Unimog Axles

[reads90]

there is alway the Scrapiron option Jules, they just put the axles on that nice Orange defender.........

looks cool (maybe not orange thou )

blah never , won't see jules buying anything from scrap iron

[dollythelw]

interesting points Andy, I can try and fill in the grey areas for ya

If you look at what what people are using to keep their LR axles in one piece then cost of Portel Tek's is a relative bargain.

Yep - ultimately by its nature a portal will always be stronger than a non-portal axle, a competition portal is off the chart when compared to parts available here

Looking at Portel Teks gallery, their drop box's look very compact and they also mount up to a flange(at least on the rear anyhow), now what if they did a kit that just bolted to standard LR axle? Maybe a flange conversion for the front axle to bolt straight on, standard LR brake components would be nice too .

So no fabricating mounts etc, mainly a bolt on exercise. How many would see that as just the next progression?

Two probs here;

The UK isnt a big enough market to warrant the casting costs - unfortunate economics

Landrover axle casings are too small to take a serious kicking

You can upgrade a standard Volvo axle to a Generation 3 portal end though

If you order a portal tek axle it comes ready to bolt on

I don't know what the drop gear ratio is on these axles

How low would you like? from high nines to high fives, you spec what you want and it gets built to order

Between £2000 and £3000?

Theres a Gaz "semi" portal thats available for those pennies

The very trick space frame buggy that was at Billing, pictures on here a few weeks ago, alledgedly costing £40,000 to build, on LR axles , Why?. With that kind of budget I'd have been Knocking on Portel Teks door.

lovely work, but I think Filthyboy's aiming it for the comp people in the UK and they still think portals are one step away from satan worship (all praise his magnificance)

[bill van snorkle]

If you look at what what people are using to keep their LR axles in one piece then cost of Portel Tek's is a relative bargain. Many challenge competitors have have over the years gradually updated there axles as the latest parts have come on to the market, eg shafts, ARB's, R&P's, better shafts , drive flanges, diff pegging and now CV's. However if you look at the price of doing that in one hit then, using Ashcroft's website your looking at £3300, and if you price in a crawler box instead of R&P's then your lookig at £4600!! I think many if not most would certainly look around at other options before lashing out their wonga to get a set of axles strong enough for 35" tyres, and as for 500+ and 44" tyres

Looking at Portel Teks gallery, their drop box's look very compact and they also mount up to a flange(at least on the rear anyhow), now what if they did a kit that just bolted to standard LR axle? Maybe a flange conversion for the front axle to bolt straight on, standard LR brake components would be nice too .

So no fabricating mounts etc, mainly a bolt on exercise. How many would see that as just the next progression?

I don't know what the drop gear ratio is on these axles but lets say there is some reduction, maybe enough to to run 35"/ to 40" with the standard 3.54 R&P. This not only saves the cost of a 4.1 or 4.75(better) but now gives you a lot less high/low overlap (needs a change in transfer ratio), maybe low enough to make crawler boxes unnecessary? And would it increases the relative strength of the LR shafts and diff? If it became a bolt on exercise, reusing your existing brakes, what would the price drop to? Between £2000 and £3000? Your likely to need new wheels similar to Volvo's to keep the width down aswell, how many people would be interested?

Opinions please. Andy.

Jez would be more qualified to know, but I think the PortalTech ratio's would be similar to Volvo's at around 2.2 :1. Multiply that by Rovers 3.54:1 and you get 7.78 final drive which may be a bit much for the comp blokes unless they are wearing very large boots. A 1.003 :1 transfercase(LT230) and 5 speed box improves the situation a bit but propshaft rpm will be high and could cause problems re vibration unless everything is set up properly. Fortunately with portals you do not need suspension lift to gain ground clearance, so with differentials off the correct offset it is easy to acheive a nice flat driveline to minimise vibration issues.

As I mentioned in a previous post the diff would still need to be turned upside down because ''two shaft'' portals reverse the direction of drive.

Cost considerations aside, I feel that Maxidrives portals have the potential to be the best available. The

''4 shaft'' design effectively almost doubles the strength of the geartrain in a similar way that a 4 pinion differential doubles the strength of the spider gears compared to a 2 pinion diff.

The modifications I feel the Maxidrive portals need are optional larger spindles and driveflanges, with bored out hubs to accommodate 1.5''diam bottom half shafts, and a change in ratio to around 2:1 instead of the current 1.3:1. This would halve the stress on the CV.joints

Bill.

[Daan]

Thats a fair point, I keep thinking about learning to weld, I just need some more of those roundtoit's. As I have a couple of mates who do small welding jobs for me it takes some of the impetus off learning myself, I know I'm just lazy Thing is my old man is a welder by trade and all the time I lived at home I never had a need or interest in learning to weld and now I live a 10 hr round trip away.

