bill van snorkle

What are beam benders ? Is it something that only high vehicles require ? Bill.

Full floating really isn't really that important on axles that don't break. but offset is important for swb Rovers, so yes Toyota LC rear is a good choice for the rear. But most of the participants of this thread are in the UK, and apparently Nissan Patrol and Landcruiser axle assemblies are rare and expensive, unlike over here where you can pick up a pair of Nissan GQ axle/diff assemblies for the equivelant of about 400 Pounds, sometimes with a factory difflock on the rear. But even over here it is still the lack of uprateability of the cv's that would dissuade me from taking the trouble of fitting anything other than GU Patrol or 80/100 series Toyota front axle assemblies to a Rover. Bill.

As I stated in a previous post, I don't disagree that Nissan stuff is stronger than LandRover stuff. Hell even Suzuki stuff is stronger. But in my pre portal days, after fitting Salisbury diffs front and rear, the only mechanical failures I had were CV joints. And the simple fact is that Pre GU Nissan CV's are the same size as Landy AEU2522/ Toyota ones, but the stub shafts are shorter and there is no stronger option available, unlike the Ashcroft /Longfield ones for Land Rover and Toyota. Even with a beefed up 24 spline Rover diff and 4.75 crown wheel and pinion my friends hybrids weakest link is the CV joints. As for fitting Nissan axle assemblies. The Nissan front radius arms line up and plug straight in to Rover chassis brackets, The length of the arms is apparently near enough, so coils line up ok. The panhard rod and drag link needs to be a hybrid of Rover and Nissan. If the castor angle is wrong, don't try heating up and bending the Nissan radius arms. They shatter. When doing the rear end don't use Nissan lower control arms. They are made from exhaust pipe tubing.. You have to make an ''A'' frame ball joint mount for the top of the diff because the Nissan has a 4 links setup as standard, and the nissan diff is in the centre of the axle, which also reduces the effective cross axle ramp angle. Bill.

I don't disagree, as long as stock is good enough. I know a Jap 4wd Breaker in Melbourne that just cannot get enough GQ nissan CV joints to keep the weekend warriors supplied, so they are obviously not good enough for many, and as stated before, there are no stronger options. Bill.

In that case it would only be worth doing from a cv joint strength point of view if you fit the front axle assembly from the later GU patrols. AFAIK Ashcroft or Longfield higher strength cv's will never be available for Nissans, so if you fit an earlier GQ front end you are stuck with factory CV's which may not be enough for some folk. Bill.

I think Nissan ones are too short in the stubshaft to reach through a Rover hub to the drive flange. Toyota ones however have been adapted to LandRovers many times. BTW, it is really only the heatreatment that makes a Toy or Nissan CV stronger than a Landrover one, because internally they are all identical in size, for example, I use Toyota bells with LandRover AEU2522 spiders and balls so that I can retain my 24 spline aftermarket inner half shafts. Bill.

On a 6x6 Landy I built back in the early 1980's I made a front wishbone that pivoted on a large diameter but relatively short Metalastic bush from one of the 6 torque rods off a tandem drive rear suspension on a large heavy truck(Kenworth). The pivot axis of the bush was perpendicular to the axle. There should be something similar on european trucks. Bill

I doubt that you would have too many problems with cv's in peat bogs, even with lockers, so long as you don't give it too much welly when you have steering lock wound on. Bill.

That is a very clever setup, and elegantly simple too. Is the crosslink intended to be torsionally flexible? Just to toss another unoriginal idea into the mix. What about a 1 link? ie a single wishbone rigidly bolted/welded to the axle, running back and centrally pivoted off the crossmember under the bellhousing. You still need a panhard rod, so technically it's a 2 link, but it would be easy to construct,there would only be one bush on the wishbone to service. Resistance to torque reaction under power or brakes would be 100%. I think most of you here would be too young to remember, but way back in medievel times, when there were few surfaced roads old Ford cars and trucks as well as some Austin 7's had this arrangement on the front axle. These cars were only 2 wheel drive but because the front axle articulated freely the rear wheels tended to stay well planted.No expense spared Unimogs to this day still use this principal front and rear in the form of a torque tube. Bill.

What a silly component to have as an option. How is the average non mechanically minded vehicle buyer,when ordering their new truck and ticking off the options list, re bullbar, towbar, heavy duty suspension meant to know the benifit of having replacement caps on the valve stems? Bill.

I think you need to go down the road and try to buy Nicks series 2A Roadless Traction Forest Rover with 11.00x28'' tractor tyres. Bill

I tried running a 2 litre Landey on home heating kero some years ago when the price of petrol rose to a whopping ten shillings a gallon. By winding the copper fuel line to the carburator around the exhaust manifold and having a two way valve so I could start on petrol for warm up, the engine ran ok but the smell at the exhaust was horrible, so I gave up on the idea. I believe proper power kero, like was used on some old tractors doesn't smell so bad, and lubricates the cylinders, unlike heating kero. Bill.

