SOA 93

Keith Bontranger designs and makes components for Mountain bikes, Trek mainly, he a has a brilliant saying "Cheap, Light, Strong, pick any two". It can be applied to just about any manufactured part, or conversion.

My line of thought was to have some adaptors/spacers made to bolt the complete RR swivel hub assembly to the end of a series axle and then use the RR halfshafts as well. I didn't know then that the track rod would go through the leaf spring , however I've noticed that later coiler axles have both LHD and RHD swivel hub's with the LHD drag arm redundant, meaning you could connect them with a new track bar then run a drag link off the track bar, any reason why that wouldn't work?

I can only imagine that these are the ones that were designed and made by BCB Offroad in the States, before they closed for business. They were a hub conversion allowing you to use RR calipers and disc's, wasn't cheap in the States so likely to be outrageous here. AFAIK Tim Cooper sold all their designs/rights etc, so maybe someone else is making them. I think if RM were producing them they'd be making a song and dance about them. But I'm not unaccustomed to being wrong! Andy

Steve, the previous thread on 3 links and alternatives had a new system called X-link, you can lock this up for road or release for 3-link equivalent travel, only been done in Oz as far as I know. Andy

Well Will, no one could accuse you of cutting corners!! Well Orange as you can see, there's more than one way to skin a cat....... sell your 90 spend the £3500 loose change you've got in your pocket on a 300TDI disco and use the funds from the sale of your 90 to trick out your Disco!? I bought my Disco for £1700 110k complete with 12 months MOT, got the failure ticket that showed all it needed was a TRE, my intention was to swap the box for a manual which I already have, and then sell it on. Only I found myself enjoying it quite alot and it makes a great work tool, so I'm keeping it. I had to trawl through about 200 disco's on the Auto Trader site before I found it, no one else had been to look at it, most punters are not interested in Auto's. When the ZF22 in mine eventually gives up I shall indeed get it swapped for an HP24 internalled version but not before. I assume these conversion kits offered by Conversion & Precision and MDE make the need for the Disco back plate unnecessary. Assuming you don't want to spent £3000+ on your 90 then looking for a Disco is an option if you have the funds available replacement LT77's out of Disco's are hard to give away, you may not get everything you need for the conversion but you won't be far off. In terms of power capability then I think even a ZFHP22 is stronger than a LT77 or R380, but I don't know what use you will be putting your 90 to. Remember that the 300TDIAuto has eletronically controlled pump, meaning its a chip upgrade or pump change to tweak it. I've measured the the box's I have, these dimensions are from the back af the block to the rear most edge of the brake drum, rounded to the nearest 5mm and done with a tape measure. Disco 200TDI Auto 1005mm Disco 200TDI Man 1015mm 90/110 lt77 875mm Those figures include relevant back plate/ fly wheel housings.

I'll measure the disco later and I've an LT77 out of a 110 I'll measure aswell, I have no experience with this conversion, but if I wanted to Auto a 200TDI in the future this is the way I'd do it. Its rarely as simple as it looks

I believe there is another way. You can buy adaptors to mount a 200TDI to RRV8 auto, This way you could source a more readily available 300 TDI ZF or even a V8 ZF although I think you would need to get someone like Ashcrofts to change the valving in the V8 box. According to Ashcrofts website there are three different sizes of torque convertor, smallest is the TDI and 3.5V8(?), then the 3.9V8 and finally the 4.6V8 being the largest. Again from the Ashcrofts site, there opinion is that the TDI T/C is not really upto the torque of the TDI engine and would be better with the 3.9V8 mid sized T/C. Sooooo.....you could go for say a 3.9 box with the bigger T/C that way you be better prepared for any future tuning tweaks or 2.8TGV transplants. Obviously the people who sell these conversion kits would be the ones to talk to regarding suitability of the V8 box mounted to a diesel. I have a Disco 200TDI Auto, they are rare but are available, there no more expensive than a manual so you could buy one, remove the auto, fit a manual and sell on and be assured that you have all the parts neccessary for the conversion. £3500 is a figure that is banded about for an off the shelf auto conversion, Ok that's for everything including a NAS centre console, but I think its a bit OTT or for those with very deep pockets only. http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/part_18.html#pa1 http://www.engineconversions.co.uk/rangerover.html Hope that helps.

