Thread: Minor Problem (well, fairly minor)

If clearance on the hex head is the main problem, is there a reason you couldn't use Allen screws?

I'll go get the details shortly. The hubs are Warn brand, and I'll see if I can find a number on them. They replace the standard drive flange and hubcap, and are a contemporary aftermarket add-on.

The hub consists of a cylindrical machined alloy body, the same diameter as the drive flange. This contains a drive dog, splined onto the driving stub axle with a standard nut, washer, and felt seal, which runs on a roller bearing inside the body and has on the outside end, a dog. On the outside of this is the operating mechanism. This has a body about twice the thickness of the drive flange, containing a bronze handle, which, when rotated about 150 degrees, slides a matching dog inwards to engage the drive dog on the stub axle using a multistart thread. This slides on a number of steel pins about 1/4", with half their diameter in grooves in the mechanism housing, and half in the sliding dog.

The operating mechanism housing is about 50% the same diameter as the main housing, and the outer 50% reduced in diameter to the pitch circle of the mounting bolts. The outer part has half cylindrical cutouts for the heads of the bolts.

The six mounting bolts, which secure both the main body and the outer body, with two standard hub gaskets, are four inches long with 3/4" threaded with 3/8" BSF thread and 9/16" hexagon heads. This is not the standard head size for a BSF bolt, and the cutout i the bodyfor the head is not large enough for a standard BSF head. With the 9/16" head, there is just enough clearance to use a thin wall socket. I don't have any ring spanners thin enough in the ring to fit, and you can't use an open end spanner. An Allen head would be perfectly OK.

I am pretty certain the hubs originate from the USA, and I suspect that the drive flange dimensions, and spline size, were directly copied by Rover from the original Jeep, so that the only change needed to fit the hubs designed for Jeeps to Landrovers would have been the bolts, where Rover used BSF thread instead of NF or NC, which Jeep would have used.

I think I paid $300 for the pair of hubs, many years ago - they came with a rolling chassis of a 2a 88! They have been on my 2a for at least twenty years.