Workshops, ah well we did have one for a short while, if you can call a small farm shed with dirt floor and now power/lighting a workshop, but that didn't work out for various reasons. We've been looking for something else but round this way they are in short supply and when they do come up you have to have known the farmer for 20yrs and be going out with his cousin to get one, and even then the rent is steep, although we split that a few ways. We keep looking though

People do what they can and the skills/time/facilities that people have vary greatly.

I am not a welder by any means, but I my job does involve comunicating with them a lot. I have spent time with them and asked them to teach me what to do. Most people appreciate it if you ask them for advice and basically every welder/fabricator I have asked was willing to help. It also helped me understanding their jobs and designing things more suited to the fabricator.

Result is now, I have built my landy about 95% myself and proud of the way I have done it.

For the workshop, the majority of the build was done in a rented farmers shed, which I got by knocking on a door of the farmer and ask. Later, I was in a shared rental house of which I could use the garage. The garage could only just contain a SWB landy, and it needed taking the rear wheels of to get it in. Only recently I bought a house with a garage that I can use for myself only.

What i am saying with this all is, if you try hard enough, you can achieve it.

[dollythelw]

trust me - fitting the landy in is one thing but Daan is almost 200 feet tall, he must have been on his knees working in a normal sized garage - its a good point though, if you want it, you can find a way

[Mark90]

You're right if you want it enough you will find a way.

I have a garage at home that although I can't fit a LR in it does have all my tools, spares etc and so at least it's convenient even if I am working out on the drive in all weathers, and being at home it's easy to nip in to be fed and watered. Mind you some times it would be nice to have a warm, dry (or even just dry) workshop to work in. I do what I can with what I have, managed gearbox/engine conversion on my drive alright, ok it did take over 12 months but that did include decorating more than a few rooms in the house ro keep SWMBO happy

Now then back to portals.............

I am reading with interest as starting from scratch axle wise with almost standard LR axles I am wondering which way to jump (when funds allow). Although the thing that puts me off portals is I want to keep my 90 duel purpose such that with a change of springs/shocks and removing winches I could comp safari it, I suppose I could swap axles too

[dollythelw]

bang on Mark, if you've got that attitude nothing will stop you, a couple of the local lads comp on Disco 2 axles - they seem happy with them but best to speak to other compers for feedback,

if you want portals - save some pennies and get stocked up with grinding discs, ultimately its the cheapest, strongest solution leaving you with lockers, clearance and strength. Decide what you want and go from there.

Im with you on the building on the drive bit - endless bacon sarnies through the kitchen window when I built pig on the drive under a tarp, couldnt do without them

[pugwash]

having seen dan's machine, and having spoken to Jex i have aly made my decision.

For me not suing portals seems silly- money wise you are talking as much, if not more, to get a strong axle made from Landie parts (or their aftermarket equivalent), and you still end up with compromises on ultimate tyre size and ratios.

The vehicle i am building at the moment is going to run totally standard drivetrain (i'll just buy lots of spare parts) and smallish tryes until such time as i can splash out on a set of portals. This may take some time (6-9 months) to save up the money, and it will look totally silly, but i think it will be well worth it in the end just to jump straight into a hardworking axle, whcih with sensible tyre choices (and i mean 37" krawlers or something) will be nigh on indestructible!

Like you guys (mark and jez) i only have a drive way, but also don't have a lot of time, so end up paying for just about everything to be done on my vehicle (or get very good natured friends to work on it!)

Reckon portals are the way to go though!

[bill van snorkle]

by its nature a portal will always be stronger than a non-portal axle,

Theres a Gaz "semi" portal thats available for those pennies

Do you know much about GAZ 69 and UAZ 469's Jez ? Over in Vietnam I have seen quite a few of both types fitted Portal type axles of around 3'' drop and a very compact diff. No difflocking mechanism that I could see though. A friend of mine over there reckons he could get me a pair of axles for around US$400.

[dollythelw]

orginally designed for UAZ in the afgan war if memory serves, split type diff housing (a la 416), light, pretty tough (see a lot of them in TR2 class cars) and cheap as chips, you can buy them brand new, can be disc braked from the factory using the Gazelle setup (aka Transitski - russian white van mans weapon of choice)

I can dig some pics out for you if you like Bill?

[Daan]

orginally designed for UAZ in the afgan war if memory serves, split type diff housing (a la 416), light, pretty tough (see a lot of them in TR2 class cars) and cheap as chips, you can buy them brand new, can be disc braked from the factory using the Gazelle setup (aka Transitski - russian white van mans weapon of choice)

I can dig some pics out for you if you like Bill?

