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Jamie_grieve

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Posts posted by Jamie_grieve

  1. exactly why i changed to front disks, i actively argue that drums CAN be just as good as disks, if not sometimes better. but it does depend on so many variables like which master cylinder, wether its suited to the "actuator" in the system.

    but of course the downfalls of drums are fade, and most of all, the wear. when heavily towing over the moors even when using engine braking to the max, i could get through a full set of front shoes in a day. not ideal!

    Wear...?

    I completely disagree and so does every single commercial operator on the planet who's running disc brakes on his trucks now.

    It's well known that discs of a similar stopping power to drums dissipate heat faster and have less fade and if fade is a problem then a good reason to swap to discs but also it's well known and any Google search or asking large users that pads wear a lot faster than shoes. Especially in mud or abrasive ground conditions. An exception might be if said shoes came in a blue box?

    Examples 1 Opencast coal mine, Unimog 404 fitters vehicle with drums, never ever changed shoes as long as I was there, one stint was three years. Unimog U1300 fitters vehicle with discs, changed at least every year. Defenders in the same place were changed nearly every month.

    Example 2 Land rover defender fleet in Angola, rainy season driving, Every month, Actual kilometres driven would be around 500. There were also half a dozen 109 Ambulances used as backup vehicles and in my three years in Angola we never changed the shoes once.

    Example 3 Toyota fleet in Afghanistan of around a hundred 'cruisers and 20 hiluxes was 400 sets of pads and 20 sets of shoes for the last year.

    Example 4 My C304. I've put 11,000 Km's on it as my daily driver and the shoes are about the same as I picked it up in Dover with 3,000Km's on the clock.

    Something is really wrong if the shoes wore out in a day.

    I wouldn't for a minute suggest drums are better than discs for a competition style 4x4 vehicle but to change from drums to discs on a 4x4 because of wear is potentially quite misleading to novices who might be reading this. Lets stick to the facts.

  2. I spoke to VOSA at length about my stage one with no relevant original parts at all left on it. They could test it no problem but they were unable to tell me anything about the registration number as that was for the DVLA to decide. I was concerned partly about sorning a vehicle every year that had morphed into something else. By getting issued a new registration number then what happens to the old one as there's no vehicle getting scrapped and no place on the new V5's to scrap it anyway. VOSA also said in their experience it would 'probably' keep it's original number.

    This was all at a visit to VOSA so when it ever comes to the bit I've no record of my previous communications with them and I'll start from scratch. My mistake but I'd suggest do all your communication by e-mail and have a record then.

    I'd be confident you're not going to make anything unfit for purpose but as it's for a Volvo you might actually approach them and get something in writing directly. Recently a German lad got a letter from Volvo to satisfy the German TUV that his 4.2 Toyota conversion was safe.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmmJkgRLqvQ&feature=player_embedded

  3. I think everybody is taking it all rather personally. I'd say the bloke was having a bad day made worse by a kinda silly (no offence) question and he let rip in a kinda funny way in an e-mail. You'll be laughing about it next week in the cold light of day. Remember there's a human at the other end too.

  4. C30x don't have a centre diff, they are rear wheel drive and a conventional dog clutch arrangement operated by a vacuum. The Vacuum is controlled by a solenoid. 4x4 (6x6) selection is by a push button switch on the dash. Heavy braking also activates it by the same means. They require a vacuum to disengage the drive to the front axle and an electrical signal so a failure in either will result in the front axle engaging. Switching off the ignition for example will engage the front axle.

  5. Anyone seen the pics of the land rover and Porsche? That shows how bad land rover are

    Nope, please do tell!!!

    I had some nasty experiences with our Land Rover fleet in Angola. As Bill says, they handle head on or rear on collisions with light vehicles quite well but anything else and they are a disaster. I used to punch a Ballpoint pen through the roof of a crashed Defender when I did the ex-pat driver training and explain a Defender was actually a soft top that just used a metal skin and defended it by explaining it kept the weight lower and less likely to roll over.

    A front wheel impact would push the radius arm through the out rigger with surprising ease. Rear wheel impacts bend the trailing arm and both would break the transfer box where it bolts onto the gearbox.

    On one occasion, one of our only two Defenders at the time in Columbia was put out of action when a motorbike hit the front wheel and bent the trackrod. The Motorbike cost less to fix than the Land Rover.

    From the fleet perspective though, even badly damaged Defenders were still easy to put back on the road. I've had to write off every Land Cruiser in my last fleet that was in a bad accident because the skills just aren't there in developing countries to repair the bodies when they get a proper crease in them. That said though, they take a much bigger knock to put them out of service and are a lot safer for the occupants.

