bill van snorkle

A fair example of the above is electronic traction control. I read recently that the life of the Rover differential bevel gears, when the vehicle is used in conditions where traction control has to earn its keep, is between one and two hours. The life of a mechanical difflock of proper design is indefinite.

So what is the latest on the Warnemobile ? Did it ever get completed ? Or is it just Warne out?

I've observed over the decades that I have been involved in 4WDrives, that components considered to be strong and reliable in the UK are marginal at best and very fragile at worse on the generally drier, harder, steeper and less refined offroad tracks/trails in our more mountainous regions here. Salisbury diffs are fine even in the lower ratio variants, but you also have to change the front CWP. History, and often bitter experience has shown that the Rover spiral bevel CWP's are just too fragile for serious offroading on decent tyres once the ratio is dropped much below 4.1 :1. P38 diffs with their more closely spaced pinion bearings are not a particularly good example when it comes to building a "damned tough" differential. I agree with Wayne (Low Ranger), that just like difflocks, and a balanced, flexible suspension system for truly serious offroading , once one experiences the benefits and versatility of a proper underdrive, which basically gives a 4speed transfercase, there really is no going back to the standard arrangement. 30% reduction gears give around 60 :1 low range vs around 120-130 :1 for the Ashcroft unit. In certain instances a 4.3:1 permanent low range ratio is too low for intermediate difficulty terrain where high range won't pull, and the straight cut gears are quite noisy and possibly not quite as robust and long wearing as the original helical gears.

I believe the successors to Maxidrive still make reduction gear sets for group purchases, and a lr4x4.com group purchase would save a bit on freight costs to the UK too I would think.

Thank you Serg and Cwazy. It's certainly a 'busy' looking suspension system what with anti roll bars and panhard rods etc. The LandRover A frame and trailing arms look like a more elegant system. I do wonder why Mercedes chose not to go ahead with the pivoting beam load sharing system above. Even the Australian military G Wagons are non load sharing and would likely have been tested by the army fully loaded. From what information I have gathered,apparently the AUS military opted for drum brakes on the rear axles because the parking brake of the disc system could not hold the truck on the Army's test hill.

Yes they are, but there is only so much that can be done with the Spiral Bevel design, especially in the lower ratio options.

I found the drawing of the load sharing bogie that appears to run G wagon components, on O'teunico's 6x6 thread in the 'International 'section, and bumped the thread back up. Can anyone transfer the drawing over to this thread ?

Mods HBH /HOG. How can I post this over to FridgeFreezers thread on the AMG Mercedes 6x6 in the ' Modified Vehicles ' forum ?

Could you do me a favour and re type your post in pre computer age 'English' ?

What do you mean by "more robust than an underdrive" ? I wasn't aware of any weakness with the Ashcroft underdrive, and I would have thought them to be very much longer lived than any 4.7 ish Rover type diff.

Funny, there weren't too many fatal accidents in the days when there were only Series LandRovers. Drivers didn't expect them to stop or handle well, so drove within the vehicles limits.

The Borg Warner 1339 planetary box has a PTO spline on the back. That's how I drive my winch, albeit mechanical drive not hydraulic.

No Mr design director/chief creative director ! No one in the market for a functional, reliable working type 4wd utility vehicle "has to live with it" you arrogant Berk! Not while your competition continue to offer vehicles that tick all the above boxes they don't !

Soren. the ENV and 9" ford pinions require the straddle bearing because the 2 tapered roller bearings are spaced too close together to prevent pinion gear deflection. Rover type and Salisbury diffs have a generous pinion bearing spacing and don't require the straddle bearing for support, but the 4.7 ratio Rover CWP is really just too weak to benefit much from pegging once a more rigid 4 pinion carrier is fitted, although pegging with a standard 2 pinion carrier may/will prevent crownwheel deflection, but why would anyone bother doing that and not uprate to a 4 pin?

After removing the broken crownwheel, fit the carrier back onto the housing and put a dial indicator onto the crownwheel mounting interface and check for runout.I have my doubts that an ARB can survive a broken ring and pinion without buckling the mounting flange.

