RPR

Lucka til!!!

A chaque son gout, but in my view, you should only fit wheel arches/spats to a Series if, by virtue of the wheels coming outside the bodywork, you need them. In this case with ridiculous BFG AT 325/65/15, I needed them: And in this case with the Q78/16 (35.5"x 9.5") on 2" backspace custom Volvo wheels, I need them: In the first photo, those are Defender arches. In the next two photos, I have fitted Pacer Flexiflares 4"extensions. They are rubber, will fold up easily against an obstacle and retain their shape, come in 2 " and 3" extensions as well, are sold by the foot (you cut to suit) and are dirt cheap.

The front vs rear issue is best solved by the question of cost. Your Sals rear should be able to handle a Detroit without needing to upgrade halfshafts etc., as long as you use it sensibly. While the front Truetrac places less stress on halfshafts and R&P than a locker, it is more fragile. So, of the two options, a rear Detroit would seem the better. Having said that, a selectable locker would be even better, but I can't recall whether ARB does a Sals locking diff, or whether it's only McNamara (Oz) and rather expensive.

Transmission length should be okay moving from a 100" wheelbase to a 109" wheelbase even though the better V8 Series conversions have the engine pretty far back in the bay. I think you have nailed the big issue, fabbing up the proper transmission mounts and having to fab a new tunnel mount for the auto gear selector. The latter may end up intruding on the seatbox depending on how things come together. The last issue, about which I know nothing so can ony ask a question, is whether there are any computer issues between the RRC autobox and the presumably carbed 3.5? If non efi, will the autobox work seamlessly with the engine?

On and off. I'm sure that you must get some wrap if you set off on road with a little errr... vigour. Do I recall that you set up a pretty useful anti-wrap system on your axles, or was I imagining things?

I would suggest 3 leaves rather than 2, even in a pick-up. If you ever put much in the back, the 2 leaf set-up will wallow. If you are going to run extended shackles, the +2" shocks may not be enough and you may get some strongish propshaft bind at full extension. It would be best if you changed the springs and shocks first, get everything settled in and look at extended shackles down the road if you really want them.

I vote with Jon. If it's not a "neutral" fault, then I bet the bang was a rear half shaft letting go. It once happened to me setting off from a traffic light in Kuala Lumpur. By then I was so familiar with the process that I just slapped down the yellow plunger and continued home in front wheel drive...

My rig is admittedly a bit of a freak show and Jon will undoubtedly disagree with my experience with Megasquirt but here's the story. Started out with a 3.5 on carbs, an old and somewhat dubious Siii box and of course 5.99:1 EV11 portal axles (and disc conversion). Plenty of power, but maxed out at about 45mph before blood would run from my ears at the revs. In went a Roverdrive and it's now bearable up to 65mph. But the Edelbrock-Weber carb absolutely sucked offroad and would stall out at any angle. It did however provide the most amazing throaty grumble in tandem with a cheapo glasspack silencer. After the various stallings on the 2008 Trans-Vermont Expedition, I decided it was time for EFI. The original thinking was to go Megasquirt especially as the 14CUX rover stuff has issues running without cats. But after farking around with Megasquirt rather a lot the conclusion was that it is not quite as straightforward as others have found it to be (enter Jon with the dissenting view). In the end, it will run on a wire (with the no-cat reprogramming of the ECU) and stay pretty much standard rover stuff. My experience has been that if you treat the gearbox properly, it will be fine. I like Lucas heavy-duty gear oil stabilizer. I would rather have the R380-LT230 for strength, but that's mighty tight in an 88". The one thing I strongly urge is that you go with efi. Carbs suck offroad.

Or, as Fridge noted in another recent post, they won't fit well because they are made better/truer than the original Land Rover part. Remember, a micrometer has never seen the inside of Solihull

Yes, if it's stopped leaking, it means your out of oil! Change the oil and oil filtre and keep an eye on it. Long drive at high revs, probably sat for a while, you may be just fine now after the Italian tune. Just keep an eye on it and on your exhaust smoke. If you're getting a lot of white/blue exhaust, you may want to start delving. Replacing rings is no biggie, but don't jump into it. Keep an eye out and see what you think over time.

Yes. That length will be fine. Good luck with the move.

Gear Ratios: 2.47:1 1st gear 1.47:1 2nd gear 1.00:1 3rd gear 2.1:1 reverse That's a stretch but the Essex V6 will do it of course. Not great for 1st low though 27.3:1 :eek It's a long box, but clearly it has been done. It just seems a rather antique box - 3 speed, no overdrive and that inconveniently high 1st gear - to go to the effort of slotting in an 88". A C4 is the same length and bolt pattern and is a 4 spd. But you've got a C3, so enjoy! Oh - and on the power issue, remember that the autobox, especially an old-fashioned low tech box like the C3, eats HP vs a comparable manual box. You can reasonably expect the C3 to eat about 25hp vs the manual box in the Ford Capri that it was an option on. As to power increases, please note that the C3 is a light duty auto box that was fitted to 4cyl and smaller V6 engines. The 3.0 litre Essex V6 was at the upper edge of its abilities back in the day. At anything over 140hp you are asking more of the C3 than it was designed to do. In any event, it's a lot strnger than a Series gearbox.

About as long as a piece of string. Just kidding... It depends. If you put the parabolics on without new shocks, don't change the brake lines, because you'll need the money for new shocks when they either top out or finally annoy you to the point of changing them by being too soft. If you change the shocks but don't change the mounts, you won't get that much more travel anyway and still may be able to keep standard length brake lines. If you change the mounts, then you will need to measure the travel afforded by new shocks/mounts and springs to get an accurate length on the new brake lines. The rule of thumb would be to use standard coil sprung Rover axle length lines. That will be safe until you start playing around with propshaft properties and dimensions and much more long travel shocks.

