daslandroverman

Before committing to the work I'd be checking the numbers. From what I recall the overall ratio spread of the Tdci box is about the same as an R380, but with 6 speeds to choose from rather than 5. Is it really worth the time and money spent making a TDV6 box fit if the gearing will remain pretty much the same as an R380 which will fit behind the engine with bolt on components? If strength is your concern, then there are a few off the shelf upgrades for the R380 which makes them somewhat hardier, but truth be told, a good one really shouldn't be troubled by a 3.5 V8. If you want to do it for the acclaim of being able to say 'I did it' then go for it. I'd suggest looking up Reece Myers in the Cummins Land Rover group on Facebooks as he experimented with the TDV6 box and adapted one to an LT230 at one point. I'll not go too far into the engine debate, but an old 3.5 isn't the best option anymore, and a £500 engine can quite easily consume the same again (and more) in parts for a good quality rebuild if required.

You can buy a manual conversion kit for an LT77 or R380 from a chap called Ollie North, you'll find him on the Mercedes Land Rover group on Facebooks. Gazfab does the kit for putting them onto an autobox. No reason not to keep the EDC pump and have the ECU sorted to run without the immobiliser. Cheaper than dropping £1k or more on a mechanical pump from DPUK or DieselMeken.

He's a good lad should you meet him in person. A very dry sense of humour.

The most definitive guide you're going to find.

A quick Google images search suggests it shouldn't be a particularly complicated job. Looking at the back of the Daihatsu engine the flywheel and clutch aren't enclosed as on the Tdi, which makes things simpler. Keeping the Daihatsu clutch makes sense, whilst drilling a Tdi flywheel to suit it is easy enough. After that, a plate that will bolt to the back of the engine -and support the starter- that's also been drilled for the Daihatsu box (don't forget the locating dowels) is all you need. The one critical dimension for things to work correctly is the height of the drive face of the flywheel from the gearbox mating face. There's a bit of leeway provided everything is flat and parallel, but it helps to be spot on.

If one looks into the physics behind how brakes work then the benefits of larger drums, discs etc become clearer. Firstly we need to look at the first law of thermodynamics, that being 'Energy is always Conserved'. Basically all the energy that goes in, comes out again in one form or another. In the case of the motor car it's a large amount of chemical energy in the fuel which is turned into kinetic and heat energy by the engine. When it comes to braking you've got a large amount of kinetic energy in terms of the momentum of the vehicle, and the job of the brakes (discounting assistance from things like driveline losses) is to convert that energy into something else. Top of the class those of you who said heat. Brakes generate heat by rubbing the friction material against the rotor be it drum or disc. This heat is then lost into the atmosphere as radiated heat. On technicality it warms the air around it rather than the air cooling it. The efficiency of a brake is determined by how well it can dissipate the heat it generates. The condition known as brake fade is due to the brake rotor retaining enough heat that it can no longer effectively convert kinetic energy into heat. Larger brakes will have more capacity to be heated up than smaller ones whilst, as already noted, Discs are more efficient/consistent as they dissipate heat much better than a drum setup. It doesn't surprise me to hear of being able to lock up 10 inch SLS drum setups as drums have a larger surface area of friction material in contact with the rotor, and the shoes have a self servo effect on them also. Worth remembering that a locked wheel is converting kinetic energy into heat energy, just using the medium of your tyre and the road. A bit of an impromptu physics lesson, but hopefully it's been a little enlightening?

Rob Maude of LR Optional Equipment may be interested in buying it for refurbishment.

The 3 inch wide shoes on the V8 and Forward Control models are even better. A decent master/servo and they stop really well. My mates IIA FC with a Cummins 6b engine also got the air assist master cylinder from the truck the engine came from. Stand on the pedal with a little vigour and you can stall the engine at 15mph in 2nd gear.