Are the diffs being set up correctly ? If maximum ground clearance is not too important, go for a shaved Salisbury and put the ARB in front. The Ashcroft HD C&P would probably work, but how good or poor are the later ARB castings ? he might start breaking those

If you can source a good used Borg Warner model 1339 Quadratrac High/ low reduction unit from an Automatic Jeep CJ7 or Wagoneer, I may have a solution for you in the coming months. I won't be offering it commercially, but if the one I'm adapting to an LT230 is successful I will post up details on how to do it and what components need to be made or modified. I have had a 1339 on Wildfings Series Transfercase for the past 15 years, and have also fitted one to the back of an LT95 about 10 years ago with no problems. The LT230 adaption is a little different, and will require a smaller Series drum handbrake or a X type disc handbrake because the 1339 planetary unit is larger than the Ashcroft unit.

Of course the Tatra design on a smaller, LandRover scale, describes the 6x6 Pinzgauer, which for all their mechanical complexity (ie 2 crownwheels and 2 pinions for each differential ) are quite unstable in steep off camber terrain. That is mostly due to the 'swing axle' suspension design with very short half axles, that not only severely restrict articulation, but also reduce track width as they swing downwards.

The combination of radius arms and antiroll bars all round, plus no load sharing would seriously restrict wheel articulation in every plane.But that aside,I was thinking about the design intent of this vehicle, that being sandy desert travel by wealthy Arabs. The lack of load sharing on the rear suspension is probably not such a bad thing, and may actually be advantageous, as it would tend to improve the floatation of the vehicles more heavily laden front tyres on very soft ground, because for the front tyres to sink down, the coil springs of the leading rear axle would see an increased loading and therefore the leading rear tyres would share some of the front ends weight. For all, or most other types of severe cross country terrain, a fully articulating rear bogie suspension is preferable, but with the option of hydraulically or pneumatically adjusting the weight balance on the individual rear axles for those soft sandy or swampy conditions.i But at around half a million $ a copy, there aren't going to be many of us who will have the opportunity to design out these vehicles short comings I'm afraid.

I will have to read through O'teunico's 6x6 thread again, because I'm certain I've seen the same rear bogie design but with the coil springs mounted on centrally pivoted balance beams to give load sharing. Perhaps load sharing was on prototypes for the Australian military, who are replacing their 6x6 LandRovers with Mercs of the same design minus the portals and with drum brakes on the rear in place of discs. Interesting that the diff ratio is 4.11:1. This would probably indicate that the portal ratio is not very deep as even 1.5:1 would yield a final drive ratio of close to 6.17, likely a bit low for a vehicle with so much engine. Although the portal braces may appear like an afterthought, they are very necessary for portal assemblies designed to bolt onto most standard non portal swivel housing assemblies, due to the enormous additional leverage that the drop boxes exert on swivel, balls, pins, bearings, axle housing etc. Bolting a 4" portal on is equivalent to changing from 31" tyres up to 39" tyres as regards leverage.

When have LandRover's production tolerances ever been that precise that they can confidently claim the wheelbase dimension to be 92.9 inches ? That is 1/10 ", 2.5mm, 0.100" short of 93" for heavens sake ! The engineer must have had delusions of grandeur.

Don't know nuffink about diodes and stuff, but installing Stirling Cycle hot air engines inside all the Parliaments of the world should go a long way to solving the so called global energy crisis. Heck if we had one in Canberra this past disgraceful week it would have powered the whole of the southern hemisphere on its own.

I am not familiar with the procedure regards registration, Wayne. The arms have been submitted to the relevant authorities for approval. Does that mean that the purchaser is not required to pay an engineer to sign off on their fitment ? Any follow up inspection by the roads authorities required ?

I wouldn't have thought that there is sufficient 'drop' in the chassis for the rear seat passengers legs without having to sit with their head between their knees.

From memory, the 101 chassis didn't have many crossmembers. Can you detect any twisting or other distortion after galvanising ?