Jamie_grieve

I'm with Steve on this one, my wheels are as offset as anyone else's and you can see splines on all my drive flange caps. Why they changed to rubbery plastic ones I'll never know, like the cooling system plugs, some bean counter got to overrule the engineers. Here's some nice drive flange carnage only wearers of a certain outdoor clothing will truly appreciate. I think when a drive shaft and flange get to this state the fuse argument might become valid :-)

I have to say I'm not convinced about all the talk of front wheel hop on vehicles with rear mounted shackles on the front. I'm not saying it doesn't happen but rather that it is enough of a problem to make the change from rear to front mounted shackles. Take both your 80" vehicles, the one with the rear mounted shackles will climb an 18" high vertical step. The one with the front mounted shackles wont. Try it. Or try reversing up the same vertical step. Should be easier with longer travel rears... yet it isn't, why not? Another test, hit a railway sleeper at 30mph with front and rear mounted shackles and see which one drives away. On a hill so steep as to allow the front wheels to hop there is so little weight on them they aren't really contributing grip. A 2wd tractor will climb until it flips backwards. I've seen more wheel hop on vehicles with no suspension at all like equal wheel tractors. Do an emergency stop from 70mph with front mounted shackles on leafs with a large free camber and tell me how it went. The Austin Gipsy uses Land Rover springs with the addition of anti wrap bars mounted just above the front springs. I've owned a few of these and can't honestly say there was any difference in climbing ability due to the suspension. I do agree on high torque, high traction surfaces the wrap bars have their merits I'd be the first to agree the front leaf spring suspension on a Land Rover is not the best but I'd also argue the better approach angle it offers far outweighs any loss in articulation compared to say a 40 series Cruiser which is about all it's fair to compare it to. I've owned two 40 series Cruisers and maybe they were better vehicles but the design of the front suspension on them would not be one of the things to make them so. Likewise the CJ jeeps which again might be a better vehicle than a Series Landy are again not exactly wonderful in the suspension department. The wheel hop described only happens with short travel stiff springs and worn dampers or damper bushes. I'd say for the degree of windup described in the climbing stage one then there was a driveline problem rather than a grip and releasing one. I'd say the front uj bound up due to the diff housing rotating backwards. I'd guess the sideways shift was the truck standing on the front driveshaft rather than the springs breaking perhaps due to the sudden unload the snapped prop caused.

It's easy to theorise etc but the fact is by simply moving the top damper mount you can get more travel than a stock coiler. Here's the proof: In this instance the front shackles are extended military or one ton ones but otherwise standard one ton geometry with no extended bump stops. I always use multileaf springs for this very reason. Try this with a parabolic and even a good one will snap. I use soft poly bushes and greased bolts. 15 years on the road with this setup and no dramas at all. The rear flex was more than the front at around 35deg. The leaf springs being mounted much narrower don't need to move as far as outboard coils to achieve the same level of articulation. Mine simply has a bit of angle iron welded to the side of the chassis rail with an end on it for the pin of the damper. The eye type lower damper mount on the series needs binned in favour of the pin type too. Fridge, I like your setup, have you a flex pic of the way it is now?

One of my observations of hydraulic winches at the Phoenix challenge last year was they were all getting really hot. Saley himself with a yellow independent buggy had to abandon a recovery for a long time due to really hot oil. In his defence, he'd recovered everybody from the section and I doubt the Gigglepins would have kept up such long heavy pulls for as long as he did. Also everyone he had recovered had an electric winch of some kind. I reckoned the hot hydraulics were because people were feathering them to control them all the time instead of opening the spool up fully. If you have a hydraulic pump capable of using say 20Kw and you partially open a spool the oil is no longer bypassing the spool freely but is constricted and is either working the winch and getting hot or being returned to the tank in a hot condition from the spool. You can have 5Kw of work getting done and 15Kw of heat happening. The same situation with the spool fully open would result in the winch moving faster and cooler. Swashplate or variable displacement type pumps and motors would avoid this but then you're into closed circuit hydraulics and cooling gets fun as well. I still think a hydraulic winch should be more effective than electric in terms of speed and reliability but in real life in challenge events (not industrial or heavy applications) the electric winch is still king. I wonder for how long?

