Snagger

Stumpy R380s were made, but are rare. I think they were made specially for retro-fit into MoD 90s and 110s on the refurbishment projects.

Had to drive from Bedford to East Mids airport and back yesterday, as well as to Luton and back the day before. It seems to be running fine. I still think I might upgrade at a later date when I'm not needing the car as a daily driver - a quieter transmission would be rather nice, and trying to get back some of the raised overall gearing would be beneficial; 60mph is an effective top speed for noise levels, even though it's wind itself up to a bit over 80 if I push it hard (I really don't like it though, as it probably isn't doing the engine or transmission much good). So, the future options will be: LT77/R380 with Series transfer box and 4.1:1 diffs; LT77/R380 and LT230, 3.54 diffs; LT77/R380 with Borg Warner and 3.54 diffs; RRC 4 speed auto with Borg Warner. I quite like the Borg Warner units, having one in my RRC. While they lack the option of fully locking the centre diff to get you home if you have to remove a prop shaft or half shaft, and could damage the viscous coupling if you drove in that condition for a long way (and the couplings are pretty expensive), and they do scrub tyres more in daily use (I get half the mileage out of the BFG ATs on the RRC than on the 109), I like the way it drives and the fact that it gives such good performance on roads with slippery patches. I quite fancy an auto, too... Anyone know if they fit a Discovery 200Tdi engine? I assume that some RRC 200Tdis had automatics. That'd be a big job. The easiest option would be the Series transfer box and 4.1 diffs with a 5-speed box - no chassis mods, no custom props, just the Ashcroft conversion kit, some new engine mounts and fiddling with engine piping to move it forwards, and the diff work which seems pretty straight forward, having done it once already. Anyone know about getting a Series speedo to work with an LT230 or Borg Warner unit?

I don't have one as I use Defender rear door, so I have no photos, but the Series check rod is a for about 4-5mm thick with a vertical end that goes through the floor close to the door aperture with a nut on the bottom, then extends horizontally to the slot in the bottom edge of the door's frame, with a plastic wheel to run in the door's channel. A rubber block acts as a buffer. It's very similar to the front door arrangement on SIIIs, except it lacks a body bracket and the rod is cranked. You could use a leather strap between the door frame and the wheel arch inside the tub, or a chain and a bungie to pull the chain up and out of the way of the door sill as the tension comes off if you can't find the genuine parts. A Defender check rod may also work - it operates on a very similar principle and has a similar door track (possibly identical). You would need the body mounting bracket for the Defeneder rod, though.

Nice! Let us know how it works out when you fit them.

The slip joint (the telescoping section of the prop shafts) should not wobble, but as the splines wear with age, a tiny amount of wobble creeps in. If it's only just perceptible, then I'd replace the UJs and just live with it, but if there is noticeable rotational play in the joint or more than about 1/2mm of flex, then it's shot. Those front parabolics are scrap, too, and because they will be setting the axle at a different angle, the castor will be affected, meaning that the steering and handling will be adversely affected (by the look of it, the castor angle has been increased, which will at least have the less worrisome effect of increasing dynamic stability and merely making steering heavier than it would normally be). However, if the springs are uneven left and right, it will likely be causing tracking issues and will certainly have uneven responses over bumps and under braking. It's a fairly urgent job, I'm afraid. One more thing - as already mentioned, the incident that damaged the spring could also be responsible for your prop damage. The change in the axle angle, dropping the diff nose lower, will also be upsetting the prop shaft UJ geometry now, causing vibration. There are numerous brands of parabolic springs, and they are not all equal! It's very much a case of "you get what you pay for", and these would have been cheap. Heystee and Rocky Mountain are two respected brands, with Heystee being the best but also very dear. I added a third leaf to my Heystee springs to help with the extra weight of my 109 but also to prevent what you are suffering now that I have disc brakes. I still get axle wrap, which is why I was exploring options to control it in another thread.

