pat_pending

I take it it's for aligninging casings? It's a split dowel sleeve. You could try an agri' or plant dealers or a machine shop.

Indeed, the MTF (75/80) that Land Rover specify for the the R380 wasn't available when the first versions of the 77 came out. In the same way 0w20, 10w40 or 5w30 oils weren't available when engines were spec'd to run on 20w50, and it would be a bad idea use the modern oils in an older engine. The clearance's and tolerance's of the internals will have been made to use a particular specification of oil, so even if components look similar between the 77 and the 380 it doesn't follow they are made the same. Deviating from the manufacturers spec's is probably not a good idea, particularly with a newly rebuilt box under warranty. Ashcroft still spec ATF for the 77, I'm sure if they found an oil that worked better they'd say so. I stopped working in Land Rover dealers in the 90s (started in 79) so I've limited experience of rebuilding the R380 or their problems, I have however rebuilt probably a few hundred LT77s a lot of them while still under Land Rover warranty. I've seen some that were running gear oil, no idea of the spec' but clearly not ATF and in all cases the gear change was worse than with ATF. Some of those boxes were in a bad way when stripped, often with failure of the fibre pump gears (although this can still happen with ATF). I saw no evidence that anything was an Improvement over ATF.

You will... void the warranty, have a poor gear change at best and impossible when really cold at worst, risk damaging the fibre oil pump gears and wreck the whole box. LT77 was designed to run on ATF-Dexron 3. The drain plug on the side already has a magnet, or should have, change the oil every 12,000 and remove and clean the filter. The 77 is not a bad box when set up properly, imo most failures are because the box is shimmed too tightly.

Nope.

We had a Sealey kit that cost a few hundred quid, probably made in China but it worked well. When you look at a lot of the cheap Chinese "special tools" on ebay they look exactly like the sealey kits. So, either they come out of the same factory or they're close copies, if you're not going to use it much I'd take a punt the cheapy one. That said, if you bought the Sykes one you could use it and sell it on. So much stuff is made in China now, it's often difficult to tell if you're paying a high price for a better product or being ripped off and you could've bought the same thing for far less.

Drain everything, flush with clean water... Refill with the same A/F in everything. Job done. All the time I was working I never saw a problem caused by the wrong A/F, that's not to say it can't cause a problem just I've never seen it in 45 years in garages. I think the td5 is supposed to use OAT, seen plenty on regular glycol. The only thing I'd say is if you use basic glycol, change it, and I mean properly flush it, at least every three years.

Breather set up is normal for an early box along with the dipstick. Serial numbers are on the rear face of the transfer box, although I have it in my head there are numbers on the top of the box somewhere, I could be wrong though as it's at least 30 years since I worked on one.

I suppose I was lucky they never got hold of my parcel then. Probably because they'd been calling at the wrong address to collect it... Three times!

It appears it's down to local depots or drivers as APC seem to get mostly decent reviews nationally, however my two local depots get the worst reviews I've ever seen. My experience of them backs this up. How can any business do things so badly?

Is telling statement. Pull the charge light lead out of the alternator and ground it out with the ignition on, engine not running. The light should come on, if it does you have a fault in the alternator, if it's still not working it's a wiring fault or the bulbs just blown. And, as with anything electrical, first make sure you have a good earth, stick a jump lead between the battery neg' and the engine.

Sorry to revive this thread but... Can I just add "APC overnight" to the list of utterly useless, incompetent, halfwits that make up the shambles that is the courier business. Never use this bunch of idiots. There, I feel better now.

There's not much traffic in here unfortunately, but I'll give you some advice. Without plugging it into a code reader/diagnostic computer, anything anyone says is only going to be a guess. There's a multitude of reasons for that error message, at least get it scanned and get a fault code.

I spent 45 years as a mechanic working on cars, trucks and plant. I was working at a main dealer until last year but with the ever increasing use of electronics I'd had enough and retired! Not because I didn't understand, quite the opposite. I was level 4 EV qualified and a diagnostic specialist, but the job had become so far removed from why I used to enjoy spannering that I'd come to hate it. I love the simplicity and the "agricultural" nature of older Land Rovers, the fact you can modify, adapt and fabricate with some scrap and the bits and pieces that we all have kicking about. That's what those mad old vehicles being built in the 80s were all about. I love Land Rovers for many of the reasons others hate them, there's nothing wrong with making things a bit better, but when I read about people trying to overly modernise them, especially with electronics, it makes me wonder why they bought a Land Rover in the first place.

I think the golden age of building/modding road going vehicles is gone, maybe not the off roaders though. I remember an awful lot of crazy stuff being knocked up in lock up's, sheds, and at the roadside, usually with minimal tools. A mate built a Range Rover/series hybrid (when they were the in thing) in two abandoned council lock up's, with power from a nearby lamp post, another built a chopper in the spare bedroom of a ground floor flat. Alas, youth and enthusiasm gone and too many regulations today. I've just remembered, one of our group had a 109 with a six pot Jag' engine in it that was positively dangerous!

That's it, brings back memories of the 80s, AWDC, Slab common, Bovi' heavy vehicle trials. Wasn't there a Moggy minor on a series chassis and running gear as well? Not sure who built it. I suppose we're all knocking on a bit now 😩.