I think there isn't much of a problem either, you're just seeing the thermostat working. Keep checking your mouth temperature with the IR thermometer and remember the rubber hoses and radiator have a different emissivity than the thermostat housing so will read higher. The thermostat housing temp should be very close to what the thermostat opens at. The IR thermometer will start to read high when it's been exposed to hot temperatures for a bit. Remember it reads in an elipse that gets larger the further away from the object. To check the thermostat housing you need to be less than 4" 100mm away from it. If you have any doubts and the temperature goes below 80 I'd change the thermostat as it's supposed to maintain a constant temperature. I thought it was supposed to be 88C? 70 - 80's too cold Id say and will lead to glazed bores and premature wear. 300Tdi's don't like getting hot and will warp the head quite significantly if they do.

In addition to what's already been said I'd put thicker plates where the radius arms go through the outriggers. In any kind of offset front accident the arms get pushed through the outriggers and the front wheels end up in the footwells. I'd also make sure the ends of the front of the chassis are closed off. In later ones they were open which not only let muck and water in but was also less metal in front of the bumper bolts. Crush tubes on the bumper holes instead of the stupid folded sections used by the factory. I would also get it made in as thick a section as is possible. The tiny bit of extra weight is low down where you want it and it will add longevity and be more resistant to flexing and body rattles. Anything that can be done to improve the A frame mounting has to be worth doing. Passenger side fuel tank mounts? Rear NAS style fuel tank mounts? Mount the battery on the chassis instead of under the seat? Captive nuts on rear body mounts Closed corners on the crossmember Ferry lashing / recovery rings?

Good luck with it, looks like it could be a very interesting build. Which transfer case will you use? The original Volvo or a divorced LT230?

As the others have said, water is a likely candidate. Any vehicle that's been sat a few years needs the whole fuel system emptying, cleaned and checked. Pulling the bung out the tank won't get all the water out but it will get most of it. New filters and clean the sedimenter will get you most of the way. The water comes from condensation forming on the inside of the tank as the air is sucked in and out through thermal expansion between day and night. After years it can be significant. Regarding the accelerator to start, the 19J doesn't use the Bosch VE pump fitted to almost every other vehicle from the 80's and 90's. All diesel engines require excess fuel / full throttle to start from cold. With the Bosch VE this is done automatically by the rest position of the collar that controls the fuel. On old diesels you always give full throttle until it fires then back off as it fires up. The Lucas Cav pump you have might not have this feature. Pumps also get a kind of varnish build up in them from sitting which might make things stick a while which might only be apparent during cranking.

Another mode of failure is a small crack develops on the inside of the 'P' right at the corner of the pump body where there is a stressed area due to thermal cycling It doesn't happen every time but we found it quite often.

I would also add that we had lots of problems with the later vehicles with the four pin diff, they do not stand up to hard use like the Salisbury's do. We changed loads of them and used to retrofit Salisbury axles from accident damaged vehicles. The narrower hubs and stupid wheel bearing setup was another minus point of axles with these diffs fitted.

^^^^ Hybrid, lol They fitted them at the start of Td5 era 110's too. This one's from a 2006 ROW spec 300tdi next to a salisbury and 2 pin centre which might be of interest to someone with similar outdoor clothing habits as ourselves.

Looks like a 4 pin out a 90 V8

I agree with the above, taking the middle out of a thermostat is really bad practice and doesn't at all mimic a thermostat in the open position. I'd stick the 88 stat back in after testing it in the pot and go from there. Make sure the stat has a small hole with a dangly bit in it before fitting or drill a small 3mm hole in it if it came in a blue box or even some of the other brands are getting as bad now. Check also the bottom hose isn't collapsing at high revs if the internal structure has failed by folks squeezing on it. It might flow fine at idle but suck flat at high revs. A very useful bit of kit is an infra red type thermometer. If you aim it at the thermostat housing and understand the shape of the ellipse the thermometer is reading you can get very accurate temperature readings. When you are looking for accuracy of only one or two degrees I would recommend taking the temperature of your tongue to check the calibration. Exposure to heat on the lense makes them read hot. Also be aware that different colours will give different temperatures because of emissivity so shiny silver reads cooler than matt black. Once you've understood all that you can go looking for hot spots. I used to use one all the time. If an 18 wheeler pulled in you could check the radiator, hubs, brakes, tyres and diff temps in minutes. A deviation of a few ponds of air pressure will show itself in tyre temperature. A hot or cold manifold branch will show a lazy cylinder. I'm sure with all the faffing about you must have bled it many times but for those not familiar with the setup there are two bleed points on the cooling system. One on the radiator and one on a tee piece above the RH rocker cover. With the cap off the expansion tank and the bleed plugs off fill up the radiator until the coolant half fills the expansion tank then put the cap on the tank and keep filling the radiator until coolant either comes out the top of the radiator or the tee piece plug. I fill them pointing up hill so the radiator plug is the last to go in. This might not be the method in the manual but it works. Run the engine then top up the expansion tank as needed. I would also add that if you are in a hot climate to get rid of those stupid plastic plugs altogether and replace them with the earlier brass ones. They are a huge source of failure in hot countries and really show the downturn of Land Rover quality at the time they were introduced.

