Posted by Ken Dunnington on Tuesday, December 28, 2004 at 12:21PM :
Just one little bit of info here on this subject. My wife's previous vehicle was a 1998 Land Rover Discovery. When performing a chassis/driveline lubrication chore I noticed that the front driveshaft had the u-joints out of phase(no CV, just a single joint at either end of the shaft). This surprised me because the Disco is full time 4x4(no unlockable front hubs) and it drove without any vibration whatsoever at all speeds up to highway speeds(~80 mph).
I was all ready to "correct" this problem(that really wasn't a problem) when I decided to ask other Disco owners about their front driveshaft. Sure enough, they are all like that from the factory. It is intentional on LR's part, and it works. I didn't touch it and was darn glad I asked first before following what conventional wisdom had taught me, as with this case it was wrong.
So, the bit about the u-joints needing to be "in-phase" is true, but what is in-phase for one vehicle is not always the same relationship between the two u-joints as for another vehicle.
Ken
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