And me please...

[bill van snorkle]

orginally designed for UAZ in the afgan war if memory serves, split type diff housing (a la 416), light, pretty tough (see a lot of them in TR2 class cars) and cheap as chips, you can buy them brand new, can be disc braked from the factory using the Gazelle setup (aka Transitski - russian white van mans weapon of choice)

I can dig some pics out for you if you like Bill?

I would appreciate that Jez. When we do eventually pull up roots and move back to Vietnam I would like to buy a Gaz 69 (I just like the retro look of them) and build it up using lessons and techniques that I have applied to my LandRover, re gearing, suspension etc. I doubt that the Vietnamese authorities will permit me to bring my Landy with me, but I am just not going to be able to live without portals.

PS, I spotted a couple of portal axled Praga 6x6 trucks near Saigon last trip and a lot of 404 Mogs. Some had been patched up fitted with non portalled axles and leaf springs. Probably not too exciting for Europeans, but it was a big deal for me and drove my wife nuts when I would ask her to stop the motorbike every time I spotted anther ''Ugly'' truck.

Bill.

[dollythelw]

No worries - got them on "home" laptop so will post them up tonight for you both, I can ask about for a price but I think down you half of the planet Bill you'd be better shipping in from Vietnam?

I would love a Gaz69 - big retro wings, cabrio - old school cool. Occassionaly in Hungary to see them with SBC's under the bonnet, chromed, fat tyres and metallic'd up and they look the mutts nuts B)

[filthy boy]

lovely work, but I think Filthyboy's aiming it for the comp people in the UK and they still think portals are one step away from satan worship (all praise his magnificance)

Jez

Thanks for the lovely work comment. The buggy is on LR axles for a few reasons.

1) I had them

2) They are already seriously built up with JacMac hypoids, shafts, Ashcroft CVs etc and are surviving well

3) A major design principle with this was to keep it light, we only kept the basic casings with all brackets removed and the casings are not the problem. Anyway we can truss those.

4) It was also to be a LR based product.

Having said that I think LRs are pretty poor and there are many better axles.

If the buggy works I am already planning for Portal Tek axles and 4 wheel steer. With sweet hi-pinion diffs.

A major problem is that the loads and forces on the links will be very different with a portal axle. As I only want to do it if it is done properly that will need a fair bit of re-design for the links and mounts. So start with an easy known beam axle and go from there.

Damn that devil sitting on my shoulder. Get thee behind me Satan!

But I would really like to have 2 sets of axles, 1 straight and 1 portal. Although on Portal Teks can keep the weight down and overall dimensions so maybe no need??

FB

PS £40,000 cost quoted above,

[Astro_Al]

Anyone know the weight of these portal tek boxes?

I'm not sure I follow all these comments about swapping axles the whole time. I think, even if that was the original intention, you'd end up leaving the portals on the whole time...?

To much hassle for, well, what...?

Al.

[dollythelw]

with the new toys in the pipeline then weight for a pair of high spec Gen 3's will be down to sub 200kgs

if you want something fruity filthy let me know, High 9's will hammer your road speed but there other ways

Al, you cant buy just Gen 3 ends, you can however buy a Gen 3 upgrade kit for a C303 axle, you've then got the option of CV or UJ's easy and cheap to source brakes, pads, kingpin bushes etc

[SteveG]

The vehicle i am building at the moment is going to run totally standard drivetrain (i'll just buy lots of spare parts) and smallish tryes until such time as i can splash out on a set of portals. This may take some time (6-9 months) to save up the money, and it will look totally silly, but i think it will be well worth it in the end just to jump straight into a hardworking axle, whcih with sensible tyre choices (and i mean 37" krawlers or something) will be nigh on indestructible!

Sell that hairdresser's car you had at the weekend and you can have your portals now!

Steve

[jules]

Sorry I found out a 9am my 30m under hook tower crane which is due next week will be late bacause they don't have one in stock They could have told me this somtime over the last 8 weeks and not this morning.

Al is right you will never swap axels for events you need the right tool for the job from the start.

I will not go for them till I can afford them which meens £5-6k to do a propper job.

The Tomcat will not be costing me that so it will go in next years toy budget but thats only 4 months away

[Bull Bar Cowboy]

the shooting season starts soon

[as I stand in front of the closed freezer doors and say in a quiet unassuming manner] 'oh really, yes I suppose it does'

Pheasants are so damn stupid they deserve to be shot ......... how could you possibly miss

Rabbits are plentiful the moment .................. 17 the other evening……… some went to the farm cats but the majority went to the local kennels.

