Swivel housing advice

[SteveG]

In rebuilding my Range Rover classic, I need some advice on the swivel housings. Here’s the situation...

1. Converting from LHD to RHD, so I need to change out swivel housings.

2. The current front axle is 10 spline imperial one, with the swivel housing with a mix of imperial and metric, for example steering stop bolt is M12, stub axle bolts are M10 etc. 

3. The RHD donor RR is a 91 4 door with ABS, 10 spline too. 

The plan was to use the donor swivel housings, however, when I took off the first one, and after blasting & painting , I noticed that two of the stub axle holes have been previously fubarred and helicoiled...

(lower housing, helicoils at 11 & 3 o’clock)

So I decided to cut my losses and source two non-abs swivel housings from LRSeries. 

Now as it has come time to rebuild the front axle, I’ve noticed that both have stub axle fixings that are smaller than M10. I need to check what they are, but I assume they are 3/8. So obviously there are two types of non-abs swivel housings, those with metric stub axle fixings and those with imperial. I wasn’t happy using these ones as the stub axle holes will be larger than the fixing bolts. 

So what does everyone advise? Source non-abs housings with m10 stub axle fittings, use the abs ones after re-doing the helicoils properly? Source some early type stub axles (if they’re available?)?

some help would be appreciated. 

Cheers, Steve 

[Mo Murphy]

Steve, I'd be quite happy using the helicoiled housings. Providing they've been put in square, they'll be as good as the old threads. 

Mo

[SteveG]

12 hours ago, Mo Murphy said:

Steve, I'd be quite happy using the helicoiled housings. Providing they've been put in square, they'll be as good as the old threads. 

Mo

Thanks Mo, I’ll have to redo the helicoils as both were spinning, when I tested them at the right torque setting. 

[Simon119]

Are the holes in the two new ones small enough to allow you to drill out and tap to m10??

[GBMUD]

A heli-coil is often better than an original tapped hole.

Chris

 

[landroversforever]

On 05/10/2017 at 6:23 PM, SteveG said:

Thanks Mo, I’ll have to redo the helicoils as both were spinning, when I tested them at the right torque setting. 

Guessing someone has left the tang on it?

A properly done helicoil is easily as good as if not better than the original threads. 

[Lewis]

I wouldn’t worry about properly inserted helicoils, but you could always use a timesert if you want absolute certainty. They are the daddy of thread repair

[Maverik]

On ‎2017‎-‎10‎-‎07 at 11:15 PM, Lewis said:

I wouldn’t worry about properly inserted helicoils, but you could always use a timesert if you want absolute certainty. They are the daddy of thread repair

Timesert... interesting stuff, never seen these before...

 

http://www.timesert.com/

[SteveG]

On 10/5/2017 at 6:23 PM, SteveG said:

Thanks Mo, I’ll have to redo the helicoils as both were spinning, when I tested them at the right torque setting. 

 

On 10/7/2017 at 12:10 PM, GBMUD said:

A heli-coil is often better than an original tapped hole.

Chris

 

 

On 10/7/2017 at 9:33 PM, landroversforever said:

Guessing someone has left the tang on it?

A properly done helicoil is easily as good as if not better than the original threads. 

 

On 10/7/2017 at 11:15 PM, Lewis said:

I wouldn’t worry about properly inserted helicoils, but you could always use a timesert if you want absolute certainty. They are the daddy of thread repair

Thanks all of you for answers. Sorry for late reply, I was simply trying to ignore your advice, as this meant taking off the other swivel off the donor rust bucket. 

After snapping off the Torx impact bit in the lower swivel pin, I then moved to the swivel ball bolts. I ended up cutting off two bolts, as the rust had perished enough of the 12 point bolts for the 14mm spanner to just spin with nothing to grip on.

Once off, I then tried cutting the heads, and using an impact driver to try and get them out. Two more impact bits later...

I gave up, cutting off the swivel damper and bolt heads, and then removed the bolts with a stud extractor. 

So, eventually I could start to blast off the swivel housing ready for painting...

 

So thanks everyone for the advice, I’ll be using the ABS swivels. 

Cheers, Steve