Potential county owner with a question

[manchild21000]

Hi defender folks . As some of you know i own a kitted out auto disco . I have a chance to get a nice county but its manual .Its been converted to a lt230 and a 300 tdi , anyone wheeling this combo with either an underdrive or a MD reduction gears ? Any issues with stalling when rockcrawling or steep climbs? This would be a play truck and the disco will retire . I must admit having an auto is nice but if the county works out i can finally have a legal truck.
George

[BilboBoggles]

Only comment is that a county especially if it's in good nick is a very rare thing these days. I'd be quite reluctant to off road bash it around. Especially as you can get pretty reasonable 300tdi defenders fairly cheap.

[clive22]

Hi

I guess you mean in low range. You really need to know what tyres its running or you plan to run. I have a 3.5 now 4.2 v8 county, with 33% MD reductions. Its close to perfect with these MD 33% reductions.

With MD reduction gears or underdrive you can run any realistic tyre size you want, drivertrain notwithstanding. I've driven in club trips with a 300TDi/defender with 35" in steep terrain and it was spot on.

The thing I'd be more concerned about is the high range check the serial number on the transfer box and look up/work out whether its a disco, county or isuzu county ratio, all are different. Better yet drive it to check, the ratios aren't all wrong.

If it were mine Id be thinking staying close to the original ratios or if I had a choice lower after any tyre mods. You really want enough torque at sensible revs to be able to do steep driveways, etc. without changing down into low range.

Clive

[isuzutoo-eh]

If it has a 300tdi, chances are it has an R380 to go with the LT230, so you might as well consider it a 300tdi Defender, in terms of performance, rather than a County, which in Aus is usually linked to having a V8 petrol or Isuzu diesel engine.

With crawler gears or an underdrive you won't have trouble with stalling, sure you won't have slip from a torque converter but the low (or low low) range will be far lower than a standard auto disco has and will more than make up for it.