I bought a set of their fibre glass flares at Billing they are up for sale http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=7786 I was very interested in their new flares, the one at Malvern was a pre production, he was hoping to have the production ones ready for Billing this year . The price I was quoted was £300+ still worth it if you do alot of offroading among tree's, not sure if they are available yet, when I spoke to him he was hoping to have them at Peterborough(?)

Bloody hell boys you've been busy today, nobody got any work to do? Here's some more comparison pics of CV's, a 101, Rover (weak version I think) and a shiny 300m Toyota birfield.

BHP means very little other than to sell cars and brag IMHO, its just a calculation of torqueXRPM, Torque being the real measure of power. A good few years ago chips were sold for normally aspirated cars that bragged a 10/15% increase in BHP, they were little more than moving the rev limiter allowing the engine to attain higher revs thereby increasing the BHP, which was actually true, just that it didn't give you any more power and the only difference it made to the driving experience was allowing you to scream it in 1st and 2nd gear. Personally I'd like to get 300lb/ft from my TDI I think that would be enough, and if I could get it to come in at around 1800rpm and hang on till about 3000rpm I would be very happy. A certain Mr Fearn allegedly gets 500 or 600lb/ft from the 6 cylinder BMW oil burner, and before anyone says , yes but he's using twin turbo's, they only change the way the power is produced holding the torque up further into the RPM. Other than the intercooler and twin turbo conversion the engine is standard, try doing that with a RV8. A good indication of how powerful an engine is, is the area under its torque curve on a graph, everbody seems to talk BHP just like people rate stereo's and speakers in watts, trouble is sound is measured in decibels not watts, but 'watts' sells stereo's. Engine Dyno's and Rolling roads measure torque and calculate BHP, Bhp is biased towards the typical petrol engine, diesels can be alot more powerful but not have as much BHP. I shall keep tweaking the TDI till it gives the power I want/need and then get it dynoed to see how much that actually is. If your aiming for 200BHP? Where? 2000rpm? Unlikely, 5000rpm unnecessary. 200BHP @ 2000rpm is alot more powerful than 200BHP @ 6000rpm. If you want to talk about realistic BHP figures a good man to talk to is Roland at ACR, he's had alot of stuff on an engine Dyno, standard TDI,s turn out 90BHP in real life just like 400BHP TVR engines turn out about 250BHP. Hybrid From Hell's V8, he knows he's got enough, comes in low enough holds on long enough, and puts a huge smile on his face, perfect engine. Going in search of a figure like 200bhp does not mean you'll have a good engine, the spread of power, where it comes in, is far more important, its what makes the VNT' so good (available as kit from Allards to fit TDI's, for those with deep pockets only). All the stuff above works on a TDI and you can do it a bit at a time until you get what you want, you just won't be able to brag about it down the pub that's all. Just my take on it......cough.

I am very lucky with Parcel force/the chap who does my area, I'm usually his first call in the morning usually before 8am, I can order stuff from screwfix about 4.30pm and its at my door early next morning Nearly all of the couriers will now leave parcels in the Porch without anyone there, I left printed and signed forms in the porch when I was expecting deliveries telling them to take one as authorisation, the Guy who delivers Paddocks stuff got me to sign a form allowing him to drop the parcels off without signature. Even if I'm home I sometimes just hear the porch door open followed by a gentle thud, alerting me to a delivery. I have to point out that I live in a rural area and have V good neighbours. BishBosh, the bloke who does your area is a complete w@@@er, he could just as well work for any courier, you're only as good as your workforce, you only have to have a driving licence to become a van driver, intelligence and ethics are not required. I loathe these T@@@ers who tell you to be in from 8am to 6pm, because a signature is required, then don't turn up! Andy

Yes, you are right they are boring out the spindles, but only to get the inner spline through. D60 shafts are 38mm, standard 101 shafts are 36.6mm, I hope the material grade will compensate for the 1.5mm difference . Mog60's eh..........drool Andy

