Thread: 35-36'' tyres legal on Series vehicles or not?

I believe that the ENV was a joint venture with Eaton as the principle partner, the N may have been Nuffield as we know that the ENV diffs were used in Morris Commercial light trucks and vans, The V may have stood for Venture or Vauxhaul as another V in the British automotive world. I would dearly like some documentary confirmation.

What is true, as suggested by John, is that without the volume of the Morris Commercials it was uneconomic for the company to only build diffs for a small number of Land Rovers amounting to less than 10,000 units.

Hence the Salisbury company building diffs under licence from the US Dana Corp.

Diana

Originally Posted by Lotz-A-Landies

I believe that the ENV was a joint venture with Eaton as the principle partner, the N may have been Nuffield as we know that the ENV diffs were used in Morris Commercial light trucks and vans, The V may have stood for Venture or Vauxhaul as another V in the British automotive world. I would dearly like some documentary confirmation.

What is true, as suggested by John, is that without the volume of the Morris Commercials it was uneconomic for the company to only build diffs for a small number of Land Rovers amounting to less than 10,000 units.

Hence the Salisbury company building diffs under licence from the US Dana Corp.

Diana

Mal Story called the ENV diffs under his Sidewinder Eaton number Ones.
I'm not so sure about that. I fitted Eaton diffs from an AB110 International under my first Landrover back in 1970 and they were Hypoid 2 pinion jobs, not spiral bevel 4 pinion as with the Land Rover ENVs.ENV also produced gearboxes for some of LandRovers military powered trailer prototypes, and I believe that John Ayers pre production prototype 101 was fitted with an ENV gearbox bolted to an early version of the transfercase that eventually was cast together with the lt95 gearbox.
All the Eaton diffs I've ever seen were banjo style removable centres, wheras with the exception of the J models, Morris Commercial used a Timken style split design with the axle/diff housing bolted together in two halves,as with many early car and truck designs, a design that can still be seen on the front of some Isuzu CFA fire trucks.
Had Landrover promoted the fitment of ENV diffs to the military and industrial users, there would have been many more than 10,000 units, and possibly they could have hung on to a fair portion of their market share, as I believe poor diff/axle reliability was one of the considerations for concerns originally switching over to Japanese brands.

Could it be that the NV stands for New Venture and the E stand for English or Eaton?. New Venture do make gearboxes, although back in the day I think they were named New Process.
Although Salisbury is a very British sounding name. The Salisbury Axle Company which later became Dana Spicer is American, and AFAIK The British division produced D44 designs for Jaguar and Volvo, the portal axles for Volvo, plus D60 designs for Landrover, Reynold Boughton, Stonefield and others.
Wagoo.

Would love to know the truth about ENV, and your idea is a valid as mine with the exception that the 4 speed boxes used in 1970s Ford F250, International Scouts and Dodge Ram were New Process ( a Chrysler company) and the name New Venture name only came about in the 5 speed boxes of the 1980s.

ENV diffs were listed as optional parts in the 1963 Land Rover workshop manual so the problem of Eaton New Venture or English New Venture don't make sense in the logical time line.

Courtesy of Wikipedia:

The company

The London and Parisian Motor Co. was an Anglo-French venture registered in London in 1908 and largely backed with British capital and expertise. The castings and forgings for its engines were made in Sheffield where the company was originally based, then taken to France for assembly. The reason for this was that there was much more aeronautical activity in France than in England in 1908, but the French were taxing imported machinery. The French works was in Courbevoie in the Paris suburbs. By 1909 there was more activity in England and E.N.V. decided to manufacture at home, at Willesden, London. At that time, the company name was changed to The E.N.V. Motor Syndicate Ltd. E.N.V. was an acronym for "en-V" or "in a V" as the first, and indeed most, of their engines were 90° V-8s. All were water cooled. The first two models were powerful but heavy; the later types D and F were lightened and reliable, with powers of 37 hp (26 kW) and 74 hp (51 kW) respectively. These were widely used from 1909 in both Britain and France; in England well known pioneers like S.F. Cody, A.V. Roe, Claude Grahame-White, Moore-Brabazon and T.O.M. Sopwith used them. In France, pioneers such as Henri Rougier, Pierre de Caters, Arthur Duray and Rene Metrot won prizes flying E.N.V. powered Voisin aircraft and other French manufacturers like Farman and Antoinette used E.N.V.s in some of theirs. After about mid-1911, these engines fell out of favour, overtaken by the much lighter air cooled radial engines from Anzani and in particular by the rotary Gnomes. Weight was rather less critical for airships and several used E.N.V. engines. The 100 hp (75 kW) V-8 submitted to the Naval and Military Aero Engine Contest of 1914 proved to have serious design flaws and as a result of its failure E.N.V withdrew from engine production.[1]

Despite this the company continued successful production of bevel gears and camshafts for another 50 years; it produced individual components for several World War I aircraft and tank engines, and after the war built complete gearboxes for the automobile industry. In 1964 it became part of the Eaton, Yale and Towne group, losing its identity in 1968.[1]

More on the history here:
E.N.V. Motor Syndicate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bob

Thanks for clearing that up Bob.So if ENV diffs were available on LandRovers in 1963, but ENV became part of Eaton in 1964 then The landy ENV wasn't an Eaton design.
Wagoo.

For another 10 points. Who made the diffs/axles/planetary hubs for the Roadless Traction Forest Rover? ENV/GKN or Kirkstall/GKN ? Both have been mentioned in articles on LandRover history, including Studebaker/GKN.

Originally Posted by wagoo

.......
Had Landrover promoted the fitment of ENV diffs to the military and industrial users, there would have been many more than 10,000 units, and possibly they could have hung on to a fair portion of their market share, as I believe poor diff/axle reliability was one of the considerations for concerns originally switching over to Japanese brands.
.......
Wagoo.

Not from my experience at the time, although it may have been part of the reason for continuing the shift. Remember that at the time (1960-1975) Toyota and Nissan were unknown quantities with virtually no presence in Australia, and still a lot of Australians who flat refused to buy anything Japanese due to their wartime experiences.

My experience says that Toyota (and to a lesser extent Nissan) got in the door because of a shortage of Landrovers - Rover was unable to meet demand until the mid seventies. Australia's quota was taken up almost entirely by the army for months at a time during this period.

Having got in the door, the Japs took Landrover's principal market (primary production, government and industry), mainly because they provided a slightly larger payload and more tray capacity, and because a better power/weight gave higher on-road speeds. In the early-mid sixties, I was working on exploration crews as the company changed from Landrovers to Inters and then Toyotas from 1965 (and the drivers were the harshest I have ever seen on vehicles!). But it was not until 1969 that I first actually encountered a broken axle in a Landrover, and my first encounter with a broken diff was in the 1990s. The company did keep a pair of rear axles on hand though - I borrowed them for my trip through the centre in my Series 2 in 1964 (only problem on that trip was a broken capillary on the temperature gauge (aftermarket) and one flat tyre - from a nail).

John