Yep, it was, and it took the mpg up from 27 to 30, but it drove horribly around town on the 3.54s - acceleration was way down, like standard gears and a 2.25 diesel. The box managed several years and about 30,000 miles behind a Tdi with no trouble, but six months after fitting the 3.54s, stripped some teeth off third gear. As long as you make sure never to use the OD in any gear other than 4th, it might be alright, but I'd be wary. I think a lot has to do with vehicle weight, though, and mine is relatively heavy.

Checking the UJs is pretty simple, Jim. Chock the vehicle (since you'll be underneath and removing the props, which are essential for the hand brake). You need 9/16" spanners to undo the nuts and bolts. If you have problems getting at the nuts on the hand brake drum end of the rear prop, use a socket and extension bar. It can be tricky with the prop drooping, so disconnect the aft end first and use bungies to hold that end up high to the chassis so the prop is horizontal - that should let you get onto the front end nuts. On standard SII/IIIs, the bolts used on each diff end are the same, but the bolts used on the front end of the transfer box are about 1/4" longer - they won't fit the diff ends without pressing against the diff housing, so try to keep them separate or check them against each other before reassembly. The same might apply on V8s. Once the props are off, hold them vertically and move each yolk around checking for binding, slop and play. Rotate the yolk from side to side in each axis under torsional force (like engine force) as you make the pivoting movements in each axis, then try to move the joints laterally (shear movement). Any play at all, or any notchiness or binding show a knackered UJ. They should feel a little tight, but move smoothly and evenly in all directions. I think it's likely that yours will flop about with gravity, even if they don't appear to have play, in which case they're up for replacement. If you take the props off, you'll probably just be charged an hour's labour to replace all the UJs. For the garage to remove and refit the props, I'd expect them to still achieve it within the first hour,but they might run into a second and charge you for it. Make sure you get decent replacements - GKN or Hardy Spicer is what you want, which are OEM. They cost about £15 each here, but in a LR box are three to four times that, so get OEM, not Gen Parts. Make sure they have grease nipples - some cheaper UJs are "sealed for life", which is about 10,000 miles! Replacing them yourself is simple enough, but you need a few tools like a socket of similar size to the bearing cups, a socket big enough to hold a bearing cup, a lump hammer or heavy mallet, circlip pliers and, ideally, a vice (can be done without the vice, but it's tricky). Take the grease nipple off the existing UJ and remove all the circlips. Support one yolk arm over the big socket and use the hammer to drive the bearing cup out into the socket by whacking the adjacent yolk arm on either side, using the spider to drive the cup out the bottom arm. Once the cup is out far enough, use the vice or grips to twist and pull it out completely. Then you should be able to disassemble the UJ by sliding the spider towards the open hole and manoeuvering it all apart. Then knock the opposite cup out with the hammer and smaller socket before repeating with the other opposing bearing cups. To assemble a UJ, clean up all the parts and make sure the holes for the cups and grooves for the clips are clean and free of burrs. Insert one cup into the yolk to about half its depth using the vice (with no vice, it can be done with a copper mallet, but the needles are prone to dropping out, so have a clean cloth spread out underneath to catch them). Then put the spider (with grease nipple removed and nipple hole sided towards the main length of the prop) into the yolk by putting the first leg into the opposite hole, squaring it up and dropping a leg into the cup, making sure you don't dislodge any needles in the process. Press the cap flush with the yolk and fit the opposite cup. Then do the same with the other yolk and cups. Once all cups are loosely in place, press them in further with the vice (or hammer) and small socket just far enough to get the new circlips in. Do one at a time, as when you do the opposite side, it will press the already finished cups back against their circlips, seating them correctly. This will leave you with a slightly off centre spider, with the first two cups pressed against their clips and the last two slightly clear of their clips. To resolve this sit the yolk on a tough bench or the floor and give the adjacent, not opposite, yolk arms a firm tap with the mallet or hammer to get the spider to knock the cups down against the clips - do this in all four cups to make sure they're all seated. Finally, fit the grease nipple and pump in some LM grease until it emerges through the cup seals. If that doesn't make sense, watch it being done by your garage so that you can do it yourself in the future.

