The trouble with roadsters is… you HAVE to listen to everything.
Dennis,
Buried somewhere in my Jaguar Service Bulletins collection is one which may cover your problem. Seems Jaguar had complaints about the clicking, tracing the problem down to the spacer. The spacer was made of a certain metal. Jaguar changed the spec’s for the spacer to a different metal and that seemed to solve the problem. I’ll see if I can dig up that SB. I move at the speed of Government so it will take a while. Ha Ha
Stay Well and Happy Trails,
Dick
H Dick,
This would be useful and I thank you.
But, I don’t see how a spacer problem can result in the clicking noise, so we shall see!
Dennis 69 OTS
I had this experience with our '72 XJ6. Would not wish that on anyone. There was none on my '62 E. Both reassembled without goo. Specified in XJ6 manual but not the E manual. Both do not click.
Dick Vandermeyden had one hub he tried like he11 to disassemble, and never could. He had a 50 ton press that wouldn’t touch it. No amount of heat helped. He finally gave up.
Terry has generously offered me two hubs with halfshafts so I will rebuild one and install it with lots of loctite on the splines as it will not need to come apart again in my lifetime!
Thanks to all for their help!
Dennis
69 OTS
Dennis,
Finally found the June 12, 1973 5F25 TSB from British Leyland - Canada. Covers XJ6, XJ12 and S3 E-types.
“Investigation into complaints of “Click” being emitted from the rear hub assembly whenever the car is driven from rest, has revealed the rear hub spacer to be a contributory factor. In consequence a spaces of phosphor bronze material has been introduced, to replace those previously supplied in steel, and is identified by part number C38324 with the suffix letters A to R to indicate the selective size required.”
Although this TSB was issued for XJ6, XJ12 and S3 E-type V12 cars it may very well solve your rear differential click problem in your .1969 OTS. Guess you’re going to have to tear down the rear outer units to see if the spacer is steel or phosphor bronze. Since it’s a Series 2 1969 model my money is on Steel!
Hope this helps.
Happy Trails,
Dick
Hi Dick
Thanks
This is interesting
I don’t have an exploded parts diagram in front of me but this must be a spacer to adjust end float in the hub
I might be wrong, but if this is a cause, then the click caused would be by axial not radial motion.
Might this mean that the end float gets too high because the spacer is being compressed because it is too soft?
Maybe I should just use the brown hardening paste that Jaguar used and never take the hub apart again!
Denny
I’ve collected a few spacers from cars I’ve wrecked over the years and found two that were bronze. The rest were steel. Interesting.
Hi Denny,
It really doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. The phosphor bronze replacement introduced by Jaguar is softer than the steel counter part it replaced. Accordingly, if the steel spacer is compressing, then so will the phosphor bronze unit.
The nut that secures the Hub to the spline shaft of the half shaft should be torqued to 140lbft torque and this load is holding the spacer tightly sandwiched between the inner end of the hub and the face of the half shaft via the seal track plate. If the spacer were to compress, then that would translate to a loosening of the nut and the female spline may be able to rotate relative to the male spline, but I can’t see a phosphor bronze spacer being a panacea for that.
Brent
Heat will always work with hubs where Loctite has been used, but it depends on how the heat is applied. It’s a waste time using any type of torch due to the hub carrier acting as a heat sink and the air space between the hub carrier and the splined section of the hub, insulating the hub from the heat.
The heat needs to be a soaking heat as applied by an oven. For that reason, at work we have a commercial Pizza oven (shown in the background of the following picture) where the half shaft and hub/hub carrier assembly can be accommodated. With this method of heating, we have never failed to extract the half shaft spline from the hub with minimal help from a press. Some we have had to deal with had been assembled using high strength, permanent Loctite.
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How do you like your hub carriers… al dente?
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I don’t understand how the material of the spacers can cause the “clicking” but I am interested in hearing the explanation.
Marco
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Hi Marco,
I agree with you as I don’t understand how the material of spacers can cause clicking.
What I can say is that loctite on the splines of my left rear hub did solve the clicking problem for a couple of years which tells me the problem is the splines not have a perfect fit together.
Dennis 69 OTS
Denny,
Just passing on something I remembered seeing in old Jaguar Tech Service Bulletin. You’d have to ask the Engineers Why and How.
Dick
Perhaps it has to do with how the metals transmit sound. Tapping two ballpeen hammers together sounds much different than tapping a ballpeen hammer against a brass.
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Dick,
This topic is interesting! You have a good memory to have thought of that bulletin!
Thanks
Dennis
I doubt that there would be any tapping on the spacer irrespective of the material its made of. The 140lbft torque the hub securing nut is tightened to means that the spacer is under a substantial load and axial movement of the hub relative to the half shaft spline not possible.
The extract from Jaguar’s TSB in Dick’s post makes reference to the “Click” occurring when the car is driven from rest. Notwithstanding that the nut is fairly tight, but still nowhere near the maximum torque for the thread diameter involved, I suspect that the male spline is able to rotate relative to the female spline. I don’t buy that a phosphor bronze spacer, rather than steel, would help.
Brent
Maybe the spacer material change is a placebo that Jaguar invented to quieten down the complaints? It works like this: To install the new spacer, you have to disassemble the half-shaft/hub. If they have previously been secured with “goo”, then half the mechanics give up and so Jaguar can legitimately say that they fixed the problem but it was never installed. The other half succeed in disassembling the half-shaft/hub, re-measure the clearance, install the appropriate spacer made of the new material and probably some form of goo (belt and braces) and reassemble everything correctly. As already noted, the act of taking it apart and reassembling it usually results in the noise going away for a while, so the customer is happy, the mechanic credits the new spacer with the fix, and all is right with the world. By the time it starts to click again, the world has moved on. The customer decides to live with it (just like most of us have), and the new spacer gets what little credit is going. The bonus for Jaguar is that the act of disassembly and reassembly of the hub may correct the errors made the last time it was put together which might have contributed to the problem, and the dealer makes a few bucks for the work. How many times have any of us used the “take it apart and put it back together again” method of fixing a problem with our cars or appliances? Even if I failed to identify the source of the problem, the method often works for me… 
Maybe the click is not being generated by the splines themselves shifting in the hub, but is movement of the splined shaft sliding/relocating on the spacer?