When LT230 go bad

badvibes

Active member
Another broken Detroit club member here. Broken axle shaft = broken Detroit. Broke a shaft in my RRC. Replaced it went @ 75 yards BANG! Thought it was another axle shaft. Nope. Absolutely guaranteed 100% assured it will happen in the worst possible place. Buck Island lake. My avatar is me coming back out to Loon lake on open diffs that were swapped in after the carnage.

You might get away with breaking an axle shaft and not your Detroit if you don't drive with it that way at all. If you have to drive your truck with broken shaft I think the chance of damaging your Detroit go way up.
 

rocky

NAS-ROW Addict
Go to the top of the thread and click the ellipsis (the 3 dots... If you didn't know that...) You can rename your thread.

Done. I suspect my bad habit of not locks the CDL off road except when absolutely necessary might have conTributes to it.

Tracked down a good 2003 unit that we’ll transfer some parts across so the CDL works. I now have a fully gone through front axle as well.
 

JimC

Super Moderator
Staff member
When they go bad they go way bad. Like selling crack out the back door and whoring their sister bad.

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66rover99

Well-known member
Thats a great video. Really explains the different strengths.

The lt230s don't always grenade themselves. Back in 2011 I started hearing noise that sounded like a worn bearing when driving from Vernon to Seattle, about a 7 hour drive. Gord'n and I drained, examined the oil and refilled the lt230, and also replaced a leaking rear pinion seal as we weren't absolutely certain where the noise was originating. The next stage of our trip was up the I90 to Ellensburg, and by then I was pretty certain the noise was from the lt230.
After 5 days of wheeling and camping, and the noise not getting any worse we started home, straight north. It wasn't long before we heard some bumping and grinding which brought us to a halt on the side of the road, about 12 hours from home. I tried a few things, including shifting into low range. Surprisingly it drove well and quietly in low range, with no bearing noise at all.
I concluded that the box would have to be replaced anyway, so why not try and drive it. We drove at 20 mph on the shoulder of the road all the way home to Vernon, which took us an extra day, but the AC worked so we stayed cool, and we saw a lot of sights that we usually just zoom past.
It held together all the way home and all the way to the repair shop who installed another used lt230 from B&R for $100 and it has been problem free for the rest of the trucks life. My wife says its never over in a Rover...
 

SimonDewing

Well-known member
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They run surprisingly well without oil for long periods of time.
This one is out of our $700 craigslist bargain D2.
Never checked the oil level but my son mentioned it had been noisy since I bought it (we drove it around 70 thousand miles before it failed)
As I have hearing problems I never noticed!
Finally made more noise while my daughter was driving it and got so hot that the aluminum casing melted.
Swapped out for spare we had left over after fitting one with a CDL to the other D2.
 

rocky

NAS-ROW Addict
I have to absorb everything that’s gone on. Put in a 98 D1 box in. It’s so much quieter than the other one.
 

Uncle Douglas

Well-known member
Callsign: delete
I have to absorb everything that’s gone on. Put in a 98 D1 box in. It’s so much quieter than the other one.
LT230Q series for the win !
Use them whenever possible. Synthetic gear oil also helps whether others here agree or not.
Ever spun the gears on the LUCAS additive display in a parts store ?
 
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