Night Train

I do like the Does, they look very dinosaurish. Well, I have an early 10 spline Discovery front axle and I have started stripping it down outside on the driveway. It is bitterly cold so I am not spending anymore then an hour at a time on it. it is also too heavy to bring into a basement workshop so it will stay outside until it is in bits. It has a new teflon ball on the nearside. I have managed to dismantle and remove all the nearside components, I started here figuring it will be easier if it has already been striped more recently. The drive flange bolts were so tight that I managed to twist the head off one of the bolts. The rest came out eventually with a long breaker bar which was needed right up to the last couple of turns. This would have been so much easier to do on a vehicle, trying to hold the axle still and the hub from turning and swivelling while taking the drive flange bolts off was a real PITA just using my body weight and various contortions or arms and legs. I might as well tried mating with it, or words to that effect! Well the insides looked good, nice clean and shiny CV with no obvious signs of wear. Maybe that was new as well. There was a little wear on the drive shaft splines (32 of them?) but that won't matter for what I need it for. The swivel housing doesn't seem to have very much preload on it, it swivels too easily. Removing the ball from the axle tube wasn't too bad, all the bolts turned and came off without too much effort. Then I saw it was a bodge job. Why go to all the trouble of fitting a new teflon ball and CV joint and not putting a gasket on? The ball to axle joint was sealed with white bathroom sealant! I am begining to worry about the off side now. The chrome ball is more like the surface of the moon (or perhaps that should be Mars) with all the rust pitting. If a previous owner, allegedly not the chap I got the axle from, went to the trouble of changing the ball on one side then why not the other side? Maybe it wouldn't come apart? I hope it is no more difficult then the nearside, I will struggle to hold it still if it is. That will be for later when the freezing drizzle has stopped. Edit to add: I take it that a Series 4.7:1 diff will be a straight swap? Anyone have a short 10/32 spline half shaft to hand?

Early cars had a tiller. Like boat rudders you pushed it left to turn right and right to turn left. Now a return to that would be more interesting.

It was. See time stamp. I'm still feasting til the end of the week and then there is new year's eve to look forward to.

Nah, 'taint posh, just a non believer, well non conventional believer.

Is that where bhp stands for baby horse power? Broken horse power? Believable horse power? I'm thinking more like a small version of one of these:

Yes, I tried that first but my lathe is a little too small to be sturdy enough to do that well. Having got one spline to a depth of 0.5mm on some scrap the tool post became loose and needed re setting again. I didn't fancy wearing out whatever moved by continuing. I did use that method to scribe the lines for the splines though.

I have a 48v 3.3kW golf buggy motor and a Curtis 1214 36-48v controller. The motor was given to me free 'to further the cause' and allow me to learn more about electric vehicle processes and could get up to 10kW and 72v. The Curtis was both new and cheap, about 1/10 of the RRP of a new one. It began as a simple 'stick some wheels and a battery on it and see what happens' type of project but in the search for easy ways to 'stick wheels on it' I decided on a transfer box to use as a trans axle but the 1.2:1 ratio was a bit high. So I found a Land Rover Discovery axle. I could have stopped there but vapour builds don't and there is no reason for this one to stop there either, besides, I miss having a Land Rover to play with so I figured that having a transfer box allows me just cause to try and find a second axle, and some big tyres! I've checked the motor and it does 1750rpm at 12v and rpm and voltage as aproximately linear so I could have many 1000's rpm at 48v. It means I need more gear reduction to keep speeds around 15mph. I thought a small vehicle would allow a bit of low speed play to test voltage, current and usable output of a motor and also methods of controlling the controller, managing forwards and reverse electrically and to look into regen at some point. It would also be nice if the test bed was fun and I figured that I have trailers and felled trees to lug about a small electric tug would be useful. It could have been along the lines of an aircraft tug but we have snow and grass and mud and that equals fun! If I can blat about with a small tractor, two or four wheel drive, it has got to be more fun then something more akin to a disability scooter!

Thanks. Being a cabinet maker I found it was easier then fitting dovetails. I will have to make another now on a larger shaft.

Thanks for all that. It would seem that if I used a front axle I can remove around 390mm from the width based on one of the lengths Nige posted. That would give me around 1100mm - 1300mm ish overall width depending on tyres and wheel offset. OK, I can work with that. The project, if it works out viable, won't have sprung suspension, I am going to centre pivot the front axle, and will only be around 10kW max power but possibly a lot of torque by the time I've geared down to the axle. I wanted to keep to standard shaft lengths for ease but I am not adverse to cutting the shafts and shortening them some more. Being so low powered and low speed I would be happy with cutting and welding the shaft back together, machining the weld flat and then sleeving over the top. I will fabricate around the diff flare when shortening the axle case, that's not a problem just a bit fiddly. I've lengthened axle cases, Sailsbury and Rover, to use long shafts both sides before so it is sort of the same thing and would have been really useful if I have kept the left over parts and not thrown them out after moving house twice with them in 15 years! Sailsburys would have been a lot simpler to work with but more of a pain to change diff ratios. With a Rover axle I can always change the diff to a better, lower ratio then comes with whatever axle I can scrounge. The idea is a little 4x4 tractor about the size of a Quad with a wheel base of about 48" but with four wheel steering and 48v electric drive. I figured that if I put a steering rack diagonally across the chassis it would 'push pull' steering arms on diagonally opposite hubs to get opposing steering and, if I get the right shaped rack, put a flat steering wheel in about the right place. Having acquired one axle so far I will start it as a 4x2 with little steerable wheels at the front like a compact tractor but if a second axle appears then I will add the front drive. I also need to find a set of calipers for the disc brakes and a set of wheels with suitable tyres but they will depend on offset and cost. I will have to go and pick up the axle at some point soon so I have something to cut up over Christmas.

