bill van snorkle

I am on the ''oil'' side, but oil will also migrate from the swivel housings to the diff housing. This is due to oil seals being designed to keep things in not keep things out. The swivel housing needs to breathe to accomodate temperature changes, but it is not fitted with a breather so excess pressure, along with a bit of lubricant escapes into the diff housing, which can breathe. To prevent this oil migration,and condensation you can fit breather fittings and hoses to each swivel housing, or do as I and a few others in Aus and the US do, and that is to give the inner axle seals the flick so that the diff, swivel housings and hubs share a common oil supply. Since I began doing this over 20 years ago I never had a hub seal failure even on the notoriously famous for leaking series 2 and 3 Landies. Bill.

No ,sorry I haven't jumped ship. Just taking a short break. Bill.

Yes I'll do that Jez, but don't hold your breath waiting. I have been trying to suss it out for the past 40 years and haven't got there yet. Bill.

Simon,I think that would move the flywheel, clutch and pressure plate too hard up against the clutch release bearing. We had an R380 input shaft cut and shortened about 90mm recently at a cost of $80. I feel that cutting the NP shaft and welding a LR shaft to it would cost about the same . Bill.

I just enjoy the engineering challenge of making a POS(series 2A) that doesn't go, stop, ride,steer or handle, doesn't do particularly well off road, and doesn't stay all together in one piece for more than 10 minutes do all of the above. Bill.

When was the last time anyone here saw a halfshaft spline corrosion fretted away on an oil lubricated hub. A pair of oil lubricated cv joints on a 1981 stage 1 V8 were still like new after 350,000 kilometers. Bearing manufacturers give a considerably higher load rating for bearings lubricated in oil than when lubricated in grease. Periodic maintenance, ie dismantling hubs , swivels etc to repack with fresh grease is a major PITA. On oil lubed vehicles just drain and refill. No need for new seals, gaskets etc. Bill.

Unless you are an ever so gentle driver, IMO you will be setting yourself up for a lot of grief if you retain the series gearbox with either the 200 tdi or V8 engine. It doesn't take much effort to break the dog ring off second gear with a bit of extra torque on a wet road. The layshaft and mainshaft flex like crazy under load with a bigger engine and shaft failure is very common. I really don't know what your options in the UK are in a swb. Over here we have the choice of a few heavy duty light truck gearboxes that are cheap to buy and adapt quite easily to series transfercases, without the transmission being more than a couple of inches longer than the standard series transmission. Bill.

Would you believe my boss had a clean up on the week end and weighed in all the series gearboxes at the scrap yard ?We do mostly defender and RangeRover work these days, but we have a Series 3 booked in for a clutch job on Monday, so I will measure the shaft then. As you mentioned you have done a lot of work modifying that mainshaft. Did you know that the short mainshaft International and some F250 Np 435's had almost the correct spline for the landrover transfer case gear. you just have to bore ID of the gear out a little and grind theOD of the shaft for a perfect fit. You don't get the tail bearing, but you can fit an additional bearing in that adaptor plate to compensate. Bill.

Sorry, I may have misunderstood. Are you saying that the engine is no longer missing, smoking or noisey? Bill

I would agree with the mags and avoid them.The design made for a very reliable and durable petrol engine, but a real carp deisel. Your problem could be an injector gone sour,an exhaust valve or horror of horrors, a precombustion chamber has come loose and is being pulverised by the piston. bill.

I too have spent many hours at old time pioneer festivals mesmerised by the workings of old farm machinary and tractors. My main interest tractorwise would be to see some of the early post war 4x4 conversions to 4x2 tractors performed by Roadless Traction Limited, the same company that did the Forest Rover conversions.Unfortunately few if any ever made it to Australia. Bill.

