1989 Range Rover

[A4L7E3X]

This won't be a build thread as such, but to get the ball rolling in the Land Rover section I thought I might give the quick version of my Rangies journey since I bought it in July 2017.

Quick background:
I'm a qualified Diesel Mechanic, though working a desk now, so I need some projects to keep my hands busy. I decided I wanted to get into wheeling a while back so a project 4x4 was on the cards. In Australia Nissan Patrols, Toyota Land Cruisers and basically any twin cab 4x4 ute is all you ever see out in the bush. I wanted something a bit different, and my dad had been a bit of a Landy fan in the past. Dad overhead someone talking about an old Rangie by chance and got the guys number for me. A couple of weeks later I came home $500 poorer with this:

For $500 I was willing to cop the ugliest bullbar ever conceived and the fact that it was running on 6 and a half cylinders.
It was basically stock, aside from a dual fuel (LPG) conversion and a shitty clamp on sway bar on the rear and had just over 400,000 km on the clock.

First up was replacing the bullbar and wheels. The bar is an old ARB bar that someone had butchered a winch frame into.

The LPG system was also removed as the tank took up too much interior space. The Rangie is only used for camping and playing in the bush so cargo space and weight saving took priority over running cost. The only thing that would have been nice had I kept the LPG would have been the extra range it provided.
I also sourced an ARB rear bar shortly after. (This is all a bit out of order BTW)

The original 3.9 V8 had flattened the cam. I was going to rebuild it but then heard of a 1998 Discovery being wrecked nearby. I got the opportunity to drive the Disco and it ran quite well so i decided to buy the 3.9 from that rather than rebuild the existing 3.9. Ultimately this was the wrong call. I was just going to replace the rear main seal and swap it in, but on removing the sump I decided to check the bottom end bearings, revealing a lot of wear, so the decision was made to tear it down and go through it.
Overall it just got a cheap freshen up, with new bottom end bearings, piston rings and a new cam and lifters.

My biggest regret to date is not ponying up for a set of high compression pistons...

I got the Rangie roadworthy and registered and started with some local trips with a mate in his Rodeo.

I quickly found that ruts created by GQ Patrols on 35" tyres are too deep for a Rangie on 30s!

That was pretty much the first year I owned it (remember it's just a weekend hobby!) taking us up to mid 2018. More to come!

 

[A4L7E3X]

Nawh my Rangie can’t even get a single like or reply? 😢
Whatever, continuing on…
The little all terrains were the immediately obvious limiting factor, so when a very lightly used set of 32x11.5 Kenda Klevers came up locally I jumped on them. I also sourced a little baby set of flares to keep it legal. The tyres rubbed these flares on full articulation, but that was corrected later.

The plan with the Rangie all along was to keep my hands busy, so whenever I find a cheap upgrade I try to jump on it. Most of the parts on this car came from Facebook. I found used Detroit locker already installed in a third member a few hours away so that went in (no pics sorry).
It got wheeled a bit with the muddies and the Detroit and it worked pretty well, but the Borg Warner viscous transfer case started jumping out of low range when getting on and off the throttle, such as when trying to push its way through a swamp…

That got old fast. Somewhere around here Dad bought an early 80s 2 door Rangie and a crashed Discovery for parts. I took the LT230 transfer case from the Disco and swapped out the Borg Warner. Now I had a locked rear diff and a locking centre diff. It also got a snorkel around here.

A Warn XD9000 popped up locally on Facebook so I decided to fill the hole in my bull bar. The winch came off a government Forestry ute and I honestly don’t think it had ever been used. It took a little bit of work to get it to fit but we got there. It’s actually installed ‘upside down’ from its normal orientation, but it was just a matter of moving the water drain and wiring the solenoids backwards.

I also found an ARB diff lock a few hours away so I jumped on that for the front axle. The crown wheel it was installed on was junk but the advantage of having Identical third members is that I could install the ARB diff in the third member that came out of the rear axle. At the same time I upgraded the CVs from the little baby 32 spline versions to the earlier, beefier 23 spline CVs.
Unfortunately I’m still getting hung up in deep ruts…

But I don’t want to go any bigger than 32” tyres with the factory gearing… Maybe 33”s…
I got sick of the tyres rubbing so some bigger flares were on the cards, I probably have room for 33"s now.

 

[A4L7E3X]

Still no love? Whatever, I don’t need your approval anyway…😭😭😭
Last post to bring things up to present day, I might keep this updated as more changes are made or if I get some good wheeling pics.
I went on a desert camping trip with a couple of buddies in September 2019 and with three guys worth of gear in the car plus some fuel things were getting a little cramped. But we did find some Tanks!

