Snagger

Pulling is normally a sign of contamination, either from a leaking hub seal or from leaky brake cylinders. Temperature affects the friction/lubrication created by the contamination, so the pull will be intermittent with brake temperature, not just pedal force. I found once that a leaky cylinder and its resulting dirty contamination of the drums and shoes caused that side to be more effective than the clean side under light braking and cold temperatures, only becoming the more logical weaker side once hot or braking hard. I suspect there are other variables in there too, like drum and shoe condition, shoe material, fluid/oil specification and so on. It's only likely to be an adjustment issue if the brakes always pull squarely on a second pump at all temperatures and pressures - while the hydraulic pressure should distribute evenly to move all shoes into equal contact regardless of maladjustment, in practice the fluid flow rate is just a little restricted to a slack shoe and so the pressure on that side will take a brief moment to equalise with the opposite wheel.

I'm not that up to speed on suspension mods, despite reading an American book all about it. The thing is, while a lot of after-market suspension kit well designed and built, a lot is clearly inappropriate and ill-conceived - the book showed leaf springs so arched they were semi-circular, which would make them almost totally rigid in compression but wobbly laterally, heavily sloping panhard rods that would induce heavy bump steer and cranked drag links that would not just cause bump steer but also be prone to flexing at the bends. Also featured in the book were the ladder/shackle systems you guys are advocating, so I understand their concept, if not their exact operation. Now, these may work a treat, but I have this concern - fitted with the shackle vertical or, presumably, parallel to the spring shackles, they will permit the fore/aft travel of the axle caused by leaf spring compression while eliminating axle wrap from wheel torque reaction. That much is clear. But, while the longitudinal motion of the axle would be accommodated by said shackle, I can't see how vertical axle movement would be; it appears to me that axle movement towards the chassis would cause the shackle and ladder to apply strong wrap loads on the axle. So, while gentle cross-axling would not cause wrap as long as the ladder was mounted centrally, any bumps that compress both springs simultaneously would wrap the axle. The only way to avoid that would be to incline the shackle on a wide obtuse angle with the rod or ladder, but that would make its wrap control weak... If anyone knows of any diagrams or videos which explain how these systems work, so that my concerns can be allayed, then please post them up. It looks like a big enough job that I want to get it right first time, and getting it wrong could have big consequences. For what it's worth, my springs are TIC, like Fridge's, and I doubt anyone could level an accusation of fragility at them.

That's what I was thinking - it prevents axle wrap from torque reactions, but induces wrap with axle articulation, making the exercise pointless and putting stresses on a cross member not designed with those loadings in mind. The "Soren bar", as per his 88", is a much better solution. I'll try to fabricate the parallel bars first, though.

The heater issues sound normal, but it's worth checking the rubber drain plug i the heater intake duct is clear of debris, otherwise the duct and heater matrix fill with rain water and will be blowing humidified air over the screen. The door locks sound to be worn out or maladjusted - I have no problems at all with mine. Defender wipers aren't great, but they're slightly better than SIII wipers! You might have been having wiring problems or a faulty park switch, and the splines on the wiper arms and bosses can wear, causing them to be slack or fall off, but it sounds like you have already dealt with that. The truth is that many LRs are old and tired and most are not maintained well. This gives them a bad reputation and many common faults tend to be regarded as normal when they are merely all too common. It's the same with brakes and steering - while hardly precise or sporty, they should be firm and effective, but both have reputations for sloppiness and ineffectiveness because so many vehicles have not been well maintained.

That compliance issue is why I want to use something with bushes at the back. I have a pair of old front spring plates, so could attach them to the top of the bump stops and use their damper mountings and a pair of 109 Ambulance rear anti-roll bar links for the control arms, with standard damper bushes. With these arms running roughly parallel to the front halves of the springs, they shouldn't need to allow too much compliance and the damper bushes should easily suffice. As for the fact that this would still permit a small amount of wrap, well so do the bushes in coilers' radius arms up front and the trailing arms and front of the A-frame at their rear. A small amount of wrap isn't an issue - this is no comp-safari racer or rock crawler; I just want to prevent damage to the suspension and steering.

