Thread: FC101 - Woods DC Front Driveshaft

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

Anthony Johnson, says he has reduced the vibrations and noise by lowering the RHS of the engine and transmission. Major mods to the RHS chassis bracket/engine mount and other mods to the RHS gearbox mount and he says he has the quietest prop shaft of any 101 he knows.

We found the bottom of a couple of bottles of red talking about this very subject on Saturday night.

Send him an email and ask.

I Too have spoken to AJ about this at lenght and it would be a improvement in my books as it improves that sideways miss alignment and gives a effect of slightly reducing the steep tailshaft angles.

I found that the autobox conversion (with a Borg Warner transfer) which pushed the transfer box back around 4 inches, and the front transfer box flange probably 6 or 7 inches back eliminated any rumble from the front prop, probably because the angle was reduced quite a bit.

The rear prop was running at what looked like an impossibly steep angle, but never gave trouble.

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

I know for sure that the Stage 1 doesn't have have it's pinion parallel, it is angled up.

I got a friend to have a look at his stage 1 and the diff is not tilted up.

So I take it that no has or knows of a 101 with a front DC shaft.

Cheers

Garry

I though Peter P got a DC shaft done ?

Hi. Sorry, one thing I never tried was a double Carden joint. I did however get rid of the drone from the front shaft. The first thing I tried was building a front CV type prop shaft using Range Rover CV's welded to modified flanges, and bits of props... It worked but hummed as the shaft speed is nearly 6 times faster than wheel speed. This was not the only problem.... 5km and the boots would disintegrate with the speed and I didn't have the guts to keep going as I valued my sump!!!!! The next line of attack was 4.7:1 diffs out of a Ser 3. This really helped and halved the noise, but it was only finally cured when I dropped the truck engine in and the gearbox went back 150mm. IMO the hum/drone/vibration stems from the fact that when a standard prop shaft with two uni joints is rotating at a constant speed, the 'shaft section' between the two uni's is actually accelerating and decelerating twice with each revolution due to the 'cross' type joints. This is only made worse by the 101 as its props run a lot faster than a Defender or Disco, and the front prop is nearly twice as steep in its running position!

Originally Posted by Sitec

Hi. Sorry, one thing I never tried was a double Carden joint. I did however get rid of the drone from the front shaft. The first thing I tried was building a front CV type prop shaft using Range Rover CV's welded to modified flanges, and bits of props... It worked but hummed as the shaft speed is nearly 6 times faster than wheel speed. <snip>

Actually when you calculate tyre circumference per Km against the tyre circumference in the Range Rover donor the CV prop shaft is only running about 3.6 times the speed it would when connected to the RR wheels.

There are much stronger CVs than Range Rover ones and if dissassembly is a risk nothing would prevent enclosing the CV in a metal cage/shield.

Gary, ring or email Tom Woods and tell them of the problem and a suggested solution.

BTW, the Stage 1 and DII both have the t/case outputs pointed up, so in an ideal world need a DC, as should every non 101 full time 4wd Landy but as we know phasing the uni's works (to a point) and was a cost effective 'solution' for Land Rover, so that's what they did.

Originally Posted by rick130

Gary, ring or email Tom Woods and tell them of the problem and a suggested solution.

BTW, the Stage 1 and DII both have the t/case outputs pointed up, so in an ideal world need a DC, as should every non 101 full time 4wd Landy but as we know phasing the uni's works (to a point) and was a cost effective 'solution' for Land Rover, so that's what they did.

Thanks - have been in contact with Tom Woods - he is not familiar with the vehicle or the issues - he will just build what I ask him to build after I have provided all the measurements.

I will not be proceeding as it seems no one has experience with this in a 101 and I am not going to spend somewhere around $800 on the off chance it might work - hence this thread asking for first hand experience.

I am not sure I follow your statement that the Stage1 and D2 have their output shafts pointed up. As far as I am aware they are parallel with the chassis.

Garry