Thread: Sorting between Series 3 Gear boxes

Hello All,

Here is a scenario - Firstly I am not a mechanic.

I have a collection of gearboxes which have been taken off various Series 3 vehicles over a long period of time by other previous owners. Some have been removed from the vehicles some time since the 1970s. Other gearboxes are still sitting in chassis however they have had the engines and clutches removed. This means I am unable to depress the clutch to select different gears or take the vehicle for a spin. Some gearboxes have selector levers that are locked in place, while other gearboxes have no selectors at all. The thing the boxes have in common is that they are all "history unknown".

In some cases previous owners or scrap yard hackers were only interested in the engine and caring for the gear box while they took the engine was not very high on their list of priorities - so some boxes have been mistreated.

What checks and procedures can be done to separate the good gearboxes from the not so good ones - without pulling the boxes apart? This is because it may be a while before I can actually fit them to one of my other Series 3 Land Rovers. So I do not want a stack of parts taking up space and not know what part goes where when I do have the time to work on them.

If I have the time to take off some inspection plates what things should I look out for - apart from bits of teeth being missing from the gears and lots of shrapnel in the oil what are the checks and procedures that could be performed to further select a serviceable gearbox from one that needs a major overhaul?

Were there any differences between gearboxes and clutches for the:
6 cylinder 2.6 litre petrol motor;
the 4 cylinder 2.25 litre petrol motor; or the
4 cylinder 2.25 diesel motor?

If there are differences in these gearbox to engine configuration/fuel match what serial number on the gearboxes would tell me what box goes with what motor?

Kind Regards
Lionel

Hi Lionel

The early A suffix cases had a fault of cracking the reverse idler out the side of the case. However if the box has lasted till now it probably doesnt have a flaw.

What to look for is a raised reinforcing band on the right hand side of the gearbox case. It looks like a square or lattice in the aluminium casting. If it has the lattice it is a later box and probably a little stronger. There are small ratio differences between suffixes but not between 4 cyl and 6 cyl so you can change bellhousings.

You can mix and match good parts between boxes so long as the tooth counts are the same.

SIII layshafts are very strong, but the weakness is the narrowing of the 1st and 2nd mainshaft gears to fit in the synchro cones.

Diana