  6. Hitting the brakes hard only activates the front drive selector, not the difflocks. It stops the back wheels locking up due to the weight transfer due to the high c of g in the Volvos. Also very handy if you run a 6x6 as a chassis cab.

    In all fairness, a Land Rover putting the same pressure to the wheel cylinders as a Volvo would lock the wheels very easily in any circumstance. Worst case I heard of was someone used Land Rover wheel cylinders in his Mog axles and wondered why it wouldn't stop.

  7. Out of curiosity does anybody have any brake test information for a properly set up drum brake compared to a disc brake conversion?

    Or even something like the 109V8 against the early 110 V8 for example?
    Discs have pro's but also cons. In really abrasive environments like opencast coal a drum brake will last literally ten times the time a disc will.

    A drum brake like that fitted to the Volvo axle as standard will resist heat a lot longer compared to that tiny disc in the Polish conversion. Heat build up is not a myth. I'm sure that brake could be put together with 4 pot callipers and made to work nicely for a while but it's tiny and all the heat soak will be into your portal housing and bearings which make enough heat as it is.

    If you look at the brakes fitted to small commercial vehicles with a 3.5 ton GVW you will also see they are significantly more substantial than the conversions posted thus far. The C304 or 306 have a 4.5 ton GVW and the drums work fine on them. I'd have thought on a Land Rover that's less than half the weight of that would experience little problems?

    Has anybody looked at the master cylinder and boosters on a Volvo? How do they compare to a Land Rover?

  8. The facts are that they have shattered with very little use, when similar failure of genuine balls are virtually unheard of. I believe you have engineering back ground. Can you not tell by Mr Noiseys photos that these are poor quality castings, possibly from grey iron ? No one else on this forum with any engineering qualification seems to be willing to offer an opinion.

    True, I think any of us with relevant qualifications and / or experience would agree it's some form of ductile iron.

    Point being... Unless you find someone with a metallurgical analysis shop that wants to do a bunch of work for free, this would be some serious coin to learn anything useful.

    With all due respect, I disagree with this completely.

    I believe that the difference in material between the broken part and a genuine part would be obvious and easy to determine in a home workshop environment. The results of this would justify any ongoing process. The Charpy test as I suggested previously is simple to set up but even hitting two test pieces between the open jaws of a vice would probably be all the testing that's needed. A small cut or weld across the test piece would really show up any form of ductile Iron.

  9. As said above, it should bleed itself, if not then take the cap off the expansion tank when it's cold and have someone run the engine at a fast idle as you top it up.

    A stuck thermostat would be a likely candidate if it's running OK, stick it in a pot of water and bring it to the boil. It should be opening by 80C and fully open before boiling

  10. Reading through this again this morning, I just wonder why, when in other industries we have perfectly good safety and quality standards, (thinking BS kitemark, Euro Norms, ISO9001 etc.) none of them seem to apply here. Surely the industry is big enough.... how does it fall through the net of regulation?? I'd buy parts that had won a kitemark, or NF or TUV come to that.

    My understanding is as below. That said, the price of genuine parts are ridiculous when viewed from the standpoint that the vehicle manufacturer gets a better price from the supplier for genuine than we do for blue box equivalent. The difference between the tooling and materials in the manufacturing costs for a bad part compared to a genuine one would be dwarfed by the distribution costs. this partly but not fully explains why a new vehicle might cost £25k but if you bought the genuine component parts to build one it would probably be closer to £500k. Genuine parts are way overpriced to the punter in the street.

    legal getout clause where 'part number used for reference purposes only'? I understand it means they can sell any old carp they like because even if it looks like a swivel ball and smells like a swivel ball and was found using an OEM part number it is in fact a large paper weight that only resembles in all but function a swivel ball.
  11. Ah, could be a can of worms!! I'd say check the basics first, is there pressure in the fuel rail? Are you getting a spark at the appropriate moment? You just changed the head gaskets so obviously have a good idea what you're doing but sometimes a fresh pair of eyes or ears can just pick something staring you in the face. Keep us posted how you go.

  12. Is there not some kind of legal getout clause where 'part number used for reference purposes only'? I understand it means they can sell any old carp they like because even if it looks like a swivel ball and smells like a swivel ball and was found using an OEM part number it is in fact a large paper weight that only resembles in all but function a swivel ball.