That's the Rangies plastic sill tied to the bullbar... It fell off. The sills were replaced with some shortened GU Patrol aluminium steps.

I’m not a fan of roof racks so the easiest way to gain some storage space was to move the spare tyre to the rear bumper. I hunted around for a bit looking for a decent method to mount the spare on a swing away and eventually found an ARB step bumper (the same as the one I already had) with a modified Kaymar tyre swing mounted to it. Unfortunately the bumper had been bounced around with a 35” tyre hanging off the back causing it to crack, and then left out in the elements in a coastal town causing it to rust, but the tyre swing was in good condition.
I got the tyre swing mounted in my bumper using the cracked old one as a guide to where it needed to be reinforced, mainly an extra bar running from the corner of the bumper back to the frame to stop it from twisting.
Aussies will know this, but the Kaymar tyre swings have a vertical tube for mounting accessories, so I made up a rack to mount two 10 litre plastic Jerry cans. 20 L cans will also fit, but I’m not super keen on having that much weight mounted that high. It would be fine for running down the highway, but not off road. I also mounted my shovel and axe to the back of the tyre.

Another thing worth mentioning is that my Dad gave up on the 2 door Rangie and sold it on, using the proceeds to buy a 300 Tdi Discovery. We have had them out together a couple of times now, his is fairly stock for the moment.

So that’s the quick version of the Rangies story so far. I’m still keen to keep modifying and playing with it, but unfortunately it’s at the point where most of cheap, fun stuff has been done, and it actually works really well! It’s biggest let down is the fuel range (a little over 300 Km to a tank), I have a few ideas on improving that.

There is a bunch of other smaller things that I have done which are not shown here. If anyone wants to know more just ask! Since I only have three pics in this post so far I will show a crappy photo of my el-cheapo progressive bump stops:

Thank you junkyard Jackeroo!

I also recently had this start to happen:

So the rear suspension got a bit of an overhaul with Kingpin spring retainers and some GU patrol shock absorbers, which are much longer than the Landy shocks. In the picture above you can see that I did have some lowered upper shock mounts on the rear, I have gone back to the standard upper mounts with the Patrol shocks. I have about 10 mm more droop than the old set up and the Jackeroo bump stop will have to fully collapse both voids before the shocker bottoms out.

Bear in mind that the purpose of this thing was to keep my hands busy, which it has achieved fantastically, but it is a diminishing returns sort of deal. This has had me on the lookout for an early Series 2a… But I don’t know that I will get that plan approved…

 

[Gatorgrizz27]

Nice build so far. There’s not much traffic in here yet due to this place being so new, hopefully it will pick up some. Did you have to modify the driveshafts when you swapped to the LT230? You may be aware, but if you go to larger tires the Defender T-cases came with a 1.4:1 high range instead of the 1.2:1 in the D1’s. Doesn’t help any in low range, but should for pavement power.

I also agree that the fuel range can be problematic. I’ve been working on a solution for my LR3, but it may end up just being a pair of Jerry cans in a custom rack. There is an auxiliary gas tank available for them but it’s hard to find in the states and requires relocating the spare tire. I hat swing out tire carriers on a DD, my dad had one on a Jeep and it’s a chore to unlatch the carrier, swing it out, open the top tailgate, open the bottom tailgate, close both tailgate, pull the locking pin, close the carrier, and re-latch it.

 

[Poriggity]

This is quite the build. I love the old range rivers, bit just can't get past the horrible lack of reliability.. keep it up!

 

[A4L7E3X]

Nice build so far. There’s not much traffic in here yet due to this place being so new, hopefully it will pick up some. Did you have to modify the driveshafts when you swapped to the LT230? You may be aware, but if you go to larger tires the Defender T-cases came with a 1.4:1 high range instead of the 1.2:1 in the D1’s. Doesn’t help any in low range, but should for pavement power.

I also agree that the fuel range can be problematic. I’ve been working on a solution for my LR3, but it may end up just being a pair of Jerry cans in a custom rack. There is an auxiliary gas tank available for them but it’s hard to find in the states and requires relocating the spare tire. I hat swing out tire carriers on a DD, my dad had one on a Jeep and it’s a chore to unlatch the carrier, swing it out, open the top tailgate, open the bottom tailgate, close both tailgate, pull the locking pin, close the carrier, and re-latch it.

