/hr and I disconnected the front tailshaft and knocked off the two front hub drive caps. This isolated the front diff, but did leave the front wheel bearings exposed.

Several thousand KM later back to Brisbane and a heap of tracks missed, and the diff was pulled down.

The pictures below is what was found.

The diff housing was not cleaned out after the last failure. The company that did the work was BOAB 4×4 at Lawnton run by the owner Darryl. $5000 for 2 air lockers, CV’s, bearings and seals was obviously not that well spent. I should have been more suspicious after the rear air locker failed.

The business is now in new hands - Wayne is the new owner. Wayne wouldn’t wear responsibility. The charge was $305 to remove and refit the diff and clean if properly.

The diff itself was sent off to Duncan at Top Cog in Caloundra who does the work for Boab. Duncan only charged for parts and also stripped and setup the locker with less lash. The car drives much more nicely now, it used to clunk on / off throttle. Parts cost there was $1000. Duncan indicated that the Ring and Pinion could possibly be re-used, but would most likely be noisy. Fine for a part time 4wd, but problematic in an AWD car. I agreed with that.

I say a big Thank You to Duncan at Top Cog, he has done and excellent job and none of this was his fault.

BOAB obviously was shockingly negligent last time, and although the new owner Wayne is trying, and I understand his position, I don’t believe he has worn the responsibility that comes with buying an existing business. I know I’ll be taking my money elsewhere.

The cost to me was $1305 in repairs, plus a holiday that got very mangled due to having a broken car. At $1200 return, Tassie isn’t a cheap place to go back to.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 1st, 2008 at 06:53 and is filed under 4WD. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.