Discovery Series 2 help - Brown Trouser Moment

[Sandy0728]

Hi,

Still a bit of lurker here but after a scary episode I'm after some advice / opinions please!

So, yesterday I was playing in the snow in my TD5 Discovery 2 (manually selectable Diff lock) with the diff lock pretty much always engaged.

Set off for work this morning and took the diff-lock out at the top of my road as soon as I hit a clearish main road. Got to the A57 out of Sheffield and sped up to about 40 mph as both lanes were clear of snow.
A strange wobble/vibration started (similair to a unbalanced wheel) then about 100 yards on there was a loud bang/thump, then it started fish tailing first towards the verge then the barrier. Thankfully I managed to keep it together and not panic brake.
Absolutely crapped myself, really thought I was going to kiss the barriers.
Anyway once I was back in a straight line, I put the hazards on and slowed right down - first thoughts were a blow out.
After pulling into a layby and waving the following car on when he stopped to ask if I was OK, nothing seemed amiss.

Drove the rest of the way to work slowly and nothing else happened.

So, my initial thoughts were, blown/munched gear box or transfer box.
But thinking about it this sounds like it could be a frozen/stuck difflock? If it was stuck in the locked position then the transmission wind-up might possibly have caused the sudden un-wind and loss of traction?

Any thoughts please? 4wd seems to be still working, I'll have to have another play on the way home tonight to check if the diff-lock is working or not.

Thanks in advance.

Sandy.

[DrDeAtH]

sounds like the diff lock didnt disengage properly.

if you need to , reverse slowly to disengage it

[cpas]

Probably best to only engage the diff lock momentarily when it's really needed (ie steep hills). It should not really be required in normal snowy conditions, but only where grip is seriously reduced. If used in good grip conditions, it can easily cause enough tension in the system to lock it in place and cause transmission wind up.

[Sandy0728]

Ok, so I'm pretty sure that's what it was.
After driving home slowly with regular locking / unlocking of the diff it seems like its disengaged.

A quick test in a snowy carpark confirmed that it won't slide the back out now.

I think I'll have to lube all the linkages and bits during the next service.

Thanks for the responses.

[Rum Runner]

The linkage needs using now and again like freewheeling hubs. I the diff lock can either not engage or get stuck on and I am guessing yours got stuck on..as other said you need to reverse to unlock it if this is the case. The best way to find this out is to do a turn on full lock...you will feel the car try to jump if the diff lock is still on. On many Jap 2 / 4 wheel drive cars there is no centre diff do when you engage 4 wheel drive from 2 the transmission is locked anyway, so in none slippy conditiosn you get the same wined up effect as you experienced with the lock stuck on in the Landie