Freelander 1 Non-standard spanner sizes

Why, oh WHY, did Landrover insist on using stupid non-standard fastener sizes for everything?! They seem to use metric thread and shank sizes, but with "specials" for the heads everywhere. So for example, an M12 is supposed to have a 19mm spanner size. An M10 is supposed to be 17mm, an M8, is 13mm (...and so on). Instead, we get 12mm, 15mm and 18mm just (as far as I can tell) for sheer cussedness and an attempt to make the product that bit more expensive than it needed to be!

Just.... WHY?!!!

Avocet1 said:

Why, oh WHY, did Landrover insist on using stupid non-standard fastener sizes for everything?! They seem to use metric thread and shank sizes, but with "specials" for the heads everywhere. So for example, an M12 is supposed to have a 19mm spanner size. An M10 is supposed to be 17mm, an M8, is 13mm (...and so on). Instead, we get 12mm, 15mm and 18mm just (as far as I can tell) for sheer cussedness and an attempt to make the product that bit more expensive than it needed to be!

Just.... WHY?!!!

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those spanner sizes are popular with asian and some european manufacturers,and previous common examples are also rarer as flange bolts are now the most abundant,on the up side if your 18mm socket etc is likely less worn than the 19

It's actually very common to use small heads with large threads these days. The Freelander is pretty old fashioned, where it comes to fasteners

Nodge68 said:

The Freelander is pretty old fashioned

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i watched an ad on the TV for BMW yesterday. Typical rubbish glitzy car advert - one of the things they recon you should buy a BMW for is that you can start it with your mobile phone... then at the end, the ad says (something like) "don't let the tech drive you, you drive the tech" - what total cods wallop. Give me old fashioned any day of the week.

I think fuel injection was the most recent good invention that is worth having, everything since then has just been something to go wrong.

The strange sizes as you say are the standard sizes for flanged nuts and bolts which removes the need for separate washers making assembly at the factory easier

Fair comments, guys. Now you mention it, jamesmartin, yes, I do recall some odd 12mm ones on our late X-Trail, although never any 18 mm ones! And as others have said, I guess what they lose on having a flange-headed "special" made, they save on not using washers (although I think some of the 12mm ones are still plain hex head rather than flanged). It just all seems so unnecessary when we already have standards! (And no, I didn't have an 18mm impact socket, which is what I really needed for the rear subframe bolt)!

GrumpyGel said:

i watched an ad on the TV for BMW yesterday. Typical rubbish glitzy car advert - one of the things they recon you should buy a BMW for is that you can start it with your mobile phone... then at the end, the ad says (something like) "don't let the tech drive you, you drive the tech" - what total cods wallop. Give me old fashioned any day of the week.

I think fuel injection was the most recent good invention that is worth having, everything since then has just been something to go wrong.

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That's an interesting one! People have been moaning about "unnecessary technology to go wrong" on cars, ever since electric start was introduced! What was one generation's "unnecessary complexity" becomes the next generation's "expected feature". Electric windows were once regarded as "toys" now, it's hard to find anything with wind-up front windows! Much of it, is, of course, forced upon us by regulation - particularly in the fields of emissions and safety. The rest, as you say, are just "toys". (Although I quite like the hill-hold and cruise on my company car)! I'm a bit hypocritical in that respect. When the car is new, I like all my "toys". However, (as you can see with the 18 year old Freelander and the 30 year old Alfa) when they're old and I'm maintaining them myself, I quite value simplicity!

Avocet1 said:

I do recall some odd 12mm ones on our late X-Trail, although never any 18 mm ones!

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12mm nuts are quite common on Japanese vehicles (some FL1 brake parts are inherited from Honda). 18mm is a common German nut size, and is normally used by VAG and BMW (some Freelander parts are inherited from BMW). The Freelander is a bit of a Frankenlander, which is assembled out of components, from lots of different sources, hence the strange mix of fixings.

jamesmartin said:

on the up side your 18mm socket etc is likely less worn than the 19mm

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Mine isn't

When you think how many fasteners are on an average car and then multiply that by the number of cars made, that's an awful lot of steel, which starts off as hexagonal rod and is turned down to size on machines. A 4 meter length of 18mm hex rod is much more expensive than say 15mm so the smaller the head the cheaper it is to make. Years ago I worked for a company that made and sold fasteners to the big car makers and a lot of research went on to find the optimum size of head for each bolt in terms of strength and size.

Col

Colthebrummie said:

When you think how many fasteners are on an average car and then multiply that by the number of cars made, that's an awful lot of steel, which starts off as hexagonal rod and is turned down to size on machines. A 4 meter length of 18mm hex rod is much more expensive than say 15mm so the smaller the head the cheaper it is to make. Years ago I worked for a company that made and sold fasteners to the big car makers and a lot of research went on to find the optimum size of head for each bolt in terms of strength and size.

Col

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I think that unless they're "specials", they're not turned from hex bar any more. I think they're forged?

Avocet1 said:

I think that unless they're "specials", they're not turned from hex bar any more. I think they're forged?

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Correct.
Nuts haven't been turned from hex bar stock for decades. All modern nuts, and bolts are forged, then machined to the required tolerances.

I make my own nuts and bolts out of hex stock, if I need a special size, but I only have a lathe, so have no choice. I made a new battery clamp nut, just last week, as mine was missing .

Any excuse to fire up the lathe eh? Lol

The late 90s - the pinnacle of enthusiast maintained cars!

It’s the simplicity of my 2001 K-series “S” FL1 that really appeals to me. Not even air con to go wrong on it

Nodge68 said:

Correct.
Nuts haven't been turned from hex bar stock for decades. All modern nuts, and bolts are forged, then machined to the required tolerances.

I make my own nuts and bolts out of hex stock, if I need a special size, but I only have a lathe, so have no choice. I made a new battery clamp nut, just last week, as mine was missing .

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I did say it was years ago when I worked at the fasteners factory, probably 30 odd years ago. We didn't make many nuts, mostly bolts and screws, they were turned then heat treated for hardness then plated in some cases.

Col