Yup, that's correct, as long as the surfaces remain parallel and the surface finish is still within the realms of normality. In the case of a flange with a groove in it and the rest is OK then just pop a speedi sleeve over it and that's it, no machining or dramas. The sleeve would not be suitable for example if whatever it was being put on had worn to a taper or was out of round. If I remember rightly, you'll have more fun with the crush tube than the speedi sleeve putting it all back together.

Maybe stick a timing light on it and see if the strong spark you have is disappearing under certain conditions. Maybe a megasquirt problem? No chance of it 'falling off' a base map? No chance of the ecu getting unshielded signals from something? Clutching at straws here. By now the engine will be run in a bit and maybe ready for more than a base map? It might just be the time to stick it on a dyno with someone who really knows megasquirt and baseline values with your setup to get a map together. Would probably be really good fun too. I'd be keen to hear how you go.

Mine was a daily driver for four of the five years I've had it. I think practical is relative, I thought it was really practical compared to either the Praga or Berliet. The Praga's really slow and gets a bit epic sometimes and the Berliet is a bugger to park. A 110 wouldn't be much smaller than the Volvo and the Volvo gets V8 Landy milage. Stick gas on it and it would be cheaper than a diesel 110 to run. I got caught up in some stooooopidly narrow streets in a town called Sandwich in Kent on my first ever mission into the deep South before I found out they didn't have either roads wide enough to pass or even passing places and the 304 handled them no worries at all. It's shorter and narrower than either a Transit or Sprinter or any of the big vans and probably has a better turning circle than a 110. I'd say you could probably just get out of a tighter parking spot than a 110. There would be very little in it. You can carry a lot more carp in the Volvo and they are much more competent off road or in snow than an off the shelf Landy. I put a picture for those lucky enough not to have encountered how impractical a Berliet is for just nipping down to the shop is compared to, say for example, a C304. Not to stray too far off topic, Hoss, have you considered having a demountable camper so that it is a load rather than an intrinsic part of the vehicle? Only legislation regarding loads would be relevant then? You could use the rear of a cab like mine on your 303 and have a step through hole to the camper section without any modification at all to the cab. This could be blinded by a bit of canvas or the original panel stored on the roof of the camper. This allows you to make camp then drive off with the vehicle if you wish. You could leave a flat bed on the Volvo as a pickup to use when the camper is not on the back. One big advantage of the Volvo over trucks for making a camper is the rigid chassis means mounting it is very simple, on trucks the chassis twist and making bodies twist is very difficult and making them rigid makes them high.

Does it have rust in it? If not I'd say just use it as it is and camp in it. Enjoy the weekends away instead of being stuck in the shed with yet another project. I got my Volvo with the same intention of turning it into a camper for going to festivals and events. Indeed I've successfully used it as such for five years now and hand on heart the biggest modification in all that time was a new larger alternator. I stuck a collapsible army camp bed and some collapsible chairs in it, a wee gas cooker, water and away I went. Plastic cutlery and plates from Halfords and never looked back. I revel in seeing struggling camper builds in my dreams as I sleep on my trusty comfy camp bed. I'd say you could also potentially ruin one of what are becoming rare vehicles. I've got a diesel engine and box sitting next to mine now and still haven't put it in for that reason. Once I start hacking at it I know it won't stop. The 303 fits perfectly in a container, I remember seeing Richard Dover's (he used to have a Volvo web site) 304 command cab in a container. It just fits. Elevating roof as tacr2man says would be a good idea though if you did build a camper. As said, it depends where and what you want to go and see. If you were looking at following some of the Eastern off road events, going to Scandinavia and seeing what they get up to then the Volvo would be an awesome support / chase wagon. I'd also say you can drive the length of Africa or West to East from Dover to Beijing without leaving asphalt if you want. The kind of places you'd need portals and lockers you probably wouldn't be risking your worldly possessions. I think there's just sooo much wasted space on a Volvo to make a really good camper. Park it next to a Transit or Sprinter and see how much more actual camping room there'd be in one of them. You probably lose three cubic metres to a van just by the height of the chassis, floor and portals. Can we get pictures even if it's a landy forum..?