Give the props a good tug around to check for diff and transfer box bearing play. Then remove them to check the UJs - grease doesn't do anything for worn or damaged UJs, and the symptoms do sound like UJs. They should be slightly stiff and completely smooth and have no play at all. they often fail with indentations in the spider's bearing faces, making them corrugated, so they don't have much play and will only be felt to be notch once the prop has been removed. If the yolks flop under gravity as you wave the prop around gently, then the UJs are worn. You can also somethimes get end float in a bad UJ bearing, allowing lateral movement between the yolks even though the rollers and bearing faces are all good, so look for that too.

Remember your speedo will need recallibration (I used JDO1.com). An overdrive seems a more flexible solution, but typically dearer (until you get the speedo done for the diffs, anyway). RUnning 3.54s and an overdrive is not good, though - I just broke my gearbox doing that with a Tdi.

The tyres could cause it if they have any bulges or uneven-ness, as I had once on a Saab. Check them carefully for roundness by jacking up an axle and turning the wheels slowly with something really close to the tyre tread to use as an indexer. Castor can only be adjusted by slotting the mounting holes in the swivel housing or axle flanges, using mismatched spring hangers and shackles (like at the back of yours) or wedging between the spring and axle saddle. Small variations may occur from production tolerances and the play between the bolts and their holes. Your wheels, having greater offset than standard, won;t be helping and could be exacerbating the problem, but unless one or more of them is bent, then they are not the cause. Try tightening the pinch bolts on the relay arms and check the swivel arms for play relative to their housings (the studs and wear at their wastes). If none of that is at fault and the rod ends are all good, have a look to see if the stub axles are worn where the wheel bearing sit on them - I think that is the cause of the vibration my RR's front axle gets at about 60mph. The rear suspension may cause premature UJ wear and vibration at around 60mph - it did on my 109 when I ran a standard chassis with 1-ton rear shackles on parabolics.

Well, apart from a little backlash if the pedals are used clumsily, it (tentatively) seems to be good. It was very smooth and quiet in all gears with the overdrive coupling fitted but overdrive unit still off. With everything except the prop shafts, it gets progressively more chattery from the transfer box output shaft in third and fourth, but has done that for the full 20 years I've had it, so I think that's normal. It drove well, with no nasty noises, no jumping gears and no notchiness. The stick movement in third has almost disappeared, too. Given the main shaft and coupling wear, I know this is not a permanent job, but as long as nothing comes loose (like that damned nut), then it should last a good few years. Long term, I may consider a total transmission replacement with a stumpy R380, with all options open - the Ashcroft mating kit to keep the series transfer box, an LT230 or even a Borg Warner unit.. I'm even beginning to consider an auto box, which could be sourced with a Borg Warner from a scrap RRC. The plan is to restore the RRC first and then I can look at more significant mods on the 109 to remove these weak links in the chain.

Because it's full of very abrasive contaminants, like carbon and metal particles, and is also mildly corrosive.

There is this, but it's rare and the OD would appear to get in the way of the selector lever, so would need alteration: http://www.lrfaq.org/Series/images/RTC7016.pdf

