Thread: Power Steering Swap

Hi ya'll,

The Gemmer (6 bolt) power steering box in my 1986 County is leaking (surprise surprise) and has just failed a warrant so the truck is now off the road until it's fixed. It's been fixed twice before (several years ago) so I'm thinking rather than reconditioning it yet again, I'll just score a later model Adwest (4 bolt) from a Discovery and swap them. A couple of searches via google etc tells me that it appears doable as the fittings are the same (I believe the 3 bolt Adwest is a little harder as it's imperial threaded).

The problem is, the Adwest 4 bolt looks to sit taller above the chassis rail than the Gemmer and there doesn't seem to be lot of room between it and the timing cover of the 300Tdi that I've retrofitted into my truck (to replace the original V8).

There's no guarantee I got 300Tdi in exactly the same place/height as would be fitted by the factory but I can't imagine it's that far out.

Does anyone have any experiences swapping these boxes and/or could tell me whether I am likely to have a problem fitting it? Maybe even if someone even could take a photo of an Adwest fitting in a Defender with a 300Tdi maybe I could eyeball what problems I might have with clearance.

Cheers, LandieMan

Hi Landieman,

I have replaced a Gemmer with an Adwest four bolt on my 1984 110. I don't have a 300 in it but an LD28 so cannot say whether it will be close or not. Eyeballing a ruler from the top of the chassis rail to the top of the adjuster (far left on the edge of the photo) on the top of the Adwest, it is approximately 140mm.



If I can assist with horizontal measurements let me know and I can try.

Cheers,

Phil