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portal axle conversion


aigars

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Hi!

Wanted to ask you if someone has made a conversion-fitted the portals on to a land rover axles

could you post some pics where i could see it detailed?

and how did you adapt the halfshafts?

p.s. sorry for bad englsih cuz i am from latvia.

AFAIK nothing is currently available. The rover axle housing would need to be strengthened if portals were fitted, and the flange joint at the ends of the axle tubes does not have enough strength to mount portal boxes.

Volvo portals axle assemblies are well made, best suited and easiest to fit to Land Rovers - the main downsides are they have drum brakes, are getting more difficult to find.

Unimog portal axles are popular as they are easier to find, so relatively cheap, they are very strong and have exceptional steering lock - main downsides are the they are heavy and need many modifications before they can be fitted to a Land Rover.

PortalTek are well made and can be ordered with many options to suit your vehicle - the main downside is expense.

I have Volvo portals and Marks Nissan portals in 2 of my Land Rovers. The Marks portals could be adapted to Land Rover axles, but much strengthening and modification to the axle housing would be required. I think supply outside Australia might be a problem. This is a link to information on Marks portals also more information here.

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Wanted to ask you if someone has made a conversion-fitted the portals on to a land rover axles

Bill made it.

But it's something unique.

Try a search, I did post pics time ago.

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  • 1 month later...

Hi, back again but still far away on the road....

After some years of research and a few times getting really close to getting myself first a set of MaxiDrive Bolt-on portals and then later a set of Volvo portals I finally decided to stick with LR.

I happened to meet Wolfgang Tibus (Killeraxles), who has quite some experience customizing portal axles and after having a long chat earlier last year he went to work and now we are installing the finish bolt-on portals to my axles....

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We chose the Hutchinson Beadlock Rims for the Mercedes G as the cover the portal best. The other option were military H1 rims with a runflat ring, but that´s a different story :-)

With the other modifications that we are doing, I hope that we have the truck on this "new" axles by mid February and then it´s off testing....

So long & looking forward to your comments,

Robert

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From what Wolfgang calculated he´s very optimistic that they will be strong enough. If not....well then either I get myself a Salisbury/Dana 60 frontaxle, too, or I have a few kilo´s of nice painted metal for my bookshelve :-)

3614472.jpg

3614473.jpg

3614474.jpg

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Hi!

Wanted to ask you if someone has made a conversion-fitted the portals on to a land rover axles

could you post some pics where i could see it detailed?

and how did you adapt the halfshafts?

p.s. sorry for bad englsih cuz i am from latvia.

Hummeer H1 drop boxes boled on ??? Seem to be doing it in the US

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From what Wolfgang calculated he´s very optimistic that they will be strong enough. If not....well then either I get myself a Salisbury/Dana 60 frontaxle, too, or I have a few kilo´s of nice painted metal for my bookshelve :-)

3614472.jpg

3614473.jpg

3614474.jpg

Nice! are these gonna be commercially available?

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Well thanx, but I will forward that compliment to Wolfgang Tibus, who spend almost 1.5 hours on the phone with me last January.....and then suddendly showed up and said "I have some drawings, what do you think? Would that be something you´d like?".....and that´s it :-(

Here´s a "puzzle" image with a part that doesn´t belong to the Defender though, sorry....

3616994.jpg

Currently Wolfgang is working on the completion of my rear axle and we are changing and improving as we go forward.

When we get to the fron axle, I hope you like the way we solved the different issues.

Other than that, the boxes are all the same and fully interchangeable.

So long,

Robert

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Yes indeed looking good, the great thing about fitting portals with a gearing is that you significantly lower the stress on the rest of your drivetrain components, it's just like fitting very small wheels, but without the clearance issue :) Those resplined CV's and shaft's, where did they come from? I suppose he resplined some off the shelve parts?

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It's very nice, but I have to ask what the reason is for this project (and people's ongoing obsession with the idea of bolt-on portals)?

Unless it's being done for free, it can't be any cheaper than buying some axles.

It's not retaining many standard rover parts aside from the diff itself.

It's not saving having to weld brackets to things.