Yep, I remember that< Bill, and took a close look when I mated the bell housing to the flywheel housing. The studs have less than 0.5mm clearance through their holes, so while it's not as precise as having locating dowels, it should be pretty damned close. That's assuming that the DIscovery flywheel housing and Series bell housing are both meant to be circular with the studs concentric with the flywheel/pinion. The flywheel housing had most of the studs where I needed - just one had to be removed and refitted in a blind hole adjacent, and the four bolts that go through the bottom of the housing into the ladder block between sump and block were replace with countersunk bolts as there were no holes in the bell housing for them (and the flange is bevelled, so new holes weren't possible), with three new studs fitted in the flywheel housing bottom blind holes between those four bolts, which already lined up with the series bell housing stud holes. The only machining or working was countersinking those four bolts and tapping the threads in the blind holes. It has worked most of the time, the only previous issue being caused by a worn spigot bush. This time, the cause may be something else as the bush seemed OK, but I have since replaced it again anyway. It could be that the other pinion has a fault (could be bent, or have a machining fault), or it could even be an issue with the new clutch plate. That pinion looked to be in better condition than the existing one, which in itself was not bad, but it does look very slightly different - the front end has rounded edges over a much bigger radius than the small bevelled edge of the tip of the original. Both are Gen Parts, so why they differ I don't know (and yes, both are Suffix D with the ecm gears and notched synchro teeth).

I second Bill's remark. 3.54 diffs and an overdrive behind a standard Series transmission with a V8 or Tdi has been done by many people, but six months afetr doing it, I stripped two teeth off third gear - the box had been fine for about 30,000 and five years behind the Tdi with the original diffs. I've been buggering around trying to get the gear box to work properly for the last month, even though replacing the broken gear was simple. They drive horribly on 3.54s, too - you need third gear rather than 4th for 30mph, which means that driving around town will put far more strain on the box, especially if you use the overdrive in third to drop the rpm a tad as it revs slightly high in 3rd without OD and much too low in 4th. It's over geared, and acceleration is sluggish. Go for an overdrive, but not a diff change.

Ah, didn't spot the bottle in the photo, but I see it now mounted to the oil can holder just behind the rad.

I applied 105'lbs, as per LR's instructions, to the nut, using 4th gear to lock the shaft up (fitted with the transmission in the vehicle). The nut, shaft and grub screw threads were all fully cleaned up with all traces of threadlock scraped out and the grub screw threads chemically cleaned too before refitting this morning, and the grub screws were tightened as much as I could manage with the 4mm Allen key (alternating as I went), with medium strength thread lock to them only and the main nut was put on dry. We'll see how it goes. Frankly, I still don't know the cause of the jumping out of 4th, but with all the bearings along the main shaft axis, from spigot bush to rear bearing replaced, the previous pinion (which didn't jump 4th) refitted and with the transmission assembled and installed with the standard rear bearing in place instead of the overdrive coupling leaving it unsupported, I've done all I can. Ideally, I'd like to replace the main shaft and overdrive coupling, but with costs are racking up too high and they're still serviceable, if less than perfect - I should get another 40,ooo out of them yet.

I ordered one for my 109 from Paddocks. They probably do them for all models.

I was going to use electrical cleaner aerosol and a tooth brush to clean the main nut threads, so they'd be completely clean before the coupling was slid on )splines on the shaft pre-greased). The grub screws on my coupling aren't pointed; they are concave and leave circular imprints in the nut. There are also some scrub lines where they have scratched the nut as the nut has progressively unwound. You're absolutely right that engine torque will tend to turn the transmission in the direction that the coupling and grub screws would retighten the nut, but I think what has happened is that under engine braking, over-run and reverse gear, the torque is reversed and the coupling has dragged the nut slightly looser (with no thread lock), which is easy enough, and then as normal torque has been applied, the screws have scraped across the nut because of the higher effort in tightening the nut, and repeated tiny movements of the ut in this way over a period of months has undone the nut by 45 degrees or so until the torque required to do the nut up the same amount as it was backed off is small enough that the grub screws stopped slipping. Hence the ratchet wrench analogy. I did try using just the thread lock on the big nut and omitting the grub screws, with grease between the coupling and nut shoulders to allow it to slip without dragging the nut, but it only worked for a few months. I then tried fitting the coupling with paint marks to align the same splines and marking the nut through the grub screw holes to cut grooves for the grub screws to nose into so that they couldn't slip around. That worked better. A production tolerance issue on the shaft or coupling is plausible - if the splines were both at the narrow limit of production tolerances, then together they'd be magnified and would create the play I had on both new components. The mainshaft is now clearly worn on its splines, and perhaps the coupling is too, but the coupling spines have no visible wear pattern on them because they engage on their entire edge, unlike the main shaft which is unworn at the ends of the splines. I wonder how much of that wear is normal at under 40'000 miles, and whether much of the whole problem is attributable to the increased torque (in both directions) and vibration of the Tdi engine driving it all... I can't help but think all that banging back and forth must have accelerate the wear and is at least a contributory factor in the 1st gear thrust washer wear, which can only have happened because the washer wasn't pinched hard enough by the nut at some point. Of course, once that thrust washer started wearing, it could wear faster and faster, and that would have left the rear nut looser without it even turning, so everything then starts screwing everything else up.. I'll try reassembling as per the instructions, all oiled except the grub screws, and do them up as tight as I dare. Were your grub screws pointed to penetrate the nut collar, then?