Here's a guy done a P38 conversion without welding on a galvy chassis. The post you want is about halfway down the page. http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/148109/mercedes-land-rover-over-years?page=3 The P38 box does seemto be the best way to do it on a Series motor.

No, no acid dip. I don't claim to be an expert in the chemistry, but he paint I've sprayed it with bonds to any sort of rust and chemically neutralises it preventing any further corrosion. It's an industrial coating which sees use on oil platforms, amongst other things, so For the moment I'm confident that it'll protect the bulkheads adequately. I'd agree e-coating would be the ideal way forward, but at the moment it's not as easy as throw it in a van and go. I'm currently doing the bulkheads in my free time, alongside a full time job and spending a bit of time with the kids. Having been left somewhere on the back foot financially after splitting with my ex-wife I've got very little funding available, and the prototypes are being funded individually by people that want a bulkhead building, and they will be built to order after that, but until I can afford to do it 'full time' economies of scale will be difficult to achieve. It's pleasing to see that the project is generating interest though.

Yes you do, it's the bulkhead on this truck that started me off on the whole venture...

E-coating would be an ideal solution, but getting them done locally may be a bit awkward. For now they're being painted in Buzzweld coatings which are a good compromise between the two. I'm of the opinion that galvanising isn't the ideal thing for bulkheads.

So, after a trip out in the wild -where it attracted a lot of positive attention- it's 95% finished with a few little additions to make before final paint and dressing. I managed to forget to take any pictures of it at the 'Locomotion' museum, but I did get this one of it on the trailer in daylight. Whilst I've also tried it on the chassis it's intended for, and it fits beautifully. Sucess with the bulkhead has however been tempered some by the sudden expirey of the gearbox in my 110 this morning. It's timing could have been better, but such is life.

Simplest solution would be speak to 'Clutchfix' who will be able to make you a custom clutch setup to suit your requirements. They've done a lot for the Cummins lads, and a couple for the BMW M57 crowd. Save too much mix and match.

I've rather enjoyed the one in my 110, it's a shame it's now somewhat past its best.

So, we're nearly there with it, so here's a quick update with a few photos I've yet to post here. At the end of the last post I was ready to attach the footwells, here we see the Drivers side welded in to the door pillar, foot and stiffeners further up. Spot the important extra. Very few photos taken whilst I was glueing the passenger footwell in, but here we see it welded in, along with the centre section, and the rear panel for the dashboard also welded in. Then I added the transmission tunnel flange... Looking at the other side of the structure we have the stiffener which goes between the footwells. Starting with a flat piece of steel cut to shape I formed it up using a 2lb hammer, the bench vice and the edge of the steel bench. My metal forming skills are improving. Seen installed between the footwells. And starting to assemble the dashboard. By this stage my phone had run out of battery, so there's no photos of the nearly finished product. As it sits the wiper spindle/washer jets holes need drilling out to the correct size, along with adding bonnet and vent flaps hinges, the drip rail and the tabs for the heater vents. More holes will need to be added for some of the fittings and fixtures when it's dressed up for use on a vehicle, but we're very nearly there. As it's coming with me to the 'Brass Monkeys at the Station' event at the Northern part of the NRM the last job of the day was to give it a blast over with a coat of Buzzweld primer to prettify it some before it goes on display. Expect some photos of it tomorrow.

Of course. Not much happened the past week or so due to various factors, including being dead for a couple of days. More of an update to come.

The Mazda was certainly a good engine in its day (still goes pretty well to be fair) but is past its best, a bit of a shame that a proper rebuild would likely be £2k or more. In terms of the autobox, I've done some further reading and if my understanding is correct, the valve block differs between engines with different sized flow restrictors. Interesting, but a brand of Witchcraft I'm not getting involved in for now. Sorting a working kickdown cable for a fly by wire engine isn't over complicated -although the M52 does still have an old fashioned cable setup- whilst a compushift on an EH box would likely be in the £1200 range before I get started on actually fitting the thing. Considering I'm aiming to have done the conversion for no more than £350 -including the engine- it's a non starter, especially as I have a nearly new R380 on the shelf. Adapter plates are easy, as is a solid flywheel -more than suitable for a nice smooth running six- which I can use a standard Land Rover push off clutch, rather than the silly dual mass/pull off setup used in SA vehicles and P38's. As an aside, the M51 with a power chip compares favourably enough with the 3.9 V8 that I reckon the V8 autobox would go very well behind it.