  13. On Land Rovers unfortunate enough to hit an AT mine with a front wheel It's the swivel housing that breaks at the studs for the king pins (in common with most driven front axle strikes) suggesting to me that the teflon coated balls are the 'new' weak point and therefore are inferior to the originals. I don't think I've ever seen a bent or broken series chrome ball but a few bent axles. The coiler swivels are smaller and weaker but you still didn't ever hear about them breaking until the advent of blue box replacements in recent times.

  14. If you can find one an Australian Leyland P76 V8 with SD1 heads makes a not bad light period substitute for a Rover V8. I got a 16 point something quarter mile in my Austin Gipsy with one in it. It didn't have much body on it at the time as I was building it up but it's a proven reliable engine without any of the bother of the overbored rover engines. It was also used in a Leyland Terrier light truck and I'm told it used to be common in New Zealand to bore them out to 5 litres and use them in some class of boat racing.
    I'm a huge fan of the Rover V8 but don't own one anymore. I replaced a fresh 4 litre one in my stage one with a really bad V8 diesel which still out performs the Rover in every single way possible, especially low down torque. The red line at 4,000 for the diesel isn't far off what anyone would push a standard Rover V8 to anyway.
    I helped a mate put a Lexus V8 in a Range rover chassis with Toyota diffs in New Zealand about ten years ago. He ran it back then with a 'LINK' ecu and that thing opened my eyes up. We only seem to be catching up in the UK now. The Rover V8 is definitely a great engine and will be remembered fondly. Is it a 'good' engine? MMmmmmmmm, nah.

  15. Edit. Just in case Jaime reads this. Make a spring steel steering trackrod for it though.

    :hysterical: You're right though!!

    Just back from a month playing with old Russian stuff good to catch up with everything.

    I'd say the 110 makes a lot of sense. I think series landies should be left unmolested now or left to rust away in peace. The 110 is just so much more capable, more so than say a 90 over an 88".

    To be fair, an early V8 110 would be better built from better materials than a newer one.

  16. I wonder if there is a way to construct the drag link in such a way that the arc it moves in is completely negated? :)

    You could maybe stick on a Series steering box or bell crank linkage in line with the one link pivot with the drag link operating an idler (steering relay) mounted on the axle to operate the track rods.

    By having extra ball joints and links it would be a more realistic driving experience for something with a Land Rover badge.

    You could add more bell cranks and ball joints to get round things like sumps and front prop shafts as required.

    How much of a problem is bump steer any way? It ought to be a huge problem on leaf sprung Land Rovers but isn't. My leaf front end has more travel than my 90 and it doesn't show up at all, even landing jumps to cite but one example. I think it's a bigger problem with short or badly executed panhard rods throwing the axle to the side relative to the vehicle rather than the amount the drag link has to move with the axle cycling up and down vertically with other forms of lateral location. I also think having a longer pitman arm would help if there was a little bit of bump steer. I did wonder if this was why Santana made all their steering links longer. The gyro effect of heavy off road wheels must also help to resist bump steer too?

    Came across this on my travels, some crazy thinking going on, scroll down to the line drawings, seems pretty original to me...

    http://g503.com/foru...p?f=99&t=147046

    : and he claims that the offset One Links work a treat in handling and to cancel torque roll

    That Mut is amazing, I've got those line drawings in my hard drive pretty much from when he first posted them. When I mentioned in my stage one thread about a transverse leaf spring that was exactly what I had in mind. I'm kind of off it now as I think a Panhard with a mechanically assisted steering is the way forward for simplicity and durability and when you have that much you might as well have coils or air or whatever. Great minds think alike, his solution to torque roll was really quite inspired.

  17. Is there some way you could have wildfing tilted to one side, maybe tethered from the top of the cage on a side slope and jag the clutch a couple of times to see how the effects of moving the offset relate to a real life situation? I'm really interested in what you're doing as I'm completely undecided on what I'm going to do to the front on my old stage one. One day it's a one link and Panhard, the next it's a three link with the A frame at the bottom guarding the prop from rocks and stumps and if it rains I think a four link with a Panhard would be the way. One of my considerations is getting the right roll centre to stop 52" tyres invading the engine bay too much and have enough room to steer. I was nearly thinking of going back to 40" tyres before I realised that would be just not in the spirit of things.

    We digress, overdrives, that Spanish thing is really well thought out, shifts like a powershift without losing torque and was designed as a bolt in conversion. Would also have made a great underdrive if the gearbox could handle it. I wonder how the planetaries would get on bump starting an old high compression N/A diesel?

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