Consider getting a Goodridge braided hose - it'll last much longer and will also be more efficient in transferring hydraulic pressure because it won't swell under pressure.

Yep, Prima TD is good, Tdi is better. You can fit OD and PTO if you can find one of the rare PTOs that bolts onto the bottom of the transfer box in place of the steel plate, rather than to the back, but good luck finding one! I seem to vaguely recall someone talking about manufacturing them again, but I have no details.

So, where does the rad expansion bottle move to?

Wow, that really is a project!

No. What they have is a a long coupling (roughly twice the length of the original gear or Fairey coupling) with internal splines, narrow on one end to fit the gear box main shaft, and wider at the aft end to fit the Roverdrive's input shaft. The step from one set of splines to the other is quite wide, and is the shoulder that the collared nut presses against. The shoulder of the nut collar and the step are slightly bevelled to help centralise the coupling on the shaft, which suggests that the tolerances of the splines are designed to be a little loose. Two grub screws, aft of the needle bearing on the coupling's exterior (like on the Fairey coupling) go through the coupling and against the nut's collar. They had to do it this way because the coupling is so long that it extends well past the nut and any lock washer would be impossible to bend over (or remove later). The trouble is that the nut is locked to the coupling, not the shaft and its threads, and if the grub screws don't bite quite enough, then they'll drag the nut loose but won't drag it tight again on the next shaft torque cycle, acting like a micro ratchet, and the coupling's splines are a little looser than the original gear's so that spline movement is unavoidable. The play has got worse because the splines in the coupling and on the shaft have suffered, but it was always slightly loose, and the main shaft was only about 5,00 miles old when the Roverdrive was first fitted. Then again, I do have the first unit sold in the UK after they made their new molds, so this slight play may not affect later units. I did the grub screws up tight enough that they have marked the nut collar quite clearly, but maybe they needed to be tighter. I don't recall a torque being specified for the grub screws and I don't have a torque wrench that would do it anyway - I only have a 3' torque wrench for things like that main nut, head bolts and so on. I didn't want to strip the threads or mangle the Allen key holes, and I used the Allen keys pretty hard. I don't know how much tighter I can turn them without damaging them... I think it's the one draw back with the unit. If there was a way of locking the nut directly to the shaft, I think it'd be bulletproof.

Hmm. I think f the pedal is fine with the hydraulics empty or disconnected, you can now discount that part. Good that the cylinders are serviceable. If you still get trouble, then I'd next replace the hose - not only is it external, but a collapsing hose will restrict fluid passage in a way that fits the symptoms very well. They don't last forever. I think the internal clutch issues are still possible but less likely than the hose, unless an event happened that was likely to melt the plastic of the release bearing carrier, but that usually only happens in very heavy driving in extremely hot climates (hence the aluminium after market versions). Still a guess, though!