rangie/disco axle question

[stewy1984]

Well today, round a mate's. He bought an 80" old rolling range rover chassis, with the best condition axle cases (old range rover) ive ever seen. they look brand new,

anyway he also bought a disco front axle to strip and build up with the rangie case. so we stripped the disco one

started putting the rangie one together, get to putting the bolts in next to the swivels. only 6 bolt holes on rangie axle case and 7 bolt holes on disco bit?



had us stumped as to why land rover did this.

anyone shed any light on it?

[andyb]

Yes, later RR and all Disco axles had 7 bolts rather then 6.

This is a strength issue. If you look at it the spacing on the 7 bolts is not uniform and the bottom two are close together. I've seen these bolts break thru heavy landings......no LR based comp safari racer runs 6 bolts. I've even drilled some 6 bolts to make then 8 bolt for the added security.

The thread is on the swivel so you could weld up the mismatching holes in the casing and re-drill using a 7 bolt gasket as a template.

HTH

[stewy1984]

thanks for the reply Andy.  makes sence now.

Drilling tomorrow 

[Range Rover Blues]

Euwww, drilling a swivel :-k not for me.  The 6 bolt ones shows it's an early axle and not as strong, the diff will be the imperial one and the callipers might not be metric.

Oh and the radius arm bushes might have been narrower :-k

[andyb]

Euwww, drilling a swivel :-k not for me. 

No. I said drill the axle casing. The swivels are 7 bolts and the casing is 6 bolt....so makes sense to drill the casing :)