bill van snorkle

Well it wasn't worth shipping them back to where they came from, so they were weighed in, and may well have gone to China to be melted down and remade into other rubbish including the contents of blue boxes. Lol.

The bar itself only requires compliant bushings on the swinging shackle. A long shackle will torsionally flex shackle bushings less than a shorter one will. Due to the more or less horizontal placement of the axle end bushings, a shortened radius arm could be easier to package than the traditional Y shaped anti wrap bar with the axle end bushings vertically displaced.

around 30 years ago I worked for a company that had Landrover components manufactured in Taiwan, India and Spain. When a new shipment of stuff came in I would take random samples and check them as best I could for material quality, and there was an agreement with the manufacturer that they would not get paid if the components were unsatisfactory.Whole shipments of critical components such as tie rod ends, axle drive flanges, Steering relays, differential components etc, all made from poor quality cast iron were found and promptly scrapped during the period I worked there. I don't see why a similar agreement couldn't be signed between the pirate parts makers and the British distributors.

Don't know if it's the same with Santana swivels, but series swivels have very limited steering lock.Although they are larger, Series swivel balls are not as strong as coiler balls, and have been known to split just outboard of the bolt flange.I made weld in sleeves for the balls on WildFing. The Stage One swivel balls that were fitted with cv joints were machined to space the swivel bearings further apart to clear the Cv, but I'm not certain it is actually necessary, but I use stage one balls anyway, so never tried fitting a Rover cv into a regular series ball. Toyota CV's fit ok though.

Series LandRover spring bushings have always been undersized for the job. I don't know why aftermarket spring manufactures don't roll the spring eyes for the swinging shackle end to accept larger bushings like on the 101's. I understand this can't be done at the fixed hanger end without losing the military wrap second leaf, but it's usually the shackle end bushings that flog out quickest anyway.

Never been impressed with standard 101's offroad.There really needed to be a MK2 version with propshaft angles sorted, difflocks and anti wrap bars. With flattish springs like a 101 where the centrebolt to eye distance doesn't vary much as the spring flexes from full bump to full droop, a swinging shackle probably would not be required because there is about 25mm of compliance in the radius arm chassis bushing of RRC/Disco1/Defender .

The 2 upper bolts simply aren't enough to cope with the steering loads, and mounting the series steering arm to the coiler swivel via 2 diagonal bolt holes would completely screw up Ackerman angles. I doubt that fabricating steering arms would be legal in Spain, but you would really need to fabricate something resembling a Y shaped steering arm that picked up both the top and bottom swivel pin bolts and even the steering lock stop bolts for complete safety.

Soren, my computer is in low range already this month so I dare not click on any more videos for a week or so. Did the SOA landrover have lowered springs and an anti wrap bar fitted ? The for/aft COG of an 88" is already high on gradients, so raising one a further 6" or so would cause weight transfer to the rear significantly. Rough calculations indicate that a 109" however, would need to be lifted around 12" before the for/aft COG equalled that of an 88". I still don't recommend that O'teunico lift his 109 more than 2 or 3" though, for all the reasons we have all stated.

And an even darker period still, where the 109 was under threat of being coil sprung !lol.

I feel reluctant to advise one way or the other Nigel. On reputation the Landcruiser option will almost always be reliable in every way, while your Disco will always be a LandRover, with all the flaws, weaknesses and built in obsolescence that they are known for. But then again, I'm not the one who has spent countless hours restoring your truck, and if I was then I know that I would hate myself if I abandoned the project at the eleventh hour. If it were me in similar circumstances, I'd probably get the bloody thing registered and on the road, sell it, buy a Landcruiser, enjoy the places it takes me,and don't look back.

Early 110's and Defenders had reversed rims compared to Series wheels but the 110's outward offset was only about 4-6mm greater.

Have you investigated ways of lowering the suspension, sectioning the roof lid etc ? The rear suspension is relatively easy to do because original bumpstop clearance is quite generous. Front end was a bit more involved, requiring raising engine/trans, bulkhead modification for bellhousing clearance etc. relocating bumpstops etc to keep truck relatively low but still have reasonable suspension up travel. I would still like to have the freedom to reconstruct the front of the chassis to provide more uptravel but that would be overstepping the line re legality.

