Early on in this project I looked into disk brakes on the front axle. I had the Series 3 hubs machined down to accept a Range Rover Classic disk. I then pondered how to go about mounting a calliper. someone said that LC200 callipers would fit… They are huge and don’t fit! Not only that, Auto Pro the robbing mongrels charged me a $120 restocking fee to return them. Never again will I use Auto Pro. Lesson learned. Anyway, a bit more internet research had me looking at early Defender callipers, and Td5 disks, as they have a slightly larger diameter than the Range Rover disks.. all of 5mm!

With a borrowed disk and callipers from Pete at PCB Land Rover’s in Adelaide (huge thanks Pete), I set to work on making a calliper mount. The later Series 3 LWB drum brake backplates are a lot thicker than the earlier ones, so I used this as the basis for my calliper mount.

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To say it’s all a little close is an understatement. There is only one place an early Defender calliper can go on a Series Swivel housing, and that’s between the top kingpin and the oil filler plug. Knowing it would work, the borrowed calliper was returned and the second Td5 disk collected, along with two new callipers and some brake hose! There has been some light sanding on both the new calliper lugs and the swivel housing to get it as close as I have, but it sits where it needs to and looks like it was meant to be there!

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Those of you who are on the ball will have picked up that there are free wheeling hubs on what is now a full time four wheel drive vehicle, with a Stage 1 V8 front axle… So, the plan is that this little Land Rover’s will cover thousands of kms on an A frame behind our Overland Truck. With this in mind, I plan to run grease in the wheel bearings, and have a free wheeling hubs on each wheel. These will all be unlocked when the land Rover’s is ‘On Tow’, and then locked when we are using it in and around Broome and the like. I’m also contemplating one shot grease in the swivel housings that have the CV joints. Any feedback on the One Shot Grease is welcome. From what I can see, the swivel housing has a seal between it and the hub, so the hub will need grease anyway…

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Well, as today was spent cleaning the workshop, and packing down, along with gutter cleaning, raking and generally preparing to leave the workshop for another 18 months, this will be the last post here for a while. We had hoped to be taking the Land Rover’s with us this time, but it wasn’t meant to be! Perhaps 2027 will be the year it hits the road! 😊