Series Driving Technique from the 1970s

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Me to, hit 60 and the engine blew. still got me home though with 3 sort of working cylinders. 60 was scarey as needed two lanes to keep straight. Loads of fun
 
Check you tracking and tyres...there's no reason that a Land Rover should be unstable on the road...

Happily sits at 70-80 on motorways all day, doesn't wander or pull. OK, the engine and gears are tweaked but steering is 100% stock...
 
dominicbeesley said:
Check you tracking and tyres...there's no reason that a Land Rover should be unstable on the road...

Happily sits at 70-80 on motorways all day, doesn't wander or pull. OK, the engine and gears are tweaked but steering is 100% stock...
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i'll agree with that both my 109 and my 88" have seen in excess of 80mph and travel in a straight line, i can take my hands off the steering without panicking at 60mph

anyone that can't travel in a straight line at speed in a Series needs to check their steering components over properly including the swivel pins and wheelbearings, check thier suspension bushes

and finally need to check thier tyres and pressures are correct, tyre pressures can vary depending on make, style and construction along with the load/weight you are carrying

Series landrovers are rather twitchy unless set up correctly and they should never really be compared to a modern car due to how differently they are constructed, remember you are driving a 50+ year old design that wasn't really designed to be a high speed road car but rather more a versatile tractor
 
honolulujoe said:
do you need uprated brakes for travelling at that speed? say 60+ mph, i would imagine stopping quickly with ordinary series brakes would be interesting
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that's a can of worms :D

my 109 has it's original brakes as supplied without a servo and single line and weighs a couple of cwt more than my 88", it stops reasonably well and definitely up to mot standards, you just have to press on the pedal hard as it has no assistance

my 88" originally had single line brakes, no servo and 10" single leading shoes all round, that system stopped it well (so well it would at least go very light on the rear and squirm) but again you had to press on the pedal hard

i've since tinkered with my 88" and fitted 11" rear drums on my front axle, these are still single leading shoes but obviously a bigger diameter (plus wider), i've also fitted a servo assisted dual line braking system (minus the PDWA), the brakes on this one now are very light and with little effort i can have the vehicle squirming under heavy braking

where brake upgrades are concerned there's quite a few things to consider and to experiment just for the sake of it can be fun (but expensive especially if you get it wrong), which was the reason i put the bigger drums on my 88" (the downside of these is i believe they take longer to dry after wading) a bonus i found using these is less often underneath having to adjust them plus there's an adjuster on each shoe (4 adjusters on the front axle now) so pedal travel can be minimised really easily

now there's disc brakes (two or three different kits can be got) that can be fitted to all four corners or just the front axle depending on how big your pockets are (you may need an upgraded/assisted mastercylinder and pedal box)

the benefits of these is/are, they dry really quickly after wading, no more crawling underneath adjusting them, no taking drums off after playing in deep mud to clean them out, no wondering which way the steering might snatch after having been laid up for a couple of weeks (sometimes less and as long as your steering components are in good condition), less pedal travel if correctly set up to begin with, easier to change pads than shoes, less risk of fade (i've not had that with my drumbrakes to date but i do think ahead and select the correct gear, keep my gap and speed appropriate to the terrain)

there's bound to be another couple of benefits that i haven't thought of

like i said it's a can of worms, i know plenty of folks that drive thier Series with V8 motors, 200/300tdi's, a couple with tuned 2.25s along with the ones that have the original engines under thier bonnets (most of them don't hang about either) and the majority still have the "as fitted" by the factory standard braking systems

there will be differing opinions as to what is needed, what can be improved and what folks desire

i've a spare can here, anyone want to open it ?? :D
 
one question i have,not to do with brakes,but i have a 2.25 diesel,and would love to put a hight ratio box in there,but obviosly the engine will have to be tip top,but even then,will it pull alrite,at the moment it pulls rrc diffs,and 7.50's okay,but come up to a steep hill,it does have to be quite steep,but ur fooked! obviosly the engine is not tip top atall,but when u say tuned,i presume u only mean petrol,or have you seen 2.25 diesels in good shape,if so i wud love to hear what they are like,because i love the engine,they are abit underpowered tho!! thanks :)
 
My opinion:

The original brakes can stop you quite well enough from 80+mph...the tyres will lose traction before the brakes run out. (Unless you have better tyres than me!). What they won't do is do it repeatedly. I've managed to overheat my brakes on twistier, hilly roads round here at slowish speeds where your're repeatedly braking quite hard and not giving the brakes the time or the air to cool down. I've done this in the Landy to the point where the brakes are obviously too hot and starting to lose efficiency. I've also managed it in my MX-6 which has decent-ish brakes.

The main thing I've found with Landy brakes (and the similar Girling brakes on my bus) is that they require frequent readjusting for balance...it doesn't take more than 10 minutes though and just requires a jack and a 1/2" spanner...

I never understood why nobody's come up with an aftermarket snail cam with a lock nut instead of relying on the crappy serrations....
 
quite fancy a disc upgrade one day, certainly on the front, going off your comments nitemare they would make most sense for me, i am not wholly mechanically incompetent but I wouldn't fancy fiddling and adjusting brakes, brakes and steering i would rather leave to someone who knew what they were doing.

my bulkhead is living on borrowed time and from what i can see has been repaired several times before i got the car so that has first call on my pockets before mot time in may :)
 
i was referring to petrol engines as "tuned" (high comp' head, a good cam chain, good bores/rings, ACR manifold/carb set, and free flowing exhaust with a good ignition system, possibly other mod's as well)

2.25 diesels on the other hand are a bit of a rarity in the group of folks i know (although there are a couple), diesels need to be in tip top condition overall to get any real performance out of them (but they'll never make the world spin backwards :p )

first thing is the cam chain is most likely years old and stretched to buggery, this alters your cam timing and no amount of messing about will get it correct until you replace the chain

next is the stretched chain will have also altered your injector timing as the pump is driven by the cam so we are back to changing the cam chain as a first job

i next doubt that the injector pump has ever been checked and recalibrated to ensure it is operating within spec's (this also follows that you could do with having the injectors tested and reset as needed)

bores and rings, are they in good condition ?? do you have good compression ?? does it need re-ringing and a hone or a rebore complete with pistons and rings ??

what condition is the head in ?? could it do with a rebuild and valves reseating ??

the general consensus is 3.54 diffs and 7.50 tyres are not really compatible with the 2.25 diesel so i doubt you'll find any benefit spending on a high-ratio transfer box (that's more for V8's and 200tdi's in Series motors), the better combination is 7.50 tyres and an overdrive along with standard 4.7 diffs as then you can "split" the gears when hillclimbing or towing (2nd and a half, 3rd and a half then on the level 4th and a half)

i like 3.54 diffs in my Series motors which are both equipped with 200tdi's, i also like having an overdrive with them to allow easy cruising at 70mph without the revs being too high for comfort, a high ratio transfer box would lose me the ability to fit an overdrive and bring my revs back up at 70mph :(

i've not had too much to do with any 2.25 engine myself (unless you include the old FX4 taxis i used to work on 25-30 years ago) apart from to pull them out of my own motors to swap them for my choice of fitting a 200tdi, i drove my tired 2.25 diesel for maybe 8 weeks at most but wasn't interested in trying to get any more performance out of it as i'd planned to do the swap before i bought it

hope this helps (but i doubt it will)
 
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