Birfields generally fail at, or close to full lock, when the balls roll out to the entrance of the tracks on both the bell and star. I have considerable experience with leaf sprung Stage 1 Landey V8's fitted with lockers, 36'' TSL's and deep reduction crawler gears. These trucks rarely experience CV failure with factory Birfields, due to the fact that the front wheels can only be turned to 26 degrees, compared to 32 degrees on a coiler, so the balls don't roll out as close to the ends of the tracks and the forces are concentrated closer to the thickest part of the bell and star. Also, due to stage 1's having 1 1/2 degrees of camber the cv's don't generally wear steps in the straight ahead position unlike coilers that don't have camber. this is because the balls are always rolling back and forth slightly in their tracks. I think Daves Cv's probably address most peoples concerns with cv reliability at a price for those that can afford them. For those that can't, with a die grinder you can still improve the reliability of standard issue Birfields by deburring and removing the sharp edges of the tracks on both the bell and star, and winding the steering stops out a little to say 30 degrees. If you installed cutting brakes for sharp turns you could limit the steering angle to 25 degrees and probably never break a cv again. Bill.

I doubt the results on the cheapo ones are reliably repeatable. For example, I fitted a pair of cheap (AUS$165) birfields to a friends hybrid, with 4.6 litre engine, 165:1 crawl ratio and 38'' tSLs. During shakedown testing, one broke at the stubshaft so clean that you'd think it was cut with a saw and the ends polished. We replaced it with a stock RangeRover one and stub shaft and continued testing. The opposite one failed a short time later, also at the stubshaft, but it broke into a spiral shape like a coil spring,this destroyed the stub axle, split a wheel bearing, stretched the drive flange bolts. This was also replaced with a stock Rangey cv and stub shaft until we were able to get a good used pair of genuine birfields from a stage 1 v8. The testing ,over a period of several weeks was completed to our satisfaction on the Rangey cv's without failure. Bill.

Yes Donald, it certainly does make me appreciate the relative clean, tidy and orderliness of Australia, but although I am British/Australian my heart is really in Vietnam. I keep going back there to the filth, the chaotic traffic,the humidity and dodgy food at every opportunity. The people are warm and friendly, yet tough and resourceful. They kicked some arrogant arses during the Vietnam war period but are not smug about it and even the older ones that fought against the Americans and Australians are very welcoming and bear no malice towards us. In fact, I married a daughter of one of north Vietnams commanding officers during the Tet offensive. Bill.

Yeah, I am not so sure about the love bit. Bill.

Many times I've eaten in some of the dingyist dirtiest dives one could imagine in Vietnam, where I was up to my ankles in used serviettes and chicken bones and never got sick, But one day I thought I would give a new Singaporean Restaurant that had opened up in Hanoi a try.It was spotlessly clean and pretty and the service was great. But the steamed fish dinner very nearly cost me my life. For ten days I wished that I was dead. Bill.

Over in Vietnam at a restaurant loosely translated into English named ''Food from the forest'',I had Porcupine for dinner. The American guy at the table next to me had the palpitating heart of a Cobra as a predinner appetiser. Bill.

The purpose of Railko bushes is, via friction between the swivel pin and the fibre bushing material, to dampen steering oscilations caused by wheel imbalance and road surface irregularities . I reckon Railko equipped vehicles are much more forgiving of unbalanced and untrue tyre/ wheel equipment than vehicles with tapered roller bearings top and bottom. Some years ago I ran ancient unbalanced world war two 9.00x16 10 ply retreads on heavy old Morris Commercial split rims on my old 6x6 Landey with Railkos and it drove quite well considering. I made the mistake of replacing the Railkos with Taper roller bearings one day and the steering kick back offroad plus the death wobbles on road made the truck virtually undrivable until I reverted back to Railkos. I just wish Rover had made them tapered for proper adjustability. Volvo Portals have spherical swivel pins and hemispherical Railkos. Bill.

When a ring and pinion lets go with bits of broken teeth possibly getting wedged in the roots of other teeth and going through the mill again, it's a wonder that some carriers survive at all. Rover ring and pinions are carp , but that is only the design. The metal in them is far harder and tougher than the SG iron that goes into McNamara or ARB carriers. Maxidrives are about the strongest around, but I really think Volvo portals are the answer. Bill.

I use Mc Namara lockers, and when I was fitting them, the thickness(thinness) of the crownwheel mounting flange did concern me a bit. A friend of mine works for the company and told me that they had a couple of Toyota crownwheel mounting flanges break, and therefore redesigned that area to be stronger. I read somewhere that Renault don't use bolts to fasten their crownwheels to the carriers. They just use Loctite. I decided to releive as much stress from the flange as possible by using Loctite Super Bearing Mount on the spigot diameter of both the crownwheel and the carrier. Bill.

He sounds a bit like yours truly actually. Although It would take a million volts of electricity applied to my testicles to convince me that buying a LandRover later than 1988 was a good idea. Bill.

Yes John, the pivot axis of the ''A'' frame is not concentric with the bolts. There's a bit of twisting and compressing of the bushings going on there, but the rear end works pretty well anyway. Bill.

If only JCB would build a Defender size/type vehicle. Bill.

Some years ago, before Ford, before BMW, when British Aerospace briefly owned LandRover and wanted to offload it, JCB expressed a casual interest in aquiring it . With RangeRover and Discovery moving further and further upmarket, and Defender losing its way altogether I personally would like to see JCB, a staunchly British company that knows a thing or two about building working four wheel drive vehicles that work, buying the rights to Defender only, redesigning it into a very strong,reliable and highly capable vehicle that hopefully would win back many of the industrial, rural and military markets that LandRover surrendered to the German and Japanese throughout the world. Bill.