1949 Axles

[Mrbreeze66]

G'day All,
It was brought to my attention that my rear axles have different shaped flanges and I'm trying to find out if one has been changed or if LHS and RHS are different with a June 1949 model. The picture in the manual only shows the RHS which is the same as my RHS one.
Any help appreciated.

[Lotz-A-Landies]

The one with the deep hollow is usually considered a 1948 axle. Are quite in demand for restorations of the sub #861500 numbered vehicles.

I would also be checking the brakes on both sides match, as the deep hollow ones were fitted with hydrostatic brakes while the shallow dish ones could have been either hydrostatic or manual adjusting as fitted to late 1949 to 1979 SIII. The brake type change happened at axle 867721 (assume in chassis number range 86677??)

Even though axles are different from side to side, you may find it is still original as Rover Co Ltd made the change over as parts were exhausted not at particular model changes. Remember that many of post #861501 1948 models were actually built in Jan or Feb 1949 and 1950 models were being built in September 1949 so you can find early parts on vehicles in all three model year sequences, including the side plate engine blocks.

IIRC
1948 models #860001 to #861500 fabricated firewall #861501 to #863000 pressed firewall. (3000 vehicles)
1949 models #8663001 to #8667920 (4920 vehicles)
1950 models #06100001 onwards. (16K vehicles)

[Mrbreeze66]

Thanks Lotz-A, really appreciated.

[digger]

Id love to hear the axle number if you could... just to see how close it is to the recorded numbers..