They'll be my axles at rakeway ... but I wish you wouldn't total up the figure like that, gives me palpatations. Bathtub uses 101 axles to good effect, he runs standard shafts with ARB's, these are from GBR in the states, Bill at GBR gets ARB to make his 101 side gears and then builds them into 110 salisbury centres. The Dana60 diff centres fit the salisbury axles as they are basically identicle. However it stops there no other D60 parts will fit a 101 front axle, D60 are all external UJ front axles. You would need to have new drive flanges and bore out the spindles to fit D60 1.5" 35 spline shafts in the rear axle. Not all D60 axles come with large shafts some have 1.31" shafts. I went with 101 axles because of large CV's this was before Ashcrofts had released their CV's, I had also bought the 2 Zeus disc kits as well so there was no going back, I was initially going to go with GBR ARB's with the standard shafts but Bill at GBR was unsure when he'd receive the next batch of side gears.....so I got in touch with Rakeway initially to see if they could make the side gears and it went from there. The shafts Rakeway are making for me are just the same size as standard but with D60 35 spline inners, the outer spline root diameter is the limiting factor, they will be better engineered, wasted etc. The reason I went for the D60 ARB's was availability, almost any make of locker or diff can then be fitted and spares will never be a problem, I believe GBR now has the side gears in. I think if Rakeway do a disc conversion at a lot less than the Zeus conversion the that would better. If I started now with all that is available currently then I'd have to think long and hard before going down the 101 axle route. There are some good alternatives out there. Andy

I think you'll find 4th in auto is higher than 5th manual, manual 5th is .77 and auto 4th is about .72 IIRC. Andy

EGT kits can be had from these people, http://www.turbobits.co.uk/acatalog/digita..._egt_gauge.html Andy

I've done the opposite, I've taken the rear seats out of my Disco 4 door but I retained the two folding seats that are fitted to the seven seaters, I only occasionally need more than 2 seats so this has proven ideal, I don't think you'd want to travel to far in them though. Andy

I have a SOA project that is on the back burner for the moment, I'm very interested in your theories/conversions Bill, I was always under the assumption that trailing shackles would give a more stable on road ride, my theory being that the extra rubber bush would allow more movement, the same theory as a supermarket trolley wheel, didn't Jeep fit a panhard to some of there leafer's? Of course the length of the springs has an effect on the amount of travel available, and with the amount of travel available from these longer springs fitted to Jeeps and toyotas then propshafts would indeed not last long in a trailing shackle set up. Perhaps the limited amount of travel available from LR front springs made trailing shackle possible and so the assumed on road stability from this set up was a benefit. I've got a set of revolver shackles so the squatting geometry is of real interest to me, would'nt be too difficult to alter the mounts at this stage, I'm also using parabolic Jeep front springs because their longer, I was going to fab a central anti-wrap bar of a design from one of the Jeep sites. Is there a good reason for the front leafs to be at the angle that LR use or can they be installed closer to hoizontal? I knew Jeeps and zukis were leading shackle but but I didn't know Nisans and Toyotas were too, obviously not that much of a stability issue then, I thought the reason for most of the shackle reversal kits was for approach angles? Always good to hear others experiences/designs, never stop learning.

I'd have a LR4x4 one aswell. Andy

I was thinking more like a fabricated box, now its even easier . Looks like he's using 'Nylatron'(?) for the centre bushing, nice and easy too. Thanks Bush, that's great a help. Andy

Genuine JATE rings, secondhand military ones were about £6 each at Billing, boxes full of them bought 4 myself, maybe wait a week a week till the LRO show, bound to be there aswell, genuine ones are very expensive new.

I think the Dobson X-link is relatively new, I think they were making 5-link kits before but have now stopped in favour of making this new X-link, if this is true then it says something about the new set up. Any body want to have a guess as to what there using for a pivot?

That's really good to hear! Anyone else running a three link of some description? Would be nice to know what people 'who have first hand experience of three link' think of them on the road, don't think anybodies questioning their ability off road. Might be useful to know what lift/ front spring your using aswell. cheers Andy

John, in posts on other threads I know you've a few opinions on roll centres, I am definately going the Dobson X-route, and due to packaging of track rod, X-link beam and ram assist all on the front of the axle the panhard rod 'axle mount' is gonna need lifting a little from the standard position. Chassis end will be relocated but stay at the same height, the mount on the axle is gonna need lifting approx 2", Disc will get a 3" lift approx. As I have to fabricate an A-frame mount for the rear axle, do I raise this mount an equal amount to the front panhard lift to keep the difference in roll centres the same? Will raising the A-frame axle mount have a positive or negative effect on rear geometry? Will raising the roll centres have a huge effect on the Disco's handling? Does any of this make sense? Opinion invited please. Andy

The 90 with 3-link. And finally my fave Land Rover pic, for all you leaf lovers