Getting back on topic ..................and Jez is 100% right…….. If your are going to enjoy this hobby to its fullest then you have to learn the skills ................ going to night school to learn to weld is OK ............ but you wont be proficient at it unless your practise, practise, practise, practise ... get the message……….. and when you are proficient you still have to weld on a very regular basis to stay proficient.

Fabbing, using machine tools, and ‘engineering understanding’ are the basic tools of success ....... yeah, you're gonna make a good few cock ups on the way ............. but that’s the learning process.

You don’t have to do it for a job to know about it ................ I come from a family of heavy Fab, Light Fab, and motor engineers ........ I've had this stuff around me for 50 years but I chose not to follow that profession (it doesn’t pay well enough) ............... but I suppose you know its in the blood when you can pick up a piece of steel and quote the EN number reasonably accurately !

Ian

[filthy boy]

with the new toys in the pipeline then weight for a pair of high spec Gen 3's will be down to sub 200kgs

if you want something fruity filthy let me know, High 9's will hammer your road speed but there other ways

Al, you cant buy just Gen 3 ends, you can however buy a Gen 3 upgrade kit for a C303 axle, you've then got the option of CV or UJ's easy and cheap to source brakes, pads, kingpin bushes etc

Jez

I am doing a bit of scheming at the moment to try and speed things up a bit with the buggy development and this might make the whole Portal Tek thing more imminent.

FB

[dollythelw]

no worries, ping me when you have a wishlist and I'll work it out with Rob and the crew

Ian - too true, just like Grinder Fu, Welder Fu takes practice and dedication but college will show the path to enlightenment for the beginer *cue Bruce Lee style face pulling*

[jules]

Getting back on topic ..................and Jez is 100% right…….. If your are going to enjoy this hobby to its fullest then you have to learn the skills ................ going to night school to learn to weld is OK ............ but you wont be proficient at it unless your practise, practise, practise, practise ... get the message……….. and when you are proficient you still have to weld on a very regular basis to stay proficient.

Fabbing, using machine tools, and ‘engineering understanding’ are the basic tools of success ....... yeah, you're gonna make a good few cock ups on the way ............. but that’s the learning process.

You don’t have to do it for a job to know about it ................ I come from a family of heavy Fab, Light Fab, and motor engineers ........ I've had this stuff around me for 50 years but I chose not to follow that profession (it doesn’t pay well enough) ............... but I suppose you know its in the blood when you can pick up a piece of steel and quote the EN number reasonably accurately !

Ian

MMM within reason

I leave my house a 6am and return at 8pm the walk the dogs etc 5/6 day a week doesn't leave much tools time but it pays well ish.

My mum was a radiograph and my dad was in small machine design, whole sale and haulage (of what he sold)

Metal is not really in my blood

I'm a civil eng.

night school is out as I need to work.

I've taken this year off racing as the cost of two cars competing is hard to swallow every year.

I enjoy my hobby to the max.

I was eleventh overall in the Goodyear British championships in 04 (and 26 last year due to driving a diesel)and my class title both years so I would say I was competitive and fairly committed to my hobby.

In a car that people were placing bets on not making one lap of the Rad nor forest stages

I can't help it if my budget is not as large as most and I am the youngest entry to the BORC 04/05 and that is completely self funded.

[pugwash]

Jules I'm with you on this.

i'm usually in work by 8:30 and don't finish much before 9:30 most days. That one day off i have a week has to include a lie-in, household chores, some time slobbing on the sofa, some time going to the gym (or other exercise) and time to sort the house out- mowing the lawn etc. It's great for everyone that does a 9-5 but i usually do twice the work they do in a week.

so like you i have to pay to get stuff done- in some ways i get really Mildly miffed when people say "why don't you make your own". Uh-Huh an where shall i find the 20 hours per week to do that?

Think you have done really well last couple of seasons- especially to run two cars- is your f/lander for sale in TOR or is that someone elses?

[SOA 93]

In a car that people were placing bets on not making one lap of the Radnor forest stages

I can't help it if my budget is not as large as most and I am the youngest entry to the BORC 04/05 and that is completely self funded.

I think we'd all like a huge budget, and we probably all know exactly where it would go.

Dreaming and drooling cost nothing and hey!! Its a rollover weekend you could be on the phone to Portel Tek first thing Monday.

I'd love a Tomcat.

Andy

[dollythelw]

ask Fridgefreezer what time the lab closes

theres always a trade off between time to build an the cost of doing it, the only way to have your cake and eat it is to be slightly nuts and live with no sleep - it hurts... a lot