Cheers for the reply!
The LT230 was a straight swap from the Borg Warner, same driveshafts went straight in, although I do run a 15mm spacer on the front shaft as it was pulling dust boot off at full droop, but thats more to do with longer shocks. I would love to get a 1.4 (Defender) transfer case, but they are harder to come by and most guys know that they are more valuable than the 1.2 ratio cases.

For the fuel range I have an auxiliary tank that fits in the back corner below the 1/4 panel, these were fairly popular here when doing an LPG dual fuel conversion, you would put the LPG tanks in place of the factory tank and use the little auxiliary tank for petrol. But i haven't installed it yet as they are designed to fit up to the factory filler, so if I put that in I cant fill my main tank! I have an idea to use that location for the auxiliary tank and put the main tank filler on the other side of the car, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.
All in all 300 km range is enough that I don't usually have to worry that I wont make it to the next fuel station, but it annoys other people when I have to fill up every day or two, sometimes twice a day, and they can go a whole week on one tank...

 

[A4L7E3X]

This is quite the build. I love the old range rivers, bit just can't get past the horrible lack of reliability.. keep it up!

It actually hasn't let me down (yet), but I have done a lot of preventative maintenance.
A highlight day for me was when I went out with a Toyota 4 Runner and a Holden (Isuzu) Colorado, first hill of the day the Rangie crawled right up, the Colorado broke a hub half way up and got dragged to the top by the Rangie, and the Toyota didn't even get a shot as it wouldn't go into low range!
Not that I enjoyed that the other guys had to turn around and go home, but it goes to show that other rigs have trouble too!

 

[KungFooMASTA]

It actually hasn't let me down (yet), but I have done a lot of preventative maintenance.
A highlight day for me was when I went out with a Toyota 4 Runner and a Holden (Isuzu) Colorado, first hill of the day the Rangie crawled right up, the Colorado broke a hub half way up and got dragged to the top by the Rangie, and the Toyota didn't even get a shot as it wouldn't go into low range!
Not that I enjoyed that the other guys had to turn around and go home, but it goes to show that other rigs have trouble too!

Sometimes the most unreliable vehicle in the world turns out to be the most reliable vehicle in the world. I pulled a lot more broken vehicles out of the trail with my Rover than the other way around.

 

[A4L7E3X]

Sometimes the most unreliable vehicle in the world turns out to be the most reliable vehicle in the world. I pulled a lot more broken vehicles out of the trail with my Rover than the other way around.

You know it never occurred to me until now that mine is the same colour as Mr Clarksons "most reliable vehicle in the world".

 

[PTSchram]

The driveshafts are indeed different length. A Disco front driveshaft won't require the spacer

the clamp-on sway bars were likely stock as Land Rover provides them as an add-on

what I'm impressed by is seeing a clean non-rusted to red dust '89!

im also impressed by what seems a blistering fast rate of build! I can only dream of such a fast build, but alas, others' trucks get priority around here, something about the mortgage

 

[PTSchram]

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You know it never occurred to me until now that mine is the same colour as Mr Clarksons "most reliable vehicle in the world".

Rioja red?

 

[PTSchram]

Numbskull???
Fixedit! 🤪

 

[A4L7E3X]

The driveshafts are indeed different length. A Disco front driveshaft won't require the spacer

the clamp-on sway bars were likely stock as Land Rover provides them as an add-on

what I'm impressed by is seeing a clean non-rusted to red dust '89!

im also impressed by what seems a blistering fast rate of build! I can only dream of such a fast build, but alas, others' trucks get priority around here, something about the mortgage

Cheers for the comments, I keep trying to keep some traffic going in here!

I did compare the front driveshafts when I did the swap and they looked near enough to the same, but maybe I didn't check the extended length properly.
I still have the clamp on sway bar, I assumed it was aftermarket but it may have been a dealer option... Junk in any case, it clamps between the rear lower trailing arms and sits lower than the rear diff. I wouldn't mind getting a higher chassis mounted sway bar in the rear just for road-going manners, but it's just a weekend toy so it's not high on the priority list.
It's not too bad for rust, I did have to patch up the drivers floor, and the passengers floor should really get the same treatment but the previous owner tec-screwed some sheet metal over it and, well, it's still there for now.
It hasn't been that quick of a build, 3 years to date!

