4wd to 2wd conversion

TRXnMe said:

His prices are on his website, £200 for a VCU rebuild, plus £15 postage, you'll need to pay for the return postage for yours, but that can be sorted for cheap, the wife paid a tenner for ours and that was with a guaranteed pick up slot and over night delivery

IRD is less cheap if yours is banjaxed, £615 quid for one of those!!

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been in touch with ken and mega bonus he is local to me and dad so no postage costs going over to see him tomora night so ill report back with any issues he finds

OK So here's the next question on this subject
Now you've got the prop shaft out, and decide not
to put it back (or leave it till a later date) - you now
have a rear diff (final drive) with a drive shaft going
out each side to the rear wheels. Can you remove the
diff (fdu) altogether with the 2 drive shafts and drive it like that?

I hadn't visited this thread for a while and then I got a notification about vonkprop's post so I decided to have a look.

It has been a while since my previous post in the thread and since that time I went ahead and had the prop removed. The local garage who had quoted £40 got it up onto a lift and when they realised how easy it was they only charged me £20 which was great!

Since removing it I have found that the steering is lighter, I don't seem to get any resistance when on or near full lock and overall I'm getting a fuel saving of about 8% on what I was getting previously. For me - the Freebie is definately nicer to drive like this.

I'm also interested in doing this, but I'm glad to see that other people are aware of the potential insurance implications. Do the insurers charge any more when you tell them?

I'm always careful about insurers, one of my family is a claim investigator and she's made me fully aware about how much they go after you if you screw up (5% of claims she investigates) or take the pi$$ (95% of cases.)

While thinking about insurance, once I've done the extensive refurbishment on my Freel I'll have to get it re-valued - it was worth squat when I got it.

Are there any major handling changes when you go over to 2wd?

Will.

Hi,

For me (and I'm not at all technical), immediately after the change there were two things that felt different;

1) The Steering felt a lot lighter
2) It felt as if I wasn't having to put my foot down as far on the accelerator pedal in order to maintain any particular speed as I had before making the change

Having said this - The changes would probably be be more noticeable where an issue existed with your VCU (or other bits) and less so if they are in perfect condition.

One or two people mentioned wheel - spin is possible. I'm sure that this probably is possible however as I'm just an "ordinary" driver (not one who accelerates hard or drives particularly fast around corners etc), I feel perfectly comfortable with the handling.

What I'd suggest to anyone though is that if you can't take it off yourself, to get a garage who will do it at a low cost. Also, don't discard it. That way if you don't like 2WD mode, or when Winter returns, you can just get it refitted and be confident that you won't get stuck once it starts snowing.

Thanks for that. I'll be able to do it myself no problems, I just wanted to know what I'd be getting into . I don't know about "perfect" condition but my VCU hasn't given me or the previous owner any trouble yet. However if it's the original factory fitted vcu it will be coming to the end of its life at 111k I expect - so may take off the propshaft in summer to push back the day when I get it refurbed.

I'm hoping that with the prop removed and the Davies Craig electronic water pump I'll get good fuel savings. Only time (and quite a bit of cash) will tell.

Will.

Hi,

Has anyone really sat down and worked out the savings from taking off the prop? Hopefully my schoolboy maths is correct.

Using a garage to remove and refit for winter will cost £40 at least. How many miles to save £40 at £1.40 per litre?

4000 miles at 35mpg is 114 gallons = 519 litres = £726

(4000 / 35 X 4.54 X £1.40 = £726)

If we were to get a 10% improvement in mpg we have a new calculation.

4000 miles at 38.5mpg is 104 gallons = 472 litres = £660

Result we have saved £66 on fuel, and it has cost £40 to convert

Real saving on 4000 miles is therefore only £26.

Obviously if you do more miles the saving is proportionally more.

I've driven a 4X2 Freelander (not mine) and was not impressed - it had loads of understeer and wet roundabouts were hairy due to wheel-spin.

I dread to think what it would be like fully loaded on tight bends on hills, or putting a wheel on the verge in a muddy country lane.

For me it's definitely not worth 'neutering' a capable vehicle to save a few quid - never mind the insurance implications.

Sorry to be negative - I started out positive - as it sounded like a good saving - initially!

It would be much simpler to economise by being less heavy with the right foot if making savings are important.

Leave the prop in place unless there are mechanical probs with VCU etc.

Singvogel.

Singvogel, due you know what the life exp is for the VCU? That's a good calculation, and about how many miles I do so I would save the 60 quid if I did it myself, not much really. The VCU is my main concern, don't want it suddenly going and causing a cascade of transmission faults.

Will.

WLJayne said:

Singvogel, due you know what the life exp is for the VCU? That's a good calculation, and about how many miles I do so I would save the 60 quid if I did it myself, not much really. The VCU is my main concern, don't want it suddenly going and causing a cascade of transmission faults.