It's not going to be as strong as Mog / Volvo etc. simply by virtue of retaining the LR axle tube, diff, and using LR-based shafts etc.

This is not a dig, I can totally understand if you are doing something just for the fun / hell of it or as an experiment. I'm just curious why you discounted the more common solutions to whatever the problem may have been.

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I suppose it is for similar reasons why people modify their Land Rovers to the point where maybe a they would have been better off just getting a different vehicle that does the job they want.

Why fit Mog axles to a Land Rover? Fit a Land Rover body and a huge V8 to a Mog instead.

Not that I am one to talk. ;)

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Well, it is certainly MUCH less work via this route than the only other real options which are MOG axles. MOG axles need to be completely rebuilt to fit on a Rover. Volvo portals were a simplish solution, but I understand finding them these days is almost impossible.

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I don't see that machining your own complete portal ends (and all the development work that entails) is less work than making a Mog axle fit, which is a commonly done and well known process. :unsure:

Volvos are rarer but not impossible to find, I know at least one new build using them at the moment.

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Well...maybe I took too much time and talked to too many people...I don´t know.

I am still a fan of the Volvo portals but the axles are getting rarer and rarer and the whole conversion , with disc brakes, coil springs, etc., is more than I am spending now, including the rims and the tyre inflation system.

I happened to have a set of Salisbury axles to spare for the project, too.

I should have bought a set of Volvo axles when I started thinking about portals 4 years ago instead of going over the options....

After all, I ´ll probably have to learn the hard way, don´t I? If it doesn´t work it was worth the try and probably I am lost in some remote valley :-(

We´ll see.....

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Well FF I think you might consider that Oilworker didn't do the job himself. And maybe this is a cheaper solution to HIM than paying for volvo/mog axles and THEN have someone converting them. Anyways I hear there's a problem finding some steering rod end for those volvo portals, and I know from my own experience that the Mogs aren't the most off the shelve axle when it comes to parts, even though it is very popular around the world.

I do for one see the great thing in bolt on portals, and have been considering making some myself out of Mog portals, which the way I would do it would also allow a much tighter turning radius. Haven't got around to it yet though

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As I said - I'm not saying this is a bad idea, just that I don't fully understand the reason for going this way if all other things are equal. If the situation is that you can get machining done but no-one locally can mount a new set of axles under the truck, then that explains it.

Some bits for Mogs & Volvos etc. are hard to find, but if your portal ends are completely custom then the only source of spares is getting them custom made. Again, that seems more effort than the worst case scenario of having to get a bit made or adapted for an existing axle. For example, we can replace every part for Volvos, either with new standard bits or some conversion that uses a commonly available seal or bearing etc.

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I don't see that machining your own complete portal ends (and all the development work that entails) is less work than making a Mog axle fit, which is a commonly done and well known process. :unsure:

Volvos are rarer but not impossible to find, I know at least one new build using them at the moment.

He is not machining all his own. It is a company that builds portal bolt on boxes for a living. His is just the first one adapted to the Rover axle. Once it is done, it will be a regular production item.

http://www.killeraxles.com/

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He is not machining all his own. It is a company that builds portal bolt on boxes for a living. His is just the first one adapted to the Rover axle. Once it is done, it will be a regular production item.

http://www.killeraxles.com/

Well, sort of...hopefully it´ll be a regular production item.

The prototype worked really well and I guess in the line of work and continous development by the guys at Killeraxles there´ll be more "production-line" parts used.

Furthermore and I think that´s really worth this approach, these portal boxes are now being installed on Defender axles, but with just a few adaptations they can be fitted onto a Jeep, a Toyota or almost any other truck/car you like.

Sure, a lot of Rover guys look for portals, but they are not the whole market. Just look at all those Jeeps that they have fitted with Portals in the past.

Currently I know 2 other guys who will go with these portals and their Defenders will be used for more serious offroading than I do, or plan to do, on my travels.

Until reallity proves otherwise I will stick with bolt-on portals. I have spoken with Mal storey about this some time ago and he told me exactly why and where his portals broke in the field..mostly it were too big tyres, too much bhp and overly confident drivers.

But hey, we´ll see....you´re all invited to the scrap party if the stuff breaks! :-)

So long,

Robert

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