What controls the Ackerman angle is the difference in length between the track rod and the swivel pin separation, and how far behind or in front of the axle line the rod is. In essence, it depends on the angle between the effective steering arms. For track rods in front of the axle, having the arms "toe in" will increase Ackerman and for trailing track rods, having them widen as you move away from the axle will do the same. If the arms are parallel, then you should get a neutral Ackerman angle. Presumably, the front arms on coiler axles, meant for the drag link, are 90 degrees to the stub axle axis, which would make sense to get even responses for left and right inputs, otherwise the steering would be more sensitive in one direction than the other unless the PAS box drop arm was set at a similar angle, so you get parallel effective arms and a neutral Ackerman angle.. That effective arm angle is not the angle between the swivel housing and centreline of the arm - the arm can be attached anywhere on the swivel and work. It is the angle between a line drawn from the track rod end eye to the swivel pin axis at its mid height, horizontally level with the centre line of the stub axle after considering swivel camber angle and setting the axle up for castor angle. Messing about with camber (can't with Def/RR axles) or castor angle (can be altered) will affect the effective arm angle, and this Ackerman.

The LRM magazine, Britpart sponsored and conducted build showed the same problem with their new springs. Not a great advert for their products. They did the same thing once the fault was spotted. Shame they didn't repaint the spring eds before refitting - the scorched and blistered paint didn't look that neat against a galvanised chassis and newly painted panels!

I've had a quick peek around the front just now. There is no way that a link to the front cross member would work satisfactorily, shackled or not; it's just too short a gap and would result in a different set of wrap forces, rather than controlling the existing forces. What does look potentially feasible is a pair of rods connected by transverse bolts and bushings (I'm thinking of coiler trailing arms) to the axle, just outboard of the U-bolts, and rose (Heim) joints at the front end, bolted to the outside of the dumb irons through the upper spring bolt holes, the bolt of which will just clear the spring eyes inside the dumb irons. This will give rigid thrust arms to sold chassis mountings with free rotational movement for cross-axle motion and free pitch movement at each end of both rods for spring compression, but fixed length roughly parallel to the springs for anti-wrap control. It won't impinge on the spring bushes, will maintain the same axle axis at all suspension ranges and while being outboard of the springs, won't impinge on steering lock because they will be forward of the axle, where wheel/tyre steering motion is less at full lock (as it is the turn's outboard, lesser pivoting wheel that moves towards the front of the spring). I should even be able to buy off-the shelf brackets from YRM... I need to take a close look at the possibility of fouling the drag link on the near side, but that looks unlikley.

With the amount of spring distortion I must be getting to suffer the prop impacts that are occurring, the springs must be pronouncedly "S" shaped under heavy braking. There is no way that the Soren bar is going to worsen things and no way that the spring will distort more due to longitudinal compression over its arced length. The ladder bar may be more effective though, and won't place extra loads on the rear spring bolts or bushes (though the Soren bar may alleviate bush loadings because of the reduced rotation of the spring eye from preventing the S-bending). I'll have a closer look at the feasibility of a forward bar connecting to the front (steering relay) cross member once I have sorted the gear box and engine mounting.

That sounds similar in principle to what Fridge did on his rear axle. I am still hoping he'll contribute to this thread! No solution is perfect, but I still think the "Soren bar" is the most practical and elegant in this scenario. I'll try that first and see if the bushes take it. !N

I previously fitted 2.8:1 low gears in place ofhe standard 2.35:1, so low range is not so badly affected. I did look at 4.1 diff costs, but it's expensive. I'd prefer that ratio, though, as 4.71 is badly undergeared while 3.54 is overgeared to about the same amount. 4.1 would be ideal for road use in high range, and would also result in the standard overall low ratio with the gear sets I retrofit.

I've previously had the synchro spring failure - that's what prompted the gear box to be rebuilt 40k ago. And I have been using 3.54 diffs for about six months. It had occurred to me that they may be putting extra strain on the gear box, especially since steep hills in town have to be done in third gear.

