bill van snorkle

Recoveries are potentially dangerous. Winching is potentially dangerous and should be undertaken in a carefully thought out manner with regard to safety. I am personally not a fan of winch challenge type competitions because by their nature they encourage relatively high speed recovery operations. some that I have watched are little more than winch races. Bill.

The gearing of Maxidrive portals is 1.3:1. As with all MD stuff the quality of materials, machining, heat treating etc is excellant. Due to the ''4 shaft '' design, I feel that the strength of the portal gears would be at least equal to Volvo or 404 Mog gears. The main area of concern for large tyres IMO will be the bottom driveshaft (24 spline) the Birfield Joint and upper stubshaft (10/24 spline). The diameters of these shafts are considerably smaller than Volvo/Mogs and would be under much greater stress, because of the higher ratio reduction. Mog/Volvo hub reduction is more than 2:1. Bill.

Hey Jez, where can I read the full mechanical specs on your Petal? I started looking through the back pages a couple of days ago but ran out of time. Bill.

On the LT85, unlike R380's, and LT77's there are no external ports from the oil pump. Even if there were I doubt the little gear type pump would have any reserve capacity to run oil through lines to and from an oil cooler. It's really only designed to lubricate the needle roller bearings that the gears on the mainshaft ride on. Bill.

No series gearboxes except stage 1 v8 had oil pumps, and IMO would not benefit from one either as the design deficiencies were related to shaft flexing and poor synchro design. rather than lack of lubrication. Bill.

Interesting that they use American mechanicals, yet portals and selectable difflocks are virtually unheard of on US built all wheel drive trucks. Then again, I believe Volvo portals were made in Britain by Salisbury and no British trucks to my knowledge were built with portals either. Bill.

Whatever axles you buy, factory or aftermarket, first dig out the axle shaft oil seals in the stub axles to allow the hubs and halfshaft splines to be lubricated by oil from the diff. then replace the carp grease seals on both hubs with double lip double spring oil seals from earlier R/Rovers and 110's. Someone here will know the Rover part number.Oil lubricated 110 Landeys would regularly clock up 250 to 350 thousand K's before requiring driveflange and/ or halfshaft replacement due to spline wear. The splines on Defender halfshafts and flanges are about 50% shorter, so probably won't last quite as long but should in any event last twice as long as standard if they are lubricated in lovely oil instead of dry, cruddy rusty grease. Bill.

Nadim, I'm happy to hear that your family are ok. Very sad that many others are not faring so well. I hope this nasty business ends soon and those directly and indirectly responsible for all the suffering will be brought to account. Regards Bill.

I wish we could get 35/36 inch aggressive tread remoulds in OZ.It gets a bit expensive replacing Simex/Super Swampers every year or so at around four hundred dollars each. The reason the tyre remoulders don't do them apparently, is because of the scarcity of suitable casings that haven't delaminated due to regularly running aired down. Bill

You did say triangulated 4 link''front suspension''? Had you previously thought about the possible bump steer implications of the conflicting geometry between the steering draglink and the suspension links? The effect is theoretically significant, although on a 3 link plus Watts link hybrid I once built it was manageable as long as the driver allowed the steering wheel to move a little on bumps. Bill.

If you mean me Michele, I am afraid old fumble fingers here had his fingers over the flash and wasted about a dozen photos. I will get someone else to take the shots next time out. Bill.

RTI ramps are ok for a bit of fun at club days, 4wd shows etc. But a good RTI score is not always indicative of a competant crosscountry vehicle.ie some rigs that score well driving forwards up the ramp may well fall over when reversed up to the same height, or in the real world when descending steep offcamber banks etc. Front to rear articulation balance is probably more relevant than ultimate RTI score. Bill.

Without blowing our own horns too loudly, I think the talent for innovation in the 4wd scene has always been present in British 4wd enthusiasts. I am 56 now but when I was a kid and used to pick up UK LROC newsletters from our local Rover club, there were individuals in Britain that had built 6 and 8 wheel conversions of series 1,2 and 2a LandRovers. I have read about people building and racing some technically very interesting Rovers almost since the introduction of Rangerovers all those years ago. Commercially available selectable aftermarket difflocks for Landeys and other makes may have originated in OZ,but it was yours truly (a Pom)who first designed and developed them, and sold a few back in the 1970's before I was offered a job at Jack McNamara Differentials. Even though in this forum and others,I have been highly critical of Rover, who I feel have lost their way in recent years, I acknowledge that they drew up the original map to show others the direction, re soft long travel suspensions, low gearing,constant 4wd and 4 wheel discs at a time when the trend in the US was rock hard ,sky high suspension 3 speed gearboxes ,Two speed t/cases optional in some instances, and no brakes. As I said, the talent has always been there. It is just most British LandRover enthusiasts have gone about pursuing their interest without much fanfare, and until relatively recently, not much support in the availability of good quality British made 4 wd equipment. American 4wd enthusiasts wildest dreams can become reality,because there is always some company, somewhere over there that is prepared to have a go and fill a hole in the market and make products people want at affordable prices,whereas UK manufacturers only wake up when its too late and an overseas company has taken the lions share of potentials sales. Witness the success of ARB , Maxidrive, McNamara diffs,Simex tyres,Detroit, Warn etc in the UK and Europe as an example. Bill.