Will.

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Hi Will,

I understand and share your concerns for the VCU and other drive-train components - The VCU is the cheapest replacement item in the system compared to the IRD or the diff (or God forbid my auto-box)

What you're asking is a difficult question - the life of a VCU can be greatly shortened by unequal tyre tread depth / mixing tyre brands etc.

I've owned my FL since new and I know for certain that my VCU has never been exposed to those imbalances and extra stresses. I'm hoping it's good for 120K - that's another 25K for me.

At the first signs of VCU trouble I'll get it changed. I just don't think that taking the prop off to extend it's life a few thousand miles is really cost effective.

Current price for an exchange VCU from Bell Eng is £200 so I've budgeted for one of those, and realise I might need one at any time.

I don't think it will 'suddenly' fail and destroy other components - rather tighten up over a period. How much warning I'll get - I honestly don't know.

Singvogel.

From what the Bell Engineering mob have posted on here, and put on their site the VCU does not fail suddenly, it's a gradual thing over time.

Following on from Singvogels thoughts there are other, free, ways to improve your mpg, get the EGR out and clean it, clean the PCV filter, keep the righ amount of air in the tyres, all worth a few mpg and totally free

For a few quid you can fit a Synergy and gain a few more mpg, swap the PCV filter to the BMW vortex one, ditch the EGR valve for a bypass, replace the turbo pipework and O rings.

With my car, and the wife's FL I keep the EGR clean and check the state of the pipes and O rings every 6 months. The first time I cleaned the EGR and replaced the O rings on the 75 I gained 6 mpg on my commute Total cost was £3.50 for the O rings and an hour's labour (free, I did it myself), paid for twice over on the first tank full

Hmmm sounds tasty! Sounds like yours is the turbodeez though, mines the 1.8 Kerfuffle. So no turbo, but would the EGR and PCV mods still be applicable?

To be honest, I don't like the idea of driving a 4x4 on 2w that it wasn't designed to do. Just feels like it would be wrong somehow but to each his own.

WLJayne said:

Hmmm sounds tasty! Sounds like yours is the turbodeez though, mines the 1.8 Kerfuffle. So no turbo, but would the EGR and PCV mods still be applicable?

To be honest, I don't like the idea of driving a 4x4 on 2w that it wasn't designed to do. Just feels like it would be wrong somehow but to each his own.

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Correct - you do not have a turbo- nor a EGR or a pcv.

Driving a 2-wheel drive Freelander at speed in the wet doesn't just feel wrong - it's scary-scary - the road-holding capability is greatly reduced. It runs wide compared to 4X4 which is like on rails - especially if you have sports road tyres fitted for the summer.

Doh, thought you had the diesel.

not so many fuel saving tricks for the 1.8, just make sure it can breathe, air filter, air box, check the plugs are good. air pressure etc still stands though

Or buy a friggin car.

chunkymunky said:

Or buy a friggin car.

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In any other circumstance I would, but I got it very cheap from a trusted aquaintance and fixing it up (needs a ton of work) and running it for a year is less than a quarter of the price of buying a used car I'd feel safe driving around in. So it'd be nice to squeeze the most MPG out of it but I won't lose any sleep over it. Probably won't even do 4k miles in the rest of this year. It needs a great deal of TLC but I'm pretty sure I've located all the problems and I'm working through them, I don't think there will be any nasty surprises. But looks like not much of tghis applies to me but still good to know.

I was going to buy an astra :/.

Will.

Seems odd people buying a 4x4 whinge about the mpg and remove the propshaft (for whatever reason), why not just buy an economical car in the first place, as has been previously stated??!!??

There are plenty of slitty's with selectable 4wheel drive such as vitaras. Have always thought a vehicle should be kept as meant to be.

Has anyone any experience of dealing with insurance company after a crash having removed a prop? Good luck with that

potus said:

Seems odd people buying a 4x4 whinge about the mpg and remove the propshaft (for whatever reason), why not just buy an economical car in the first place, as has been previously stated??!!??

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If you're referring to me I don't think it's odd at all. I bought mine because I live at the top of a long and winding hill. For the past two years I have been stuck in winter due to snow. I don't need four wheel drive when there isn't snow on the roads (probably nine or more months of the year) so for me it made perfect sense to make the change to 2WD during the Spring, Summer & Autumn.

As I have the V6, Average consumption around town is mid 20's per gallon and it costed me £20 to have the prop removed so not a huge expense.

I'm not knocking the choices that you have made in your preferred mode of transport, so please show me the same courtesy.

Thank you.

does yo insurance know?

The Mad Hat Man said:

does yo insurance know?

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Absolutely!

My understanding is that you need to inform your insurance company of any modifications to the standard vehicle - Not only at the time you purchase it but also if you make changes yourself afterwards. Other examples would include things such as wheels, tyres, EGR, Exhaust - even the stereo!