So, since I last posted there's been quite a bit going on in the workshop. First off, I can now do SWB truck cab filler plates, having gotten my hands on a genuine parts one to copy. A lot of reworking, testing and altering has gone on, learning lessons from the original build. Most parts have had some sort of alteration, but it's pretty much there now. Then lots of clamping, welding, measuring, adjusting, measuring and tickling with hammers. Then it was fitted into the jig to get built up fully. And with the inner panel sat in to test the fit. The footwells look like they'll fit rather well also. As an added bonus I've sold a few full width top section repair panels. The blanked off vent holes will be a production option should you wish it. For more regular updates you can find my page on Facebooks if you search for Westlakes All Wheel Drive.

I wonder if anyone with a bit of knowledge about how autoboxes work can help me out here?I've bought a BMW M52B28 to drop into my 110. At present it runs a Mazda SL35 with a ZF4hp22 autobox from a V8 model, and I'm still trying to decide if I should stick with the auto or go with the manual box I have sitting. At present the main stumbling block is how the V8 valve block would cope with the BMW. My knowledge of autoboxes stretches far enough to know it basically looks at the engine speed (input) the road speed (output) and throttle position to decide which gear it wants to be in, with various settings altered to give different shift points, TC lockup speed etc to suit the engine. From this I can deduce that there's going to be some difference as the V8 has its peak torque at 2600rpm, and peak power at 4750, compared to the BMW at 3900rpm and 5300 respectively. Add in the functional redline of the V8 is about 5200rpm on a good day, whilst -with an alteration to the ECU settings- the BMW will spin up to 7000rpm.So, whilst I reckon canny use of the throttle would see the engine and box working fairly well, I find myself thinking that the TC lockup and shift into 4th gear could well find themselves murdering the engine just as it's coming on song rather than making the most of what's on tap. Is my thinking straight enough here?I don't want to fit an EH box and associated controller as my wallet won't allow it, and finding a BMW varient of the 4HP22 to rob the valve block from also seems prohibitively expensive, whilst I wouldn't be best pleased if I'd made up the adapter kit and found it horrible to drive. Build it with the manual box seems a more attractive option all the time, but I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others.

An M54 into a 109 isn't the hardest of conversions by any means. A little lateral thinking will see it mated up to a 5 speed box with standard components, theres enough knowledge out there to have it running out of the car it came from, so you just need to get the final gearing right and it'll be a flier. I've just bought myself an M52B28 for my 110, but will be putting that on an auto. I do however have an M51 which may well end up on the LT77 I have spare, and running a mechanical injection pump rather than the standard EDC one.

There's a chap in 'Merica on Pirate 4x4 who runs an LT230 in an Ultra 4 type car with a big ass V8 in the back. Seems to work well enough now he's sorted issues with the centre diff exploding.

Do we need another thread on a 200 Tdi into a Series motor? No, we need one about putting a different and more exotic engine into one. Would you like some suggestions?

Nope, with the centre diff of the LT230 UJ's in the front axle present no issues. Our Series III has been running like that for about a year now, and other have been for a lot longer. The only thing of note is a little feedback through the steering wheel at full lock as the UJ's do their thing, not noticeable in normal driving, and can be further dulled with a P38 box type power steering conversion.

I've been using it also. Comes up lovely. He does some more expensive stuff that works even better over rust, but best to have a chat with Craig and see what suits your wallet and application best. Easily found, both on Facebook and www.buzzweld.co.uk