Disco axles.

The smell of valves is one of the magical properties of old sets, so long as they dont honk.
I've a couple that light the room up with the scale lights and the glow of the bottles.

Right then back to business, in the end I decided to do things the way you did smithy, and drill the 'oles in the axles casing and re-tap, then if I need new balls they will fit straight on.
Grimmer for the 110 section on this forum has supplied me with a swivel ball, gonna get it tomoz, then I'll chop off the ball and drill 4 extra holes on the mill so that I can bolt it onto the axle casing and use it as a drill jig, I need 4 holes, 2 for o/s and 2 for n/s, top tip smithy, I'll probably make some bushes on the lathe to reduce the bolt holes to 5mm for a pilot drill.
Need to order a load of seals and burrins from paddocks.

I found an old brass spacer ... maybe out of a meccano set or something, that dropped into the swivel ball bolt hole and gave me a centred pilot hole, that was before I got my lathe.

If you're only drilling 4 holes, does that mean you managed to clock it and keep all the other holes?

Better explain that a bit more.
I have a scrap ball, and I've sawed off the flange to use it as a drill jig, so far thats clear.
But instead of just clamping the flange on the axle and bashing the holes, I'm gonna use a mill to drill 4 new holes exactly 13 degrees, 2 holes clockwise for the nearside and 2 anticlockwise for the offside, this way I bolt on the drill jig using the new holes and bash through with the drill.
This leaves all the accurate work to the mill where it belongs, I just need to bash with a drill on the drive, or more likely clamp the casing in mi pillar drill.
Probably wont need to weld up the holes, and I wouldnt want to do that for various reasons, I might warp the flange, and I'd have to grind the surface flat which would probably start a leak, if I block the holes I'll screw in some allthread which is mild steel so the drill wont wander, and then weld the stud at the backside only.

cunning as a fox. have you got a dividing head with degree increments then?

Yes, but I was planning on using the PCD function on the scale, clock up the centre of the flange first using a taster, then position one of the holes as a reference, then bash 4 holes.

Jonno / Smithy / anyone with comments,

What did you use for the U bolts on the disco front axle, I was thinking of making some from mild steel 12mm bar, but then thinking this might not be good enough as the originals are probably high tensile, I thought maybe stainless.
Craddocks flog U bolts for 11 leaf springs, are these gonna be longer than the 5 leafers I allready have, I need +30mm.

I swapped the multileafer springs for para's with a thinner seat area, this gave me about an inch of spare on the U-bolts so I was able to use standards for the three bolts not next to the diff.

For the odd-shaped one next to the diff I have a shop lined up to make some from a bit of EN8 bar.

Dont know much about para's, they look a lot flimsier than the leafs on my 109, they are serious looking.

I was wondering about A4 stainless as it has an equivalent tensile strength of 8.8, however I think your right there smithy EN8 is probably better as it has a more suitable yield, kinda important on a spring.

Bin looking at others projects with the coiler axle, a neat solution I saw was some geyser who instead of making a special difficult U bolt just welded on a couple of blocks tapped out, that seems a good idea, gonna look at that with the tube on the bench tonite.
So long as 2 or 3 times the dia of the bolt is screwed into the block the weakest point will be the bolt.

Yeah, I might have seen that one too. Also seen where a tube has been welded on the side in a similar manner, and the bolt goes right through with a nut on the end.

I think it might be easier to make the U-bolt than to do a half decent job of matching a block of steel to the profile of the side of the casing, then drilling & tapping the hole in exactly the right direction, and will look a bit more standard too.

For the same amount of effort we might as well have done the job properly and stuck a pair of Unimog axles on.

Yep your probably right about the unimog axles, only I'm more willing to play than pay so I have poxy defender ones.

I hope noone minds I nicked this pic of another site, but this doesnt look so hard to fab, and is gonna be as strong as a U bolt if done reet.

Like the idea about the guide tube, thats gonna be a strong way to keep all in place.

tha's interesting ... no spacers under the axle. Think I'd still prefer a U-bolt though ...

You can do it if you get an extra long u-bolt if you have para's on you just need to bend the u-bolt to compensate for the axle casing beign tilted forwards

good effort! where did you get the xtra long bolt? Did you just wind it up tight or pre-bend it?

Can't remember where I got the bolt from but I didn't make it I bought it, but when I fitted the axle I didn't need to put spacers between the spring and axle so the long bolt just fitted with a bit of "adjustment"

not read the whole thread but now i know why you want a s2 lwb prop.... the same reason i did

How did you sort the steering without spacers Jonno?, did you make a special track rod or summat.

I agree the pictured axle mount looks a little flimsy, if I decide to go the welded bracket route it will be a lot more substantial.

Did the drill jig, looks ok, was a bit of a bugger sawing the ball off and had to use a carbide cutter to do it with, the slots are precisely 8 degrees (I cheated and used a CNC mill, took an hour to work out how to do it and 30 secs to cut), the axle needs to rotate 9 degrees to correct a 12 degree nose up diff to a 3 degree nose up diff req for the series, but then minus 1 degree to correct for the angle of the springs being a degree out due to the mil shackles.

Pob's, if yer likes when your ready to do the axle swap I'll send you this jig int post, just send it us back after.

I used the standerd disco steering bar, but when I fitted the V8 I lifted it up as high as poss to clear the diff with the oilfilter so this brought the front of the transferbox up aswell,so I needed the diffnose to point up so I had good angles for the prop.
Also when I cut the spring seats off the old axle I cut the axle casing off with them to make a halfmoon shaped cup to sit the axle on. This made the axle sit about 3/4" higher so no need for aditional spacers.
So out of pure luck when the castor was set(rough guess!) the diff nose was in the right place and the steering bar cleared the springs



I didn't use any special equipment to do this apart from a tape measure! So it was a bit of a risk whether it was gonna be right or not,but luckily it is spot on, the steering dosn't wander and it self centers so I've done something right lol

Yep got that.
So you do have a spacer under the mounts, well a little bit, and you got the steering bar furhter away from the leafs as your engine is higher up.
Something worth thinking about for someone doing a new build.
Had a ballache trying to tap the new holes in the axle flanges, the new holes are half way into the old ones, I used plugs made from mild steel allthread, it works but its a bugger to cut the threads.

dr pepper said:

Yep got that.
So you do have a spacer under the mounts, well a little bit, and you got the steering bar furhter away from the leafs as your engine is higher up.
Something worth thinking about for someone doing a new build.
Had a ballache trying to tap the new holes in the axle flanges, the new holes are half way into the old ones, I used plugs made from mild steel allthread, it works but its a bugger to cut the threads.

Click to expand...

would it not have been easier to fill the old holes with weld then drill and tap the new holes?