bill van snorkle

Well you could post a piece to me,I could probably get it analysed at Melbourne Uni, but there are probably quicker options.

A two piece rear propshaft on a 109 is do-able. But you would struggle with a two piece front propshaft that would allow good articulation unless you mounted the centre bearing on a crossmember even lower than the original arched member. From an engineering viewpoint this whole concept is far from being one of your better ideas.

According to my book 'New Directions in suspension design" Un driven wheels will tend to pull parallel, regardless of whether they are set up to toe in or toe out. The reasoning behind toe in/out is to preload the ball joints and put the track rod in tension. Therefore Trackrod in front of axle should be set for toe in. Trackrod behind the axle should be set for toe out.

One other issue with spring over axle is that unless you correctly rotate the diff pinions up, the propshafts become vulnerable to damage when clambering up and over logs, steep hummocks etc.

I don't think they are a 'ductile' material Jaime. They are as brittle as glass. Ductility equals malleability, a quality that allows the material to be drawn, hammered and deformed without cracking. Mr Noisey, You have associates who have also broken swivel balls. Did they also throw the broken bits away ? I disagree with Red90 that swivel balls don't have to be capable of withstanding impact forces. they ultimately support their share of the vehicles mass and the mass of the wheel and hub assembly. All shock loads from striking bumps and obstacles on and offroad are transmitted from the wheels through the swivel balls to the suspension. Original equipment balls have also proven themselves capaple of tolerating the impact forces of excessive swivel bearing freeplay, the explosive impact forces of a grenading cv joint, not to mention the impact forces of severe collisions and multiple rollovers. Mr Noisey and his associates Swivels seem incapable of merely holding up their corner of the vehicle, and as previously stated, could someday cost someone their life. So rather than just write that off to experience and go purchase genuine balls,it is really now a moral obligation of us that are aware of this issue to put it out there in the public domain and keep it there til such a time as the product is withdrawn and hopefully the manufacturer and sales agent held to account. Thankfully the market for replacement swivel balls in Australia is small, and hopefully none of those Brit Part units have been sold here.

You could ask Mal Story, aka Maxidrive. to take a look at the photos Serg. It's bleedin obvious they are cast.

you are correct about early Rover car wheel cylinders having a handbrake facility. The series One 107"WB vehicle had the same cylinders minus the expanders. the main issue with series hand brakes IMO is that due to the flexible mounting of the transmission to the chassis and the inflexible mounting of the linkage to the chassis, every time the front axle suspension flexes the propshaft pushes the transmission rearwards slightly, thus wearing away the handbrake shoes. The later tie bar does help a little, but a cable or remounting the handbrake lever to the transmission would be a better solution IMO. For a shorter term solution where hydraulic creep is not an issue, assuming hydraulic line locks are illegal, how about attaching one of those old pull and twist hand brake levers to the brake pedal via a bellcrank .Or just a stick jammed between the brake pedal and the seat box.

The facts are that they have shattered with very little use, when similar failure of genuine balls are virtually unheard of. I believe you have engineering back ground. Can you not tell by Mr Noiseys photos that these are poor quality castings, possibly from grey iron ? No one else on this forum with any engineering qualification seems to be willing to offer an opinion. Take a sample over to Taiwan, India or China and they could make you one in a day while you wait ! Castings are easy, and if the market was significant any number of firms in those countries could knock them out.

Are you certain that your castor angle is the standard 3 degrees? Also, as the front axle is no longer constantly driven, and due to the spindely track rod behind the axle, the steering geometry should be adjusted to toe out as opposed to standard series axles toe in.

8" thick spring pack ? The front springs on my Stage One are 2" thick. the diameter of the axle housing , including upper and lower spring saddles would be 4", together = 6" total lift. decambered springs could be used to reduce that to about 3 or 4". Some of the leaves are there to provide some Wrap/tramp control, so if anti wrap bars are fitted a few leaves could be removed to lower it further.

IIRC it was a Komatsu Dozer that pulled it out with traction not the winch. Tank was remarkably well preserved seeing it lay in that swamp for 60 years or so.

I don't know where the 10" figure actually comes from. Properly done the net gain in lift shouldn't exceed 6" at most, and then if settled springs are used that could be reduced to around 4" or less. That Z bar looks deadly, although Landrover 101's do have something similar.

The Stage Ones don't have the old arched crossmember. but they had the old series 2/3 transfercase crossmember relocated further forward. Because of this I personally don't think the Stage One chassis is as rigid as earlier 109 chassis. My stage One doors jamb when suspension is articulating, and it is a low mileage unit with a very straight rust free chassis. i

O'Teunico, how are you going to fit under that bridge with a 10" suspension lift ? Generally, to maintain stability, if you raise a vehicle say 2", you should widen the wheel track width by 4". So your 109 will need to have the same wheel track of a military Humvee, otherwise it will be an unwieldy tippy POS. The cost of suitable wider axles, plus fitting will well exceed what you planned for the Disco, to create a monster that would probably be next to useless in most off road situations.

What I would like to know is how the rest of the Wolf was modified to have a GVW of 4100 KG's ?

I have nothing more to add on this subject, But, a pound Nigel ? !! You certainly had a spoilt childhood ! I got thruppence, and even then I had to share the sweets with my Siblings.

Because the 'box company's haven't commented, that is all the more reason why a thread with an attention grabbing title should be started to raise awareness about this Carp before someone gets killed! I will be endeavouring to have this swivel ball subject raised on the widely read Australian AULRO forum.

How about Tetsuosin the OP asking Moderators if you can retitle the thread 'Deadly Swivel Balls' or similar ?

If as I suspect, the original equipment swivel balls were forged steel, not cast steel, then Billets may not necessarily be stronger because machining interrupts the grain structure. I think the title of this thread should be changed to attract the people that know about this stuff such as Simon X or the Ashcrofts etc. The fact that they haven't contributed to this discussion suggests that they haven't viewed the thread.

I'm not likely to ever buy a new swivel ball, but I'm prepared to contribute 10 quid towards metallurgic analysis if other members here are interested in chipping in also.

I have a very large garden full of stuff to "Inspire" any future mechanics and would've been LandRover owners.

I gave a teenage nephew who expressed an interest in becoming a mechanic a couple of broken diffs, some failed halfshafts, layshafts, mainshafts,a few bits of rusty chassis sections etc. Whilst he still desires to be a mechanic, that collection of bits has "Inspired" him never, ever to become a Landrover owner.(sarc)

Ok with you now. When they eventually begin to deteriorate, I would be running the CV joints in grease rather than use those dodgy cast iron balls. And that's another thing -- I very much doubt the cast iron balls could withstand the awfulness that they are subjected to when a CV joint explodes. One more point I would make is that if those cast iron balls were original equipment on production LandRovers, or even sold by the company as genuine replacements, they would probably have been sued out of existence by the Americans by now. That is of course assuming from this distance that Disco 1's and Defenders with Teflon balls were actually sold over there. The litigious Yanks wouldn't stand for CARP like that from OEM manufacturers, as I believe Rover had previously discovered to their cost, re side mounted petrol tanks on v8 90's IIRC.

Mr Noisey previously wrote on page 4. "I don't trust genuine LR balls.I think they will be identical." So where did this new found confidence come from?

I had an early 1951 2 litre engine 30 years ago with number V530177P, and on checking, the suffix 'P' stood for either 'pre production' or 'prototype'. can't remember which.