 

[KungFooMASTA]

The driveshafts are indeed different length. A Disco front driveshaft won't require the spacer

the clamp-on sway bars were likely stock as Land Rover provides them as an add-on

what I'm impressed by is seeing a clean non-rusted to red dust '89!

im also impressed by what seems a blistering fast rate of build! I can only dream of such a fast build, but alas, others' trucks get priority around here, something about the mortgage

Glad to see you showed up to the party. Its just getting started but I think its gonna be a good one.

 

[PTSchram]

Glad to see you showed up to the party. Its just getting started but I think its gonna be a good one.

Im crazy busy right now, what with a new day job, trying to keep the shop moving forward, sling into parts and dealing with family health issues

bit I will try to contribute to the tech here, if nothing else to referee the bullshit🤪

 

[A4L7E3X]

Just a few recent pictures to keep things moving...

Camping trip from 2 weeks ago. I have started to organise the back of the Rangie for camping a bit better, I found a pair of slide out drawers on Facebook for cheap so they are now in... I'll get some interior pics if anyone is interested.

End result of Saturdays efforts (covered in mud and out of fuel ) I will see if I can get some videos uploaded soon...


Dad was out with his Disco on Saturday too, I was giving him grief for driving around all of the deep bits, then he chose a shitty line and ended up here with water coming in the front door .

He doesn't have lockers so it wasn't going anywhere. I had to drag him out, but he has a video of his Disco winching the Rangie out of a bog hole so it all comes around.

 

[A4L7E3X]

An old video of the new engine starting up - just so I can figure out posting videos...

 

[A4L7E3X]

Quick video of last weekend.


Never looks as good on camera... It was pretty slick clay, I was impressed with it .
Dad seemed to think that I would need more momentum, that's him in the video shouting "Go, GO, GO!".

 

[jhama78]

Nice rig, following along to see more pics of wheeling down under.

 

[Dougal]

Looks like a good fun build. Do you remember what the brand of flares is? I need a set for one I rescued.

Looks like you need more rebound damping in your rear shocks too. She's pretty bouncy.

 

[A4L7E3X]

Looks like a good fun build. Do you remember what the brand of flares is? I need a set for one I rescued.

The flares I got second hand, I think they are from Les Richmond in Melbourne. Made of fiberglass and designed to cover the hole that you have to cut in the rear doors unlike most of the plastic ones.

Looks like you need more rebound damping in your rear shocks too. She's pretty bouncy.

Yeah at the top of the first hill climb it got a bit bouncy at the top. Those shocks are a fairly recent addition just to test them out, keeping with my budget theme they are GQ Patrol leaf spring rear shocks. Being valved for a leaf spring application is most of the problem i'm sure, but they were dirt cheap and the lengths are spot on. They will get changed out one day when I come up with a better plan.

 

[A4L7E3X]

Another update to try and keep the Land Rover page alive…

I’m trying out double rear shocks to address my bouncy back end. Now before the “just fit some Kings/Fox…” “what a waste of time…” “what kind of redneck shit is this…” comments start, I’ll explain my reasoning while I’m putting on my flame suit…
In a nutshell, it comes down to me being cheap. From the start this was always meant to be a budget build and these shocks run about $50 AUD each. They are meant for a GQ/GU patrol leaf spring (ute) rear end, so they don’t have enough damping to control the coil springs (as shown in the video above), but the lengths work out well, I’m well into the bumpstops before they bottom out and they give me about 2 inches more down travel.
Will two of them work any better? Maybe, I hope so, but if not, I will pull them off and try something else. I’m about $300 into my rear suspension so if I have to start again I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. For comparisons sake a pair Koni or Bilstein bolt in shocks would cost me around $500 and I would lose about 2 inches of down travel, or a pair of Fox/King remote res would be around $1200 and I would have to make / buy new top mounts.
Now for my perceived positives of this set up, firstly the stress on everything is halved compared to one stiffer shock. The mounts, the bushes, the shock itself… it’s all got a much easier life. Secondly, I have twice as much oil and twice as much surface area to dissipate heat, so I don’t think shock fade will ever be an issue.

Geometry won’t be a problem, at least no worse than standard, the earlier Range Rovers ran one shock forward and one shock backwards. The top mounts have anti-crush tubes welded into the frame.

Not my prettiest welds ever but I’m not worried about them falling off (stick welding upside down under a car isn’t my strong suit). The shiny paint makes that crater look worse than it is.
All that said, flame on haters.

While I was poking around under the back end I swapped the fuel tank to a plastic tank from a later model Discovery.

