Snagger

Bill, in over 1/4mil miles, all I had was some slight thinning of those studs which allowed the bottom arm to rotate slightly in relation to the housing, which was resolved with new studs, but no problems with the castings themselves. To be honest, I have never heard of a failure like yours from any of the clubs, forums or mechanics I know. I suspect you have suffered from a combination of fatigue cracking due to the many miles of hammering on rough surfaces and the increased steering loads from the portals and large tyres. I suspect that once you have repaired or replaced the swivel housing, using top mounted steering arms like the older SIIs would allow the bottom studs to deal solely with the weight of the vehicle and and side forces while getting the relatively under-worked top studs to take the steering loads, evening out the forces to more tolerable amounts in the long term.

Several LRs have inclined engines and transmissions, but as far as I know, none of them are skewed laterally.

I have bought a genuine pump today after the pattern one started squealing within a couple of thousand miles - I'm building the engine back up after rebuild and found the best part of 1mm lateral play in the bearings, and it only did about 10k in all. I'll pull the pattern one apart to see if I can fit some good bearings, but I'm not optimistic. Incidentally, the fan idler in the timing cover also suffers bearing wear and can squeal. The bearings are non-standard and are incorporated in the idler shaft, and the unit is not available separately - you have to buy a complete front cover and shaft assembly from LR at £161+VAT. I'm having a new flange and shaft made up by an engineering shop to take standard needle bearings (42mm OD, 17mm wide). The cost of the new shaft and flange and the widening of the bearing seats in the timing cover is £55, so with the new NSK bearings, I'm expecting to pay about £70 (+VAT), which is a big saving this time around and will be a huge saving the next time.

Boydie, that sounds like an excellent idea. Could you post up a photo, please? Nige, don't fit an electric fan - they don't have anywhere near the effectiveness of the big engine driven fan and are less efficient. As a short term bush repair, a failed-open viscous coupling can be "failed-closed" with a couple of cable ties wrapped around the viscous unit and fan hub, but a proper repair is better as it will allow the engine to run at a better temperature and warm up faster. I don't trust Britpart, and much of Allmakes stuff comes from the same place. I've not had any trouble with anything Bearmach, but I couldn't definitively say that they don't all use the same supplier...

I have police spec rear springs and standard front. I really quite like the ride like that, and the vehicle's poise is good (no saggy rear). Police front springs may upset the balance, but then I'm used to a 109, so my expectations are probably harsher than yours!

I have a similar system to yours - I use 110 front hubs and discs with Discovery rear callipers and a similar spacer for the calliper. I did play about with 300Tdi axle parts, and with 300 hubs (slimmer), discs and callipers, everything lines up as intended by the factory. The 300 110 rear discs have a much shallower back space which reflects the shallow hub, but using those discs with the early front hubs puts the rotor too far outboard and the calliper bracket would need shaving beyond what I would be willing to do. The reason I used the earlier parts was cost - I was able to fine a cheap 110 rear axle in good condition, and didn't want to pay more for 300Tdi shafts, stubs, hubs and drive flanges. I also preferred the stronger, older parts.

The centre diff is unlocked, I take it? If the transmission is being wound up by a locked diff, it could cause such symptoms.

I'm pretty sure the cross drilling started on the mid-series LT77S and that all R380s had it.

Ha! I haven't been given a final price yet. The guy was going to charge £40 for the replacement flange, so a steel bar turned down to fit the flange and the bearings won't cost much. The bearings are off-the-shelf sizes, so will cost about £7 each for good quality versions. I think he said the external diameter was 1.5" and the internal he'd use was 5/8". I think the final plan was to make the shaft and flange out of a single piece. The price of the new cover is £161 +VAT, so just under £195 Stirling. This new shaft will work out cheaper even if it comes in at £180! I think it'll be about £60, but i'll let you all know and will pass on the details of the shop doing it - it could be something worth pursuing.

The trouble is that you have to tighten the nut incrementally to check for bearing play, just a bit at a time so you don'e overload them. It all depends on how quickly the Locktite goes off, and i my experience it's too quick.

Well, the bearings are in a single steel tube, sealed at the inboard end with a plastic disc. The shaft is a non-standard size, though the outside diameter of the bearings is standard. So, the plan is to have a new shaft made up with integral pulley flange and fan reverse threads which will fit standard bearings to make the whole assembly service repairable in the future. A core plug will cover the inner bearing to keep debris from the timing belt away from the bearing's seal. The price of a new front cover with idler is £161 +VAT, so about £195 incl.