Thanks. That makes a difference of 256mm narrower on a rear axle. The front axle will be a greater difference as the diff has more off set. I am hoping to get something like 550-600mm between spring seats around 1000mm overall width over the tyres but I'm not sure I can get it that narrow without cutting half shafts.

Thanks, I was surprised that it worked so easily. I may heat treat it but after I have dealt with the other end of the shaft which is an unknown at the moment. However, it proves that I can make the splines sufficiently well to use. I have a chain sprocket that I might use that is a larger bore then the shaft I've made so I may make another, bigger, shaft. The first shaft is just mild steel but I have a high tensile bolt that will make a larger shaft for the sprocket and I will see how that goes. For what I have in mind (see my other thread in tools and fab) I could do with the extra reduction from the chain drive as opposed to direct drive. Just thought, this thread could really do with being in Tools and Fabrication now.

I am assessing a little project. Little being the operative word. I thinking of a small electric drive 4x4 tractor using front and rear Land Rover steering axles. The plan is to cut and shut a couple of axles so that the diff is central and short half shafts are used both sides of the diff. Does any one know what the difference in drive shaft lengths are so I can work out how wide the axle would end up to check if it is viable? Not sure if I am going to use Series or later axles, though I do have an option on a Discovery axle, less brake calipers and unknown diff ratio, as a starting point. Both axles would need to be the same I think but maybe not so long as diff ratios match. Thanks.

I still can't find a shaft of that size and spline off the shelf. That size tends to be 6 spline only. So I made one today. I turned a shaft to give the spline length, the major diameter and the minor diameter. I then scribbed the spline tips using the 60 tooth wheel on the lathe as an index. I used an angle grinder cutting disc to cut the splines. Then fettled with a file to fit. Job done.

How about waste pipe fittings?

LOL! I'll be grateful for the road report but I've not cut any logs yet, too cold and can't see it under the snow. It may just be the trimmings from my workshop I'm delivering in exchange for dinner and a snog under the mistletoe!

I've got to head over that way tomorrow to deliver some fire wood and electrical accessories tomorrow. I only have a front wheel drive car to do it with. Guess the trailer will stay at home for this trip.

Wishing you all a hearty winter solstice feasting for tomorrow.

Up here near Manchester I have about 2-3 inches of snow and it is coming down quite heavily at the moment. I was going to drive down to the Midlands to collect a Land Rover axle for my project but I might leave it for a clearer day unless someone wants to do a forum relay.

I remember an old 'revenge' trick was to put prawns or similarly stinky stuff into the external air vents of a car. It would stink and be a real pain to clean out. Another was to put fishing maggots in the vents.... Just thought I'd mention it in case the previous owner upset someone. There was a chap, when I was at college who bought a Porsche to impress the girls. One girl he picked up at a club vomitted into the dash vents as he showed off the handling. He had to sell the car as he couldn't get the smell out.

How about an inflatable roof rack? I made a low profile roof rack for my series a couple of decades ago. I found a friendly local car accessory shop and went through the roof rack kits to find long bars and short up rights with the right fittings to make the rack up. The guy just charged me for the cheapest whole kit and then returned the rest to the wholesaler as incomplete!

Thank you Zoltan. Now it has a name it may be easier to find one 'off the shelf'. Checking with those dimensions seem to correlate. I will check out that site.

The only problem I can see with mounting the steering box on the axle would be bump steer caused by the rotation of the axle when one wheel lifts and the other drops. That small rotational angle would cause the steering box to steer towards the raised wheel. The amount of 'steer' would depend on the size of the bump and the ratio of the steering box.

OK, I had a proper measure of it to get a good average reading over a number of splines to be sure. The major diameter is 19mm The minor diameter is 16.4mm The splines look like this:

The motor was originally for a golf buggy. I don't have it or know what make or type it should have been. I don't even know if it was ever fitted to one as the motor was given to me. The motor doesn't have a drive end plate as it fitted directly to a gearbox sharing the gear shaft bearing. The male splines would have been the gearbox input shaft. I am just looking for something else to fit that is easily available. I'll post some close up photos and the measurements later on tonight. Thanks.

This is the best photo I have at the moment, I will post a better one tomorrow evening with the dimensions. Thank you.