This should give me about 10 or 15 litres of extra capacity. I also removed the steel evap tank that fits under the ¼ panel and swapped it for the standard gear off the Disco. All up the weight saved with the plastic tank and the simpler evap gear should offset the extra weight of the fuel.

It was a fairly simple swap, just a matter or removing the old brackets and making up some new ones. The filler needed two 90 degree bends to line up with the original neck, and the filter just got flipped to the other side of the bracket.

While the tank was out I fit the fuel pump access panel from a Disco too. This saves having to remove the bumper to drop the tank to access the fuel pump, especially handy since the plastic tank doesn’t have a drain plug like the steel one did.

The silicon job got tidied up and shot of flat black, but it lives under the rear drawers so it won't be seen anyway.

Then I went and stuck a wood chisel into my thumb so progress has slowed down a bit. No permanent damage though, so all good.

 

[A4L7E3X]

 

[A4L7E3X]

I got the Rangie over a weigh bridge and it came to 2320 Kg (5100 Lbs), with a perfect 50/50 split front and rear. 1160 Kg (2550 Lbs) each end. That includes me in the drivers seat, a full tank of fuel, all recovery gear including a chainsaw and all of my regular tools and spare parts. I'm happy with that as an overall number, although technically my front axle is slightly overloaded. The only thing I can think to do to save some front end weight is switch to a lighter bullbar, maybe aluminium or plastic.
I could maybe lighten the current one up a bit by cutting off the hoops but the threat of hitting a kangaroo is always a reality so I would rather keep them.

Now that my thumb is a bit more useful again I had a few jobs I wanted to get done on the weekend:
Test out some 170 lb Dobinson front springs that I bought used
Put a slight bend in the rear trailing arms to relieve some tension on the bushes
Swap the steel winch cable for Dynema to save a little weight

My plan was to get these few jobs done on Saturday so I could have a 4x4 day on Sunday... the Rangie had other plans. I was driving it out to my dads shed (he has a 2 post hoist so I much prefer playing with suspension there) about 30 km from my house. No hassles for the first 5 kms, then I stopped at an intersection, and when I went to drive off my transmission decided that 32 years and 420,000 kms of service was enough for it. My guess is that a band or a clutch pack has disintegrated, as I could get it to move if I was very gentle with the throttle, but If I pushed it too hard I got a metal on metal scraping noise and no drive...

So I babied it the rest of the way out to dads shed, where I thankfully still had the auto we removed from a junked Discovery a couple of years ago .
Dad gave me a hand and we swapped out the auto over Saturday night. By Sunday arvo I got around to my original list of jobs that I had planned.

With the new front springs the up vs down travel I ended up at was:
Front axle - 100mm (4") of bump stop clearance at ride height, 195mm (8") of bump stop clearance hanging off the hoist.
Rear axle - 65mm (2.5") of bump stop clearance at ride height, 195mm (8") of bump stop clearance hanging off the hoist.

Remember that my rear bump stops are extended progressive bump stops, they have two big voids in them that will collapse by about 60-70mm (2.5"). I might swap these back out for the factory solid rubber versions which will give me another 60mm of clearance in the rear, but I haven't decided yet. It does hit the current rear bumps a bit, but as they are progressive it isn't a harsh bump.

If I go back the factory bumps the rear travel will be:
125mm (5") of bump stop clearance at ride height, 255mm (10") of bump stop clearance hanging off the hoist.

So by those numbers I have hit 50/50 up vs down travel perfectly, and it does seem to work pretty well. I think it's also worth mentioning that the wheels will travel more than the measured 8 inches front or 10 inches rear when the axle is articulating.

I found the deepest rut I could on my short test run before heading home on Sunday and got the axles to flex as much as I could, they weren't deep enough for it to pick up a tyre, but this is with the rear right resting on the bump stop and the rear left as low as the shock absorber would let it go. The front left is still about 30-40 mm from the bump stop. (Range Rover suspension is much more flexible in the rear than the front).

Those are some 285/75R16 tyres (33") on reversed Discovery wheels that I wanted to try out. I get no contact on the bodywork, even when steering from lock to lock in that position.

It had rained a fair bit on Saturday, so this hole that I have driven through a hundred times before was a bit deeper than usual...

Oh well, shit happens. I had kinda planned ahead for this and removed all the factory floor mats in favour of rubber backed carpet tiles, so no harm done :rolleyes:.

 

[A4L7E3X]

A few more pics just for good measure...

 

[A4L7E3X]

#LandRoverLife... I broke an axle.



