whats the differende between a defender R380 gearbox and a disco one

As the title says whats the difference ?
The output shaft on my R380 gearbox is on the way out and i noticed that defender boxes are twice the price of a disco box on ebay.
Is it just the top housing that need swaped over ? is the rest of the box the same

top housing, and internal selector shaft is longer on defender than disco as disco has yoke for lower gear stick to locate and defender has quadratant which shaft in top selactor shaft slots into rest of gear box is the same

Disco box can go in a defender if you dont want to use the center seat,high/low stick now comes up where defender main stick was and disco main stick comes up at the front edge of the seat box with enough room for a cubby box behind. Some fettling needed to get it to look good.Drove a mates with this set up and found gear changing nicer than normal.

you couldnt by any chance get a pic of your mates set up could ??
cheers

Sorry no pics but some one else may be able to help? also this is a straight forward job only on a 300 tdi.

well it is a 300TDI so i will look into it, I saw a R389 gear box and tranny box going for £100 on ebay

it can work and you dont have to lose the centre seat . we put an disco box in a 90 and all you need to do is build (machine shop with a lathe ) an adaptor to lengthen the shaft to use the defender quadratant style gearleaver . i will try to take some pics of the spare adaptor i made so you can see what im talking about

thanks the pic would be greatly appreciated,
I dont have acess to a lathe but i can drill and tap most things, also some hot bending welding etc if required.
If it isnt to much trouble it could be a project in the making its just i use my landy for work so i would like to change it all over a weekend and have it all up and running, been a long time since i changed a gearbox out on the road

i will try to take the pics today

Thanks man, my gear box isnt dead yet just getting that way,
I guess i eould be as well buying the disco gearbox complete withe the tranny box so that i have all of the diff lock linkages ?
good excuse to put a disco tranny box on for faster motorway cruising

here you go mate ive taken some rough pics of it . the larger side goes on the disco selector shaft in the gearbox and the defender quadrant goes on the smaller side so it makes up the length and now your defender gearleaver will bolt up and work just as it did before . oh yea you will enjoy the disco ratio( loads of speed ) if you do the transfer box too

Can this be done to a 200tdi lifted from a discovery?

overall to combine a 200tdi engine from a discovery with a R380 gearbox from a discovery..

all to go in a 2.5 N/A 90?

Hi so disco box will fit Into defender with gears further back grand. Question is. Is the cross member for the gearbox in same place ? I wanna get defender chassis and transfer all my 200 tdi running gears including axles etc. If there is pic of disco gear lever in defender would be grand too

if you mount disco onto 200 tdi in defender with engine near bulkhead it will not line up with mounts ,mounts suit short def gearbox with engine at bulkhead or long gearbox with engine forward like 300 tdi ,i have seen long box with engine at bulkhead and i would have been ashamed to have done it decide what you want to achieve and ask how

defcrazy said:

here you go mate ive taken some rough pics of it . the larger side goes on the disco selector shaft in the gearbox and the defender quadrant goes on the smaller side so it makes up the length and now your defender gearleaver will bolt up and work just as it did before . oh yea you will enjoy the disco ratio( loads of speed ) if you do the transfer box too

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You need to market these things, you will sell loads.

waldershelf said:

You need to market these things, you will sell loads.

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well i made two but didnt sell the second one, but i did think about it

sam-wise90 here is the crude measurements and drawing

defcrazy said:

here you go mate ive taken some rough pics of it . the larger side goes on the disco selector shaft in the gearbox and the defender quadrant goes on the smaller side so it makes up the length and now your defender gearleaver will bolt up and work just as it did before . oh yea you will enjoy the disco ratio( loads of speed ) if you do the transfer box too

Click to expand...

Has anyone started making these adaptor thingies yet as I'm struggling to come by a reasonably priced defender r380 at the moment so may have a stab at converting a disco box.

If not I'll have to find a lathe and knock one out!

minimole23 said:

Has anyone started making these adaptor thingies yet as I'm struggling to come by a reasonably priced defender r380 at the moment so may have a stab at converting a disco box.

If not I'll have to find a lathe and knock one out!

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i think i should start . there have been quite a few people asking about this . but the cost to ship to the uk will be too much

If mine works I may be able to knock a few out for the benefit of others.

Just need to get a disco box now to experiment on.