Not so, it's normal practice, indeed essential to run with the CTIS open on a so equipped vehicle in order to be able to adjust it. There are valves at the wheels to isolate it for storage or air loss due to a puncture. Another advantage of CTIS having all the tyres the same pressure is that they are all the same rolling radius and less likely to scrub when the diffs are locked or the rear bogie doesn't have an interaxle diff like many Russian trucks. If the system is at say, two bar then all six wheels will have two bar regardless whether the vehicle is on a side slope. It's air, not hydraulics. True if it were hydraulic and there was no pump so no pressure then you would get the scenario you describe but add a pump then even with hydraulics it wouldn't happen. It's hard to get your head round but think of a range rover with air suspension similarly plumbed in. That's interesting, it all looked very heavy in the pics but I know you know what you're looking at. The two thicknesses in the axle tubes looked very reinforced and the portal housings looked wide and if they do have 4 gears in there that would be stronger too. It's hard to gauge the size of the chassis and it's construction which again looked heavier than the Volvos. Even the shafts and UJ's looked bigger but it's hard to tell. I don't suppose it's even fair to compare it to a Volvo from 40 years ago but they are kinda similar too. The braces on the portals do look a bit of an afterthought

The silver pipes going into the middle of the hub are for the CTIS I'd say as they go into the middle of the hub through the block on the cover you can see, the back plastic / rubber 'pipes' look to be for the brakes. Are they hand brake cables going to the callipers perhaps? It looks like black plastic pipes coming from the air tanks but it's hard to say. Having the CTIS pipe across the axle might be one way of slowing down a rapid loss of air from one tyre and the easiest way to balance the pressures for normal driving. I'm guessing there's one air tank per wheel for lots of storage . Packaging and redundancy might be why not one large central tank.

Great pics Fridge!! The CTIS pipes and tanks look big enough for the job too, not just a gimmick. It takes a lot of air and large pipes to operate CTIS effectively. Looks like at least the rear portals have intermediate gears in them too for greater tooth contact than the usual suspects. I think the fronts might not..? Merc transfer cases used to have the front drive going the opposite way, wonder if the axles are bought in units, I can't make out if the tags are like ZF or something? Looks like an interaxle diff on the centre axle too so no windup in the rear bogie like a Volvo. It's of slightly heavier construction than the Volvo C304 but without any form of load sharing on the rear axles this must limit the payload to somewhere closer to what two axles can handle? The rear springs are very short and not a lot of movement before the hollow bump stop will start to restrict upward travel. Off road ability wouldn't be affected too much in normal circumstances but at the extremes of summits on steep ground the rear axle would be unloading the front one significantly. No load sharing would also give rise to higher roll angles heavily loaded and more likely to break through soft ground or detonate an AV mine. On the plus side, high speed handling would be infinitely superior. In forty years we might be able to play with these the way we play with Volvo's now!!

If all of the plugs are equally sooty then at least they are all firing. over fuelling and sooty plugs is one thing, the misfire is another. Is the temperature sender correct? does it 'think' it's cold? Is there a snorkel or pre cleaner fitted? Is there a squashed / blocked bit of exhaust? Bad plug leads / coil packs might just be breaking down at certain loads? If it's a regular misfire then I suggest to pull the ht leads until you can at least identify the culprit. A slightly sticking valve / lifter might not show up in the compression test at cranking speeds but might when it's running. Can you post a picture of the plugs?

Is the vent hole in the master cylinder cap blocked?

Open the bleed nipple on the slave and see if any fluid comes out indicating there is hydraulic pressure there holding the clutch slightly. Might be a faulty master cylinder not letting fluid back or I know you say it's not mechanical but is it definitely not the release bearing not moving back on the splines properly? I think Bill had a recent and unusual thing going on with a flexi pipe that might be worth a look. I have never seen it myself where delamination causes a one way valve effect but that's a good thing with forums bringing knowledge like that together.

Aw really..? They had these? That really is a bit pathetic. I hope they were better armoured than our snatch ones. I don't suppose they used them much before getting something suitable? There must have been a few hand shakes behind closed doors for this contraption to happen.

Can you confirm mmgemini's earlier diagnosis of the banjo bolts in the wrong way round please? Secondly when you pulled off the air inlet, was this at the filter or the manifold? When the short 90º rubber elbow delaminates it also gives the same symptoms but more erratic. Is there any chance the freshly built engine had a rag or tissue in the inlet manifold that got pushed in before refinement or sucked in afterwards? You can check the fuel by opening the injector pipes and cranking it. Fuel here would indicate this side of things is OK.