Again my video skills let me down and it barely looks like a hill, but it was actually a pretty decent little climb. What sucks is that I had already driven up it once! Then I turned around and set up the camera to do it again .

Typical though, I have been running 32"s for a few years with no dramas, first real day out wheeling on 33"s and I break it 🤣.

The broken axle wasn't a big deal, thanks to the Detroit I drove it home in 3 wheel drive with no hassles. What does suck though is that in the process of breaking the axle it seems to have broken the side gear of the Detroit.

I drove it home with no dramas and replaced the axle, but as soon as the new axle was in and I tried to drive it the rear end was banging and carrying on... Apparently this isn't uncommon for the Rover type Detroit lockers. Hopefully this weekend I will get a chance to pull the diff and check out the damage. I do have a couple of spare standard diffs so I can throw one of them in to keep it moving in the mean time, but it looks like I'm going to need to hunt down a new rear locker 😥.

 

[Dougal]

For some reason your video won't work for me. I get the sound-track but only the first frame displays. Dunno if that's a video issue or a youtube issue.

It's amazing you got that far on the old 10 spline axles. They've also clearly taken some damage before. You can upgrade to the 24 spline which are a lot tougher and better design. Also compatible with all the newer lockers etc.
24 spline they changed the hubs and stubs to work with ABS sensors. You can re-use your rear axle housing but need to change 4 studs holding the diff-centre in place. Then bolt on the complete new hubs and stubs in the back. On the front I don't know if you can adapt the swivel housings or not. I got a whole 24 spline front axle from a rolled disco.

Can you change the detroit side gears to 24 spline or does it need a whole new unit?

 

[A4L7E3X]

For some reason your video won't work for me. I get the sound-track but only the first frame displays. Dunno if that's a video issue or a youtube issue.

It's amazing you got that far on the old 10 spline axles. They've also clearly taken some damage before. You can upgrade to the 24 spline which are a lot tougher and better design. Also compatible with all the newer lockers etc.
24 spline they changed the hubs and stubs to work with ABS sensors. You can re-use your rear axle housing but need to change 4 studs holding the diff-centre in place. Then bolt on the complete new hubs and stubs in the back. On the front I don't know if you can adapt the swivel housings or not. I got a whole 24 spline front axle from a rolled disco.

Can you change the detroit side gears to 24 spline or does it need a whole new unit?

Cheers for the reply, I was starting to think I was talking to myself in here!

Not sure about you not being able to watch the video, It all seems good to me, anyone else having issues?

Yeah i'm well aware that the 10 spline axles have been living on borrowed time, it was the long side that broke and you can see it has a bit of a twist to it, and the short side had a twist too. I replaced both with some fresh ones.

The plan is to get a better, stronger locker for it when I have a bit more cash to throw at it. I have a few leads on some Maxi Drive 28 spline lockers, but I'm not sure if I want to go with something that needs custom axle shafts. One of the reasons I wasn't stressed about the 10 splines is that there's wrecked Discos available all over the country, so it's easy to get a replacement in the middle of nowhere. The same advantage is true of 24 spline axles.
I know most of the intricacies of Land Rover axle swaps, when I went searching the 'junk shed' for another diff there were 5 to choose from haha. I probably will end up swapping out the rear stubs for 24 spline gear at some point, but for now it just got a bog stock 10 spline open center thrown in to keep it mobile :(.

Here's the destruction to the Detroit:

Part number of the damaged parts:

Unfortunately I havn't had any luck finding replacements.

If I could find someone who sells parts for them it's possible I could get 24 spline side gears, but TBH the fact that it grenaded when an axle broke (and I have since been told that's fairly common on the Rover type Detroits) has left a bit of a sour taste and I think I would want to try something stronger. Although credit where credit is due, it did still get me back home with no dramas. In any case if I can find the parts to repair it I will, maybe it will end up in an old Series Landy one day...

So, if anyone knows where to get parts for an old Detroit, HMU .

 

[Dougal]

Video still ain't working. I even updated the browser with no change. Weird.

I have a plan to get some torsen diffs under mine. Ashcroft is looking like the favourite. But I need to sell 2/3 of the collection so I've got room to move. I don't need locked drive, but I need to stop the spin and snatch I get on snow and stop it spinning inside wheels on tarmac corners. I also figure torson won't break stuff the same.

 

[KungFooMASTA]

Detroits break when you break an axle shaft on everything not just Rovers.

24 splines are worthless too. I got to the point I was breaking one every time I went out. I even broke both rears at the same time once.

The only way to fix them are tons.