I agree that you are unlikely to break a 35 spline halfshaft, although I personally did with a 2 1/4 litre engine in deep reduction. But you are still left with all the banging and clanging,and ill handling that a detroit gives on most surfaces, not to mention that the additional 13 degrees of backlash the Detroit introduces into a constant 4wd system will make your truck less than pleasant to drive. They are not that clever offroad either.Very steep, slippery offcamber downgrades with uneven traction side to side can on occasion''confuse'' the locker into ''thinking'' that the truck wants to make a turn , so it unlocks one axle, or 2 if you have detroits front and rear, and you continue the descent with the vehicle mostly sideways, unless conditions permit you to accellerate so that the ringear speed matches that of the undriven wheels thereby locking back in. Of course there is nothing to stop the locker from disengaging the wheels all over again, so you are back in the same situation, but now you are travelling even faster. This was my last , among many scary offroad experiences with Detroit lockers and it was a horrifying one that I still occasionally have nightmares about. Safer, and at least more predictable would be to weld up a standard 24 spline early 110 Salisbury(stronger halfshafts)and buy a few genuine halfshafts to have as spares. Bill.

The quality of materials that go into Detroit lockers is really quite poor these days. The originals had all the dog teeth, splines etc cut from high strength steel forgings and in Salisbury(model 225) sizes theywere virtually indestructable. In the past 15 years or so the Detroits have been made from investment castings, using one of the originals as a pattern, so at first glance they look the same. They are no longer indestructable, particularly when a half shaft lets go. There have been any number of threads on the subject on pirate4x4.com . May I advise that you spend your money on a full McNamara 35 spline air locker kit and not waste it as I did some years ago on Detroit rubbish. Bill.

A truck that would excell in all those disciplines(sp?)probably would be impossible to construct. But if given the opportunity I would certainly enjoy the challenge of trying to design and build one.

All trucks that enter OZ's Tuff Truck Challenge, as The Mog Rover and PeteAntenuc's truck have done must be inspected, and modifications approved by a Motor Registration Department authorised engineer. which means that the trucks are truly, really, cross my heart road legal. Bill.

Have seen bits of it before on other forums, but it's always fun viewing. Cant get enough of seeing portalled axle rigs doing their stuff. Bill.

Wide angle props from early Rangeys had bigger, stronger universal joints, but a limiting strap over the rear diff would definately be cheaper. Bill.

No issues. Not all 90's 110's were fitted with them.Just disconnect one link, drive it on and offroad for a few days, if you like it like that, remove completely, or leave one link disconnected for offroad and reconnect for on road. Bill.

If you have an old car battery and a baking tray you can remove galvanising by draining a couple of inches of battery acid into the tray and immersing or standing the component in the tray for a few minutes. Crossmember extensions should sit in the tray ok. Bill.

I don't think the Cressida box is the same as the cruiser box. From memory on Pirate I think you mentioned your box bolts onto the inside vertical wall of the chassis ,in the corner where the crossmember meets the siderail,wheras the 60/62 series bolts to outside wall in exactly the same way as Johns (bush 65) picture of a Nissan box shows, so doesn't require the crossmember to be moved or altered like say fitting a RangeRover box would. Nissan or Toyota ? toss a coin. Bill.

Yes, I could name 3 or 4 in our local suburb (district) alone I am surprised that a country that has most of the worlds best racing car designers and constructors can only field a handfull of specialist 4 wd conversion companies. I don't really understand the question. I live in Australia.You now live in the land of the Hot Rod, with conversion specialists on every street corner. Ask one of them. But you don't need me to tell you not to go putting any V8 in front of a series gearbox. They are definately not idiots. Greg freely admits he knows absolutely nothing about things mechanical, and appreciates the assistance they have received from many 4wd enthusiasts throughout their travels. Steve, if you are talking about 101's the steering box used is Nissan Navara in addition to a 90 degree direction change gearbox. For normal control series Rovers I use a 60 or 62 series Toyota Landcruiser box bolted with countersunk unbrako's to a half inch thick steel plate cut to the same profile as the front chassis dumb iron but 2 inches deeper. this plate is clamped onto the outside of the right hand chassis rail with 4 half inch diameter x 4 inch long bolts,through crush tubes above and below the top and bottom plates of the chassis rail, requiring no drilling or welding to the chassis. If you require more information PM me. The world of LandRovers is sometimes a surprisingly small one. Bill.

Didn't catch her surname. Her name is Alexis and she is travelling with her boyfriend Greg.I think they hail from Cambridge. Their fire engine red 101 Landy is named the Beast. They have a Website documenting their travels which I cant find this morning. something like beastly adventures .com. but there is something missing because all I get is porn sites. My only involvement was to drill some old 5 stud landy wheels to 6 stud and fit them to the truck minus tyres so that we could drive it inside a 20 foot shipping container. the truck on its 9.00x16's was exactly 8 inches too high. Yes Michele, Alexis is nice, but more importantly very charming, as one would need to be when dealing with bureaucratic officials at international borders that must be encountered on an overland world wide trip. Bill.

The cheque is in the mail Jez. Just hang on to it, I am sure I will need your services sometime in the future. Bill.