It's an easier job if you can use the existing bearings - it'll save pulling the old ones off the carrier and pinion and pressing new on. As it says on my blog, I used emulsion paint in lieu of engineers blue with adequate results.

Interesting. I has thought all the 5-seaters were coil sprung all round, and the 7-seaters had rear air springs and front ACE. I hadn't heart of other combinations.

Leave the pinion bearing inner races on the 110 pinion, since they should be undamaged and that's the pinion you want to use. Drift the outer raced out of the 110 casing to replace the damages 109 bearings. Use the 109's shims if they are still intact, which they should be. Use the 110 bearings still on the 110 carrier - the outer races will fall off as you pull the carrier out, so have some towels or rubber mats under the casing to catch them and prevent damage (notice the rubber matt under mine to allow me to roll the diff into position before lifting or lower it quickly to the ground without damage). The carrier shims are betwee the inner races and carrier. Leave them until you have test fit the carrier without the pinion and then alter if needed (very unlikely) to get the right overall width. You may have to move shims from one side to the other later when you test the mesh with the pinion installed, but this is also unlikely. Chances are that it'll al go together with no messing about with shims.

Like I said, the blaster has one. Whether it's effective is another question entirely...

The hose is roughly 6' long and comes out the bottom of the tank. I have been careful to to kink or loop it. I'm blasting in a wheel barrow to catch as much media as possible, so the nozzle is less than 3' off the ground. It must be within the design capability of the unit - it's meant to stand on the floor as it's mounted like a porter's barrow.

If the 110's bearings are in good order, you can just use those - they're identical to the 109's. You'll need a new seal, but you might even be able to re-use the crush tube (though it would have been better using the 109s had it not bee wrecked). The crush tube is very stiff and is by far the worst part of the job. You saw how I couldn't do it on the vehicle because you really need the long tools and a ramp, so I did it in the vice. Be warned that using a prop bolt to stop the flange and pinion turning in the vice ended up bending the bolt, so have spare bolts or use some scrap ones for that job. If you do it my way, then just fit the bearings ad pinion, nip the nut so that all the pinion play is just removed but it's easy to turn, then mark the pinion and nut so you have a target position for the nut when crushing the tube in the vice. However, when you fit the crushed tube and pinion in the casing, the tube will be pushing back and you can expect to turn the nut past the marks to get rid of the play. You'll have to struggle that last bit on the vehicle. Lubricating the threads may help considerably, though that could make it easy for the nut to come undone later. You could lubricated them for the crushing job, mark the nut again, then undo it to clean the threads off before refitting. Remember to peen the nut when it's tight.

The Clarke instructions state 60-80 grit. The media is measured in microns, so I can't be sure that it matches, but it wet through the sieve easily, which I think would be a reasonable test. The media is apparently the standard stuff sold locally, and is marked as being for industrial and small portable units. The nozzle bore is 3-4mm.

Cunning plan. I'll run it by them. I did ask them about the idea of having it screw on, as per your previous post, but they said there was no way of stopping the shaft rotating (they had it by then, so I couldn't look at it). Slotting the end of the shaft would work just fine.

This is a bigger unit with pressurised tank, so it doesn't syphon and can't be cleared that way. Interesting about the sharp black media causing you problems - that's what I'm trying to use. It may be a shape that binds together.

Isn't ACE only on the front, the rear handled by air suspension and an anti-roll bar?

You know what I meant, Fridge - I'm talking about the folk who think they have to tune a vehicle for laning or fit a 5l V8 for RTV trials; the sort that think all off roading is meat to look like comp safari.

There is a water collector on the blaster. It has an inlet valve from the compressor hose into the separator (which is bone dry), with another valve after the separator to control airflow through the nozzle. Another line runs from the separator into the media tank, with a third valve at its base to control media addition to the airflow. The nozzle has a safety "valve" which is just a spring loaded flap which closes over the end of the nozzle, held open by squeezing a trigger on the hand piece. I'm making sure I get full airflow and the nozzle is open before I open the grit valve, but it still clogs very quickly. It could be that the media is damp, though it was a brand new sealed bag and seems dry. The media tank's pressure relief valve spat a couple of snow balls when I opened it to depressurise the tank, so some moisture may have got in there some how. The hose is the standard one and is new (like the whole set up), so while it could be internally damaged, it seems unlikely.

Yep, but for the debate over wing fixing methods (the welding/bolt), there is nothing on the wings that requires an especially strong joint.

The Wabco block mounts on the bulkhead - it's just the pump that mounts on the wheel arch top and the accumulator bracket to the side of the inner wing. Like I said, there are no external forces other than gravity and inertia acting on them, and the hydraulic pressure won't move them about either.