I think something went through the gears to break the teeth off - there's a big impression of something at the root of each broken tooth.

Thanks guys. Food for thought. I like Soren's solution as it doesn't put strain on the chassis cross member, which wasn't designed for those forces, and avoids any contact with the sump or pulleys. I use Polybushes in my springs, so they should take the forces without much complaint and will be easy to swap if they don;t cope. I think I'll go that way first and see how things go - I can always change later. I'm not keen on the Willy's set up - my springs have too much camber anyway, but it puts a hell of a strain on those U bolts.

That's another benefit of an overdrive - 2nd, 2nd +OD, 4th...

Makes sense, or they'd probably have used the old system for the RR too.

If it's any consolation, mine broke its third gear yesterday - lots of heavy chattering in third and slight occasional chattering in neutral, confirmed but two whole gear teeth in the drained oil today. I have a Tdi too. Might just be too much torque in the long run - the box has probably done the thick end of 100,000 miles, with rebuild 40,000 ago and about 25-30k behind the Tdi.

That was very much the LR way at the time. Look at the late SIIAs and early SIIIs and you'll see technically incorrect door hinges, lighting, speedos, switch gear and so on. They would only switch over to the new parts once the old stock was depleted, and that was for all markets. The factory recon transmission I bought around 1996/7 has a Suffix A casing and thus reverse idler shaft and gear, even though the rest of the innards were Suffix D. They have always just used whatever was left over, not specifically palming them off on the old colonies. As for the wheel bearings, the idea was to rationalise the three different bearings in use - identical inner and outer bearings on the RR but two different sizes on the Land Rover, to one common spec across all vehicles for the obvious logistical and financial benefits. That RR spec bearing went onto the 1980 and later Land rovers, including the Stage I V8, and the Discovery nearly a decade later, and is still used on current Defenders. It was a factory stream lining exercise rather than a technical benefit.

It also sounds like seized calliper pistons, and they fal more often than servo units because they rust.

In other words, when the gear boxes needed overhaul, they were replaced with the then contemporary new units, and the axles were given the post 1980 rationalisation retrospectively, like I had don on my 109 axles. Still nothing unusual about either.

It could be a loose nut on the back of the main shaft, having broken the tab washer.

As Phil says, the MoD used the contemporary boxes. The only differences were the top filler plug in lie of the breather plate.

As I said in the first post, the first part of the solution is to make a new mount, which I can get away with because I have a Discovery engine giving me that space, and I already have a third leaf on the parabolics, all from Heystee, The oly way of stiffening the springs would be to ho to very heavy duty standard leaf springs, byt even that won't achieve a great deal.

I'd be interested in seeing how Soren connected the axle end of the control bar, but that is the principle I had in mind. It should work pretty well - when applying lots of driving power, the bar would be in compression, an when braking hard, it would be in tension. It wouldn't take any bending forces. By forming a triangle between the rear of the spring and the top and bottom of the axle, it should be pretty stable - triangles are the most stable shape you can get and are used extensively for structural systems because of that. A small amount of axle movement would still be imparted, but only from the spring side of said triangle lengthening as the spring is compressed and straightened. This would rotate the diff downwards, not up, as the apex of the triangle is floating with the axle by being on the spring eye - if it was on the chassis eye, it would rotate the diff up just as your suggest. I had been toying with the possibility of fitting the system atop the front of the spring, perhaps using the upper spring bolt holes in the 1-Ton chassis, but I suspect the spring eyes obstruct the hole and I think the drag link may foul control rods in that position. As for the Willys solution, that is also an option, but that's putting all the forces through the U-bolts and is still relying on the stiffness of those bottom members, so they need to be really heavy. Forming a triangle seems more elegant and avoids the extra U-bolt loads as the anti-wrap forces would be transmitted directly along the control arms in compression or tension. Only the rear spring bolt would carry etra loadings, and that would only be outboard of the shackles, so shouldn't shear the bolt.

Sounds like the pressure switch is sticking. When was the fluid last replaced? It could be dirt in the fluid or corrosion from water in the fluid.