It seems that twin SU's are the best way to go from a carb perspective. My Edlebrock 500 cfm, was far from ideal and would readily flood on steep climbs causing nasty stalls. Not much better on descents. The sound, however, especially of the secondaries opening, was quite impressive!

Sotal pretty much covers it. Setting the SIII up with well tuned 11" twin leading shoe brakes from a 109" on the front axle will give you a lot of stopping power. Granted, you still have the issues that plague all wet, muddy drums, but it's plenty of braking. You will be very happy with the Daihatsu 2.8. I have a friend here in NY who put the Daihatsu in his SIII late last summer and it is a great engine. Not as efficient as the tdi's, but with the addition of a small intercooler (his came from a Saab), it is torquey, manages well on long steep hills, and will tick over virtually any obstacle. You should be able to use a good condition 4 core or tropical Series radiator without issue. For your intended uses, this seems ideal. He put a late Santana Series gearbox behind it and an Ashcroft high ratio t-case. There is some debate about whether the Santana box is stronger than the comparable Series box. I doubt there is much in it. I would have thought that trying to mate the Daihatsu gearbox with the Series T-case would be unnecessarily arduous. Put the SIII gearbox in there with the larger diesel clutch and pick up an SII-A crash box when you can as your back up. The crash box has no synchro on 1st and 2nd which takes some getting used to, but the general consensus seems to be that it is a stronger box than the SIII box. You will also want to pick up a few spare halfshafts and maybe a rear diff to be sure. You will really like the Daihatsu 2.8!

IMHO, the best option available today: Series Trek Heavy Duty Series Axles 10 spline are 10 spline and even if you built them out of tungstentitaniumplutonium, the diffs are the next weak link. If you want tough stuff, sadly, it's probably best to fill your axles with Toyota junk. The E-Lockers are nice too.

PirateBB The first thing is to hit the search. I think Ike did a write-up on building up an ENV. If that doesn't turn anything up, Ike's handle is 'leafsprung'. The ENV axles were made by Eaton as I recall and the housing is almost identical to the EV 11 portal axle used by Volvo (with portal reduction boxes at the ends of course) on the C303, 306 etc. The main difference of course is the ~ 2.06:1 ring and pinion used in the EV 11, so I don't suppose the Eaton vacuum activated lockers for the EV11 (even if they were available) would be able to work with the R&P in the ENV. Anyway, sorry that I can't be of more help. Hopefully Ike will have more info.

Kept the SIII gearbox on mine so you are going to have different gearbox placement, but these photos may help: You are aware of the remote oil filtre issue? Again, I kept the Series box, so I don't know about fitting the LT77, but I take it you have an adapter to fit a 200 tdi bellhousing to a V8? I take it you will be fitting power steering at this time? Off with the Series relay at the front crossmember and you can fit a slightly cut down RRC rad sitting there. The integral oil cooler is worth having.

On pinion nose and propshaft angle, everyone is right(ish). The longer pinion, and consequently shorter propshaft, exacerbates the angle problem, made even worse if you are fitting parabolics. Optimally, the flanges should run in proper phase. Realistically, the angles are going to be too severe at both t-box and pinion flanges. If you are already refabbing spring perches, it would be better to slightly angle the pinion up when you fab the new perches. Optimally, you are talking about 4 - 5 degrees. This is better than using degree wedges which invariably loosen over time (personal experience) and tend to then break the center pin in your springs, giving that sickening feeling of unintended rear steer. It is also well worth looking into a double cardon (Sp?) cut down propshaft from a Disco. IMHO, a custom shaft with either a CV or double cardon at the t-box output end and a full length slip joint would be best. If you were going that route, I would speak to these guys Propshaft Clinic - Bradford Good luck

I don't know, but you may want to try over on Pirate ( pirate4x4.com) as I believe that Ike Goss did a major ENV axle build up and he may have addressed this.

Andy's right. You will need to grind off and refab the spring perches. I think with some aggressive shaving, you could get the loss of ground clearance down to ~1", but you will start on the wrong side of 2". It depends on what you are planning to do. If you can keep your rig light, run reasonably sized tyres, and run open, then I'd stick with the standard Rover rear end and ask Father Christmas for a couple of spare longside halfshafts and one short (just to ensure it never breaks), go forth and propser. If you want to run 35" tyres and a locker and crawl rock, a Sals rear isn't going to get you there. You need to think Toy innards... If you have the damn thing anyway and want to run it, refab the spring perches, throw a Detroit in there and enjoy!!!

You may not have any problems, but I have seen three sets of aluminium wheel spacers, of two different manufactures, fail on people this year. In all three cases they were Discos rather than Series trucks, but in all three cases the stud holes had ovalled out and failed, one with reasonably serious results. My advice would be a greater offset wheel. I had a set of Mangels steel wheels that were quite offset. I can't remember by how much but when I bought the truck it was on 325/65/r15s and it was still able to turn, so the offest must have been significant!

Thanks, yes. A York designed, Sandeman style, manufactured by Kiki Diesel....

And for Christmas I am giving the Tonka new front wings to replace the bondo, glue, and tin bits that constituted the old ones. But I am replacing them with NAS wings which means they will have the big ugly amber lights....

My Thoughts The Tonka is getting all the 3.9 injection junk and maegasquirt. Just couldn't stand the constant carb issues anymore.