Hi Everyone,

I've just changed the left front differential seal on my 2017 XE R-Sport and as I was replacing the seal I noticed that an internal ring of some sort had broken. I almost looks like the ring piece that broke off had a wave shape so it wasn't like a flat shim spacer. I'm not sure if this if for sealing or some other mechanical purpose. It sits between the bearing and the I think the splined spider gear.

Of course Jaguar just replaces the whole diff if there's a problem and didn't have any information on the internals of the diff.

Just wondering if anyone out there has any diagrams of the internals or perhaps knows if there's another company out there that makes the differential that I could contact. P/N 40133256 (GX-3017-BB or I have seen GX-3017-DB on the same part 40133256. Maybe just a revision change?)

Intertestingly I bought a second hand one off eBay and it came with the same damaged part (see photo). I'm wondering if it breaks when you pull the half-shaft out?


Thanks!

 

In the absence of any other advice or guidance, I suggest that you register with Jaguar's Topix site https://topix.jlrext.com/ and spend a few dollars downloading a Jaguar Workshop manual. Then you'll know if you missed any points when you changed the drive shaft and maybe how to recover the situation.

 

Hi astromorg,

I was using a subscription to AllData for the procedure but it might not hurt to spend a few $$ and compare the Topix procedure to that. Just an aside, the lower ball joint on the AWD was a complete pain. It is an interference press fit all the way in and out... not like a typical tapered ball joint fitting. I now have the Jaguar style tool to separate this.

Thanks.

 

In the interest of “science”, I decided I wanted to understand what exactly had broken on my front differential so I bought a cheap one off Ebay to disassemble! One side note, this seems to be a somewhat common issue as I could see on other units on Ebay, if the seller had take a photo looking in at the differential side gear, they had the same damage.

The same part on the differential I bought was also broken. It’s a split wave spring washer.


There are three of them stacked on each other on both side gears which is adding preload to the side gears as you can see in the photo below.


So knowing what broke and it’s location is one thing. Replacing it… well that’s where the news isn’t great. The thickness of the spring metal is about 1mm and the metal it really stiff. I don’t think it’s possible to angle a new one into the opening and squeeze it down to the recess to fit it in the location shown without breaking or distorting it. I’d love to know if anyone has done this though…maybe I’m wrong and it is possible.

There’s also no way (for your average home mechanic) to disassemble the differential further to easily replace the split wave spring washer.

The differential pinion shaft/pin is blocked from removal by the ring gear and the ring gear has been laser welded on.





When the driveshafts in place, not to say there isn’t, but I couldn’t see a way for the broken parts to make their way into the gears and the differential housing unless wave spring washer was broken at the time a drive shaft was removed for some reason. That said, on this unit I did find a piece on the fill plug magnet and there was evidence on one tooth of an “incident”. I have no idea of the history of this diff though and if the drive shaft had been removed in the past.


If there’s anyone on the forum that is knowledgeable on these types of differentials I’d like to get other opinions but here’s where I think I’m at…

- the damage was not necessarily caused by removing the drive shaft. Pulling the drive shaft out does not displace the side gear any further than normal operation of the diff when driving. I think from the number of times I’ve seen this damage on used units for sale, it’s a fatigue issue being somewhat common to this unit.

- If you do have to remove the driveshaft (e.g. differential seal like, CV boot replacement, driveshaft cv joint failure…) check for broken spring parts and remove them with a magnet before they have a chance of falling into the diff housing.

- The wave spring washers are adding preload to take up any gear lash to stop any clunking or harshness on tight turns of when one wheel breaks traction. For straight line driving the differential side gears don’t spin.

- Laser welding the ring gear is done to reduce weight (no bolts needed) as well as increases the strength of the assembly. I don’t think the intention was to prevent rebuilding but that’s the effective result.

- I don’t foresee any imminent catastrophic differential failure because of this, but I may expect some knocks and noises if the remaining springs fail.

- At this point not sure how to repair and/or replace the remaining springs before they fail. If anyone has experience of this repair I’d love to hear from you.

- I haven’t found any source to buy the internal gear assembly. Jaguar sell the complete new differential unit for around $5000 list price.


In case it's of use to anyone else, the part numbers from the unit…

Differential part number: GX63-3017-BB.
Sedan AJ126 cover PN: 401332256
Differential bearings: Timken X32008XM
(This particular differential is used in the XF and the XE (not sure of the exact years). Mine is a 2017 XE R-Sport 3.5T AWD)




Just thought I’d share in case some part of this write-up is of help to someone else.

 

I wonder if HermanWiegman / Onca Engineering has or could source upgraded parts for the front differentials. Seems to be a common failure point on the latest generation JLR vehicles. Maybe try sending him a DM & see what he can find. Worth a shot