Due to the coiler swivel assemblies being a little smaller than series units, there is about 1/2" difference in the distance from king pin axis and stub axle mounting flange, which could offset the difference that the coilers Zero camber would make, but all in all I can't see there being a significant difference in actual scrub radius between both types. Do you know of any others running Parabolics that have similar issue with following the slope of the track surface ? Possibly the relative lack of wrap resistance of Para's is allowing the castor angle to vary too much as the wheels transition different terrain?

I would have thought that the RRC/Defender front end with the same 7 degree kingpin inclination and 3 degree castor angle as a series front end, but with zero camber angle, would produce an even more positive scrub radius than a series axle rather than a negative one. But then again, I have just woken up so not thinking clearly yet til the caffeine kicks in.

I really don't understand how the relevant authorities permitted LandRover to make and market a vehicle with such poor secondary safety for all those years! Just because they are classed as commercial vehicles, does that mean that the occupants of commercial vehicles have less rights to live than those travelling in conventional cars? I for one will not mourn the demise of the Defender model.

Knowing what rubbish Defender doors are made from, they couldn't support much weight, so i'd guesstimate that the tip over angle of the Defender would be about 2 degrees less than the angle that vehicle is sitting at. And why did the emergency crew leave it sitting like that ?

At least the swivel ball didn't shatter Lol. See replacement parts and continuing problems thread if anyone's confused.

No I think it's just you Hoss. The only advantage a Defender would have over regular cars would be in a pure head on collision, where it's height and both chassis rails would come into the equation. The defender bodywork is structurely quite flimsy, so in what is apparently the more common 'offset' front on collisions, the only components offering any degree of occupant protection would be the front wheel. Let's not even think about side impacts or rollovers.

Yes, thanks all, I'm glad that my threatening the Rangey with a can of petrol and box of matches persuaded it to co-operate this time.

Thanks For that information Snagger and Polly. The P38 box appears to be a great option in markets where scrapped P38 Rangeys are plentiful. Unfortunately over here, a used P38 box would generally have to come from a specialist Rover wrecker/breaker at bulk $$$. The Toyota box has a much more compact hydraulic section at the column end, so there wasn't much of the box that sat over the top of the chassis rail, and this allowed a bit more freedom when juggling radiator and intercooler on a TDI conversion I did for a friend.

Good luck Mike, and any other Brit competitors going there.Although I suppose I should really check to see if there are any Aussie teams competing and support them.

Hi Dave. I wonder if you can confirm a suspicion I have that Detroit locker components over the past 2 decades or so have been made with the sintered or lost wax casting metal process ? My Salisbury Detroit components of years ago, at first glance gave the impression and witness marks of having been milled, but the broken bits gave the impression of them being cast. Could it be that the original forged/milled pieces were used as patterns for the castings, hence the appearance of milling?

As above ?

I have no knowledge of P38 steering boxes, but being in Australia, I went for what is plentiful and cheap over here, and had a proven reliability record , the Toyota 60 series PS box, also with a clamp on mount and integrated Panhard hanger, albeit on coil springs. Possibly the parabolics have less lateral stiffness than original semi elliptics, causing the chassis to shift sideways relative to the axles, although my minds eye tells me that with positive castor the force of the sideslope acting upon the kingpins should cause the front wheels to steer uphill slightly.

The clutch hydraulics failed again a couple of weeks ago, so I parked it up in frustration and moved on to other more important matters. I had a bit of free time today and despite no fluid leaks I decided to completely expose the pipe from the m/cylinder to the hydraulic hose. It was buried under wiring and Aircon hoses held to the bulkhead with retaining clips and virtually inaccessible self tapping screws. Anyway, got to it eventually and spotted a section where the aircon hose had rubbed almost but not quite through the hydraulic pipe. On closer inspection with a magnifying glass I noticed the tiniest dot that I suspected was a pin hole with the thinnest membrane of metal blocking it in only one direction that acted as a one way valve, allowing air to leak into the system but not allowing any external fluid leakage. I put a dob of 5 minute epoxy resin over the hole and now the clutch works fine. Landrover ownership is never boring, but frequently infuriating.