For the best possible brakes, without going to discs, a series 1 Disco double diaphram vacuum booster adapted to your pedal box is the ticket. Being an 84 model I assume you already have 11'' x 3'' front brakes and 10'' rears. I prefer to have 11''x 2 1/4''(all Lwb rears) rear brakes with 1'' wheel cylinders. Apparently there are efficient electric vacuum pumps available now. Your 3rd 4th gear synchro problem appears to be broken leaf spring synchro clips. I have replaced these with the gearbox in situ on many occasions for customers, by removing the gearbox top and selector shafts, and with the aid of thin screwdrivers, bent bits of stiff wire and a telescopic magnet. It is a fiddly job and you need the patience of a saint, but it still beats removing, dismantling and refitting the whole gearbox. Series 2, 2a gearboxes do have synchro on 3rd and 4th gear. It is 1st and 2nd that don't. Because of this they can be less troublesome than series 3 boxes, but can suffer from layshaft breakage if you use 2nd gear alot. Some series 2 boxes don't have a front oil seal, so you can't park them facing downhill with the engine switched off on anything steeper than 11degrees, otherwise oil leaks out of the box all over your clutch plate. Generally with spring shackles. If the springs are in good condition and the standard shackles are near vertical, then a 2'' longer shackle will raise the truck only 1 ''. The more your standard shackles angle back from vertical the less effect longer shackles will have. Having longer spring hangers at the front with standard length shackles will also slightly reduce your castor angle which may cause the vehicle to wander a little on road at speed. Bill.

I really can't understand why I'm spending more time on Pirate these days. Bill.

For nearly 40 years I have cursed and sworn that I would one day like to get my hands on the designer of those propshafts who decided not to provide enough clearance to permit the use of ring spanners on both the bolts and nuts.Bloody moron. Bill.

For certain simple castings, the original component can sometimes be used as the pattern. to allow for shrinkage after cooling it can be built up dimensionally with body filler. I don't know if a hockey stick qualifies as a simple casting though. Bill.

Genuine Rover and I think Toyota arms are forged steel. Nissan ones shatter in accidents or when you try to bend them,like cast iron. You can bend Rover ones or even tie them in knots without cracking them. I would hope that the snake ones were at least cast from nodular iron. Bill.

I don't really think from a strength viewpoint that some of the simcas design features matter that much. The vehicles they are being fitted to are just so much lighter than anything the diffs were designed for. What does it matter that they have 63 mm shafts vs 80mm for 404 mogs and 46mm for Volvos. Those diameters really only relate to the weight carrying capacity of the trucks they were fitted to and not the torque capacity of the portal drop boxes themselves. I seriously doubt for example that Mog 404 portal gears are any stronger than Volvos as the relative diameter and width of the gears in both are very similar. The mogs use very coarse splines for their shafts and helical gears whereas Volvos use finer splines and straight cut gears, so the mogs advantage here is not so clearcut . Mogs have stronger double Hooke steering UJ's with a tighter steering lock than the Volvo Birfields, but are a lot heavier and more complicated to fit to more conventional 4x4's. The Simcas look excessively big, heavy, cumbersome and also difficult to fit, particularly to something like a Daihatsu, and I wonder if it will end up as a mini monster truck rather than a practical highly capable all rounder. But just like any portal axled vehicle I would follow the build up thread with interest. Bill.

The flywheel housing for deisel is different, as mentioned has 3 bolts vs 2 for petrol. The lead ins on the ring gear are the opposite way around too. Bill.

So the front banjo housing is a mirror image of the rear one.Are the swivel housings on the front axle before or after the drop boxes? Do you have a photo of front, and do you know what the overall gear ratio is?

Looks like the wrong hand offset for a landrover, Toyota, etc. What T/case are you planning on using? Do the extension housings from the drop boxes to the brake assemblies bolt on or are they cast with the drop box? Bill.

I put a Chevy 327 in my brothers 2A, with Toyota 5spd and Nissan T/case about 20 years ago. Fuel usage works out at 17mpg average. Lots of power and tractability. As previously mentioned, the fuel system doesn't like steep hills or bouncing around. It eats starter motors and mechanical fuel pumps for breakfast. There is a conversion to geared Jap starter available, and elec pump of course. Stock series 3 24 spline Salisbury diff has never been touched. Good luck with the Rover diff though. Bill.

Whatever the problem is, the gearbox has to come out for repair or replacement. However The only thing I can think of in the main box that would result in total loss of drive, if the gears are selecting ok is a broken mainshaft. Even with a broken layshaft or stripped primary gears you would still have top gear, so you could drive it by starting in low range top and change into high range. Bill.

Really? and how long has this been going on? and why wasn't I told? Bill.

How many serious topics on this forum are permitted to degrade and go off topic into irrelevant inter personal banter ? I personally dont see a lot wrong with it as most of the technical aspects of each topic eventually gets covered fairly thoroughly. And I personally don't see too much wrong with this thread either. From someone who enjoys and tries to contribute as much as possible to technical discussions.an OT thread with a bit of meaningless and lighthearted bull**** and banter sometimes makes a refreshing break. Bill.

Didn't a Deisel powered car win Le Mans 24 hour sportscar race earlier this year? Bill.