Thread: Full time or part time?

Originally Posted by rovercare

What's it got to do with rover alone, just about everything from pomland was stupidly underpowered

........

The UK has always had very high petrol prices and has heavily taxed large engines - so that most of their cars were low powered. But hardly everything - for example the supercharged Bentleys of the thirties and V12 Rolls Royce, although you do say "just about". The reality is most Poms could not afford to either buy or run large engines. (For that matter in the fifties the Austin A70 had more power than the competing Holden in Australia, and a four speed box to go with it - mind you, it also cost more and weighed more!)

And small engines were not confined to the UK - as late as the end of the fifties Willys was selling Jeeps with a 60HP side valve engine - and their top line models were only 20% more powerful, with an overhead inlet side exhaust conversion of the old engine. And these were the only real competitors for Landrover, although the sterling and dollar areas the world was divided into kept them pretty much apart.

And if you go to continental Europe, you have the immensely successful VW managing with a 1200cc engine, and the top of the line French and Italian cars at two litres or less.

At the time we are talking about - mid sixties - the most powerful Holden sold produced less power than the most powerful Rover sold in Australia at the time, the ninety.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

The UK has always had very high petrol prices and has heavily taxed large engines - so that most of their cars were low powered. But hardly everything - for example the supercharged Bentleys of the thirties and V12 Rolls Royce, although you do say "just about". The reality is most Poms could not afford to either buy or run large engines. (For that matter in the fifties the Austin A70 had more power than the competing Holden in Australia, and a four speed box to go with it - mind you, it also cost more and weighed more!)

And small engines were not confined to the UK - as late as the end of the fifties Willys was selling Jeeps with a 60HP side valve engine - and their top line models were only 20% more powerful, with an overhead inlet side exhaust conversion of the old engine. And these were the only real competitors for Landrover, although the sterling and dollar areas the world was divided into kept them pretty much apart.

And if you go to continental Europe, you have the immensely successful VW managing with a 1200cc engine, and the top of the line French and Italian cars at two litres or less.

At the time we are talking about - mid sixties - the most powerful Holden sold produced less power than the most powerful Rover sold in Australia at the time, the ninety.

John

Correct, just about, as in not high end of the automotive spectrum

Still the 3.5 was probably ok in the 70's but just like the rover diffs, they were already antiquated and when the company grew, should have been superseeded

Originally Posted by rovercare

Correct, just about, as in not high end of the automotive spectrum

Still the 3.5 was probably ok in the 70's but just like the rover diffs, they were already antiquated and when the company grew, should have been superseeded

Its easy to say what should have been done in hindsight - but the actual situation of the company has to be borne in mind. And of course, the company that became Landrover was saddled with the Leyland disaster, and even without it, as a low volume producer they would have had very few options to replace the engine.

John

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Its easy to say what should have been done in hindsight - but the actual situation of the company has to be borne in mind. And of course, the company that became Landrover was saddled with the Leyland disaster, and even without it, as a low volume producer they would have had very few options to replace the engine.

John

They managed to tool up to adapt, Chrysler and ZF transmissions, Dana diff's, the crap LT77 etc, no reason they couldn;t steal a motor

Even the 4.4 does a decent job of moveing an RR, I bet they were smaller produced again and a simple tool up between sisters could have been arranged

Originally Posted by JDNSW

Rover introduced full time four wheel drive in 1948 apparently as an improvement on the Jeep system, presumably on the basis that the vehicle would be mostly used offroad, although usable on road. A couple of years later they changed to selectable four wheel drive, and although it is probably impossible to find out for sure after nearly sixty years the reason for this, my guess is either reliability of the free wheel unit or the realisation that they were spending a lot more time on the road than expected.

I think it had something to do with the expense of the tractor joints in the front axle, as if it was to do with the reliability of the free wheel, why didn't the keep the stronger tractor joints? As we all know, you don't run a constant four wheel drive with universals in the front axles.

Originally Posted by cmurray

I think it had something to do with the expense of the tractor joints in the front axle, as if it was to do with the reliability of the free wheel, why didn't the keep the stronger tractor joints? As we all know, you don't run a constant four wheel drive with universals in the front axles.

I think you may well be right - about the expense at least, although the problem with Tracta joints may not be the expense, which probably is higher than the Hardy-Spicer joints, but the life of them - they have sliding rather than rolling contact, and provided that you keep oil in the swivels, the Hardy-Spicer ones last practically forever, which the Tracta ones don't (although neither type appreciates running dry or lubricated with mud or water).

I am not sure whether the Tracta joints are actually stronger than the ones that replaced them (the replacements were used without modification in the One Ton with the six cylinder engine and lower gear ratios) but it was pretty irrelevant at the time with the 1600cc engine.

As an aside, the Tracta joint was invented in the mid 1920s by J.A. Gregoire specifically for use in his Tracta front wheel drive racing car. As the first CV joint available it was used extensively in front and four wheel drive vehicles, particularly in WW2, but by the fifties had been largely replaced by joints using rolling contact (Citroen replaced it by the so-called "double Cardan" joint, actually two Hardy-Spicer joints, by the late thirties) and the modern Rzeppa joint introduced with the Mini in 1958 (although patented in 1926) ensured its eclipse, although the action in these is partly sliding, and their success depends on improvements in lubrication.

John