'95 Disco Front Drive Shaft (propeller shaft)

[KonaCrash]

Hey everyone. It's been a while, which is good, but this one might be the nail in the coffin for me getting a new vehicle.

1995 Discovery, 125,000 miles, light duty in Colorado - 15 miles a day on paved roads, keep up on basic preventative maintenance but otherwise fix it as it needs it.

Two days ago my wife noticed a noise. I've since noticed it is only present when the vehicle is in gear at idle. Once the RPM make it over 1000 or so it seems to go away. The noise sounds like a rubbing with lot of friction, but not so much of a metal to metal...more like when you barely take your foot off the brakes and the vehicle is fighting to move forward. The rubbing noise can be felt in the gear selector.

So today I took a look underneath. The most obvious thing I could see was that the front propeller shaft had some damage on the transfer case end, just outside of the collar area leading to the u-joint. See attached picture.

I tried to open up the fill plug on the transfer case to see if it is full, but it won't budge. There is a little fresh oil on the outside of the transfer case, so I'm pretty sure it isn't dry. Transfer case oil last changed 40,000 miles ago.
U-joints seem okay, but maybe I don't know what to look for. I've owned the vehicle since 2007 and I haven't greased the U-joints. Thought I might do that today...(too little too late I'm afraid).

So I'm wondering what to do. Clearly the shaft is damaged, can I keep driving on it? Will doing nothing cause more damage until it breaks through sending the shaft into the tranny and wrecking that or going through the floorboard hurting my wife or young child? How long till it gets to that point?

If I replace the drive shaft, did that solve the problem or is it really the U-joints or something else that is the real problem and the damage to the drive shaft is just colateral damage?

Lastly, the cold reality. I love my Disco. It took me surfing on the shores of Hawaii, took me across the country when I moved to the mainland, drove me 200 miles out of the dessert on a waterpump that all but died. Never left me stranded once. I would say it has loved me back.
But I barely get to drive it (i have longer commute so I drive the Hyundai), it's 17 years old, I'm concerned about my wife and child getting stranded and their safety. Is it time to cash it in while I can still drive it to the dealer?

Thanks for any advice.

 

[joey]

U-joints should be greased during every oil change or at least 1 time a year.

the issue you are talking about sounds more like a U-joint than the prop shaft... but it couldn't hurt to change it as well... not like there isn't enough of them in the junk yard to get a used one.

My 97 isn't my daily driver anymore so I understand, but I would say other than I need a new water pump (just found out the other day after driving 2 hours home) I would trust mine to drive anywhere... shoot, my 2010 Mini Cooper has just as good a chance of breaking down as my Rover spend a couple bucks and fix the minor issues and keep driving has to be cheaper than getting something else.

 

[KonaCrash]

Thanks Joey,

I pumped in some grease into the 3 universal joints (about 3.5 pumps each) and the two grease points on the front and rear propeller shafts.
On the front propeller shaft grease point I put in 14 squeezes of grease. At that point I noticed some grease coming out of the end of the propeller shaft close to the universal joint. (see picture, grease is bright red) This is only a few inches from the damage on the drive shaft shown in the previous picture.

So is there a hole in the end of my drive shaft and likely my problem? or is this a weep hole and I just put too much grease in there?

Thanks for the help.
Eric

 

[joey]

I believe that is a weep hole. Should be fine.