Questions about brakes/axles/recovery eyes

Hi all, definitely getting into the whole landrover thing! Took my 110 camping this weekend and did a bit of light off roading, loved it as always! Have a few queries/questions...

1) What is the difference between drum and disk breaks(looked already but just got confused)? What will my 110 ex-military (1986) have with a normal axle front and salisbury axle rear?

2) For a front recovery point, I was thinking of having somebody weld on the eye part of a jate ring onto the bits of the chassis that sticks out just below the bumper-would this be strong enough? (fishing under the vehicle for recovery points usually means digging and I want to keep the landy for a long time/forever)

3) If I bought a `normal` axle to replace my rear salisbury axle do you think I would have some money left over to pay for labour costs for the axle switch if i sold the salisbury, or is it too expensive? How much would should I pay for a good axle?

4) Noticed that next to the ignition there is a circular hole through the black plastic that has since been taken out, is this normal? any guesses what it could have been?

Sorry for bombarding everyone with questions just trying to educate myself about landys a bit more!

You should have a Salisbury axle with drum brakes on the rear, disks are more efficient than drums and don't get clogged with she-ite if you regularly dunk them in mud and water. You can convert it to disks but I believe this is expensive. Salisbury axles are stronger than standard ones which is why they are fitted to 110's and not 90's. As for axle swapping you can do this yourself but I don't know if this would have any insurance implications as the chances are you'll be fitting a 'weaker' axle

The hole on the right hand side of the steering column (next to the fog light switch) is for the choke on petrol engined models. It's vacant on a diesel. It is the right size for a toggle switch though if you end up adding extra headlights etc.

Thank you Marmaduke! I will start looking for a 90/110 disc-breaked rear axle then, I am hoping that the money I make off selling the salisbury will be similar to the cost of the other rear axle. Thanks flying Pete another mystery solved, for me at least haha I may ask at a garage what they would charge for welding on trimmed-down army jate rings directly onto the chassis. Think these would be pretty useful with shackles and a bridle for offroading.

How about some bumper-mounted recovery points? Similar to these :

http://www.mudstuff.co.uk/recovery-eyes.html

are drum braked salisburys even that popular ?

Is it worth swapping the axle? If you keep the drums maintained they will be fine imo.

As for jate rings welded onto the chassis, why? You only going to be welding them on a few inches further forward than their current location. Is what you can do when off the road is fit your towing strips front and rear and drape it up over the bonnet then it's accessible without digging.

I don't get what you mean by you don't want to do digging but want to keep it forever? Digging for a jate ring that's buried in mud is not going to shorten the life of your landrover, and if you mean your not going to take it into mud that deep then I would question even needing the extra recovery points welded on anyway.

The jate rings are strong just use these and spend your money on something else, likewise with the rear axle. If you must swap then swap your drum Salisbury for a disc braked Salisbury or else you could invalidate your insurance as you are fitting a 'weaker' axle if you use a standard 90 axle. You will also affect your load carrying capacity

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but can you not keep the axle itself and just swap out the end for disc-brake equipped ones?

bluedog333 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong on this, but can you not keep the axle itself and just swap out the end for disc-brake equipped ones?

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Yes, that can be done. helped a mate do that with his - the thing that needed doing was the caliper mounts needed reducing in thickness about .1 inches to fit. Seen it done with a grinder {shudder} which I don't recommend - it's a simple machining process to do it properly on a mill.

Considering the near-indestructability of a Salisbury rear axle...that would be the route i'd take were I going to do this. That being said my 110 still has its drums and I have no plans to change it.

I want to try and use cut-down jate rings as recovery points, and weld them much higher up and further forward than they normally sit. Attached is a photo with bull bars the same as mine, I want to have the recovery points welded to the right and left of the eyes in the photo http://www.northyorkshire.police.uk/media/image/t/a/LandRover.JPG.
Hope that makes sense?

As for keeping it forever was just talking about paying the money for the welding and getting it done properly once. I want to do an axle swap because I will get an extra 1-2 inches of ground clearance, and the current lowest point is the salisbury axle which has an annoying tendency to `plow` when offroad, normal axles are more rounded I am aware I will lose some strength in the axle, but loads of other defenders don`t have salisburys at the rear and seem to cope fine-if it really is `weak` I can always add reinforcing struts above the axle similar to the wolf axles.

George1994 said:

I want to try and use cut-down jate rings as recovery points, and weld them much higher up and further forward than they normally sit. Attached is a photo with bull bars the same as mine, I want to have the recovery points welded to the right and left of the eyes in the photo http://www.northyorkshire.police.uk/media/image/t/a/LandRover.JPG.
Hope that makes sense?

As for keeping it forever was just talking about paying the money for the welding and getting it done properly once. I want to do an axle swap because I will get an extra 1-2 inches of ground clearance, and the current lowest point is the salisbury axle which has an annoying tendency to `plow` when offroad, normal axles are more rounded I am aware I will lose some strength in the axle, but loads of other defenders don`t have salisburys at the rear and seem to cope fine-if it really is `weak` I can always add reinforcing struts above the axle similar to the wolf axles.

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your vehicle, do what you want. Where you are talking about welding them on is only a couple of inches higher than the factory positions.

larger tyres will give greater ground clearance aswell

I wasn't aware that the diff on a salisbury axle was that much bigger, what size tyres are you running?

Get some top jates

I`m running some very worn 235`s (trying to make them last as long as possible before buying the new set), have money set aside for some BFG mud 285/75/r16 to get a bit more clearance , hoping these will be fine with the heavy duty shocks and springs! What are top jates? never heard of them

The tyres you have chosen are only 1" bigger diameter dependant upon manufacturer so that would only lift it 1/2".

What size are the rims as not everything will take a 285

I have wolf rims atm and plan on reusing them due to their strength, been told they will fit is that true? Is there any other way of increasing ground clearance other than an axle swap and fitting larger tyres? cheers!

George1994 said:

I have wolf rims atm and plan on reusing them due to their strength, been told they will fit is that true? Is there any other way of increasing ground clearance other than an axle swap and fitting larger tyres? cheers!

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I'm running boosts on mine so can't say for steelies but 285's are a bit to wide for alloys I believe, there's no other way of increasing ground clearance under the axles.

Personally I run 265 mud terrains and have never had an issue

Marmaduke said:

I'm running boosts on mine so can't say for steelies but 285's are a bit to wide for alloys I believe, there's no other way of increasing ground clearance under the axles.



Personally I run 265 mud terrains and have never had an issue

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Portals, of course! If George has a spare 12ish grand spare.

walk before running

you are being daft imo. why not use it as is and learn to drive offroad before faffing about ruining it?

FlyingPete said:

The hole on the right hand side of the steering column (next to the fog light switch) is for the choke on petrol engined models. It's vacant on a diesel. It is the right size for a toggle switch though if you end up adding extra headlights etc.

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also seen it used for mech kill switch on 2.25ds