re-drilling the swivel balls

[slorocco]

Finally fired up the Cummins 4BT that's sitting between the frame rails on my 109 five door. Now it's on to the rest of the drive train.

I'm also going spring over at the same time. And will need to adjust the pinion angle accordingly.

Has anyone on this board use RoverTym for redrilling their swivel balls? Are you satisfied with the work. I was a bit concerned about the accuracy/tolerances.
I hope to post some pics of the project next weekend. Other things that are going in to this.

Cummins 4BT
SM420 Transmission
Divorced mounted LT230
Salisbury Axles Front and Rear
Spring over suspension with 88" rear springs on the front

[TDI Guy]

Lets see some pix

[130Tdi]

I have a friend who has the castor corrected swivel balls on his disco with 5 inches of lift and 35s. He said the truck drives great and tracks straight @ 75 mph. Kicked my 110 around pretty good @ Pearls Pond in June.....

[slorocco]

I'll try to get some pix up this week. It's torn down pretty far so there's not much to see as far as a finished product yet.

Doug, thanks for the feedback. I may try that. I'm considering two options, one is the castor corrected swivel balls the other is to re drill the flanges on the ends of the axle tubes. The second method would allow the use of stock swivels.

I have to laugh at the 75mph thing. With my drive train, this thing will be stump puller but it will probably never make it over 55mph.

[DEF110]

What is your drive train behind the Cummins 4BT? what sort of adapter are you using for trans?

[slorocco]

I found a 4BT that came out of a 1989 Chevy P30 stepvan. It already had the chevy adapter, flywheel, starter, and clutch.

The stock tranny behind it was an SM465 but that was gone. I'm using an SM420 that I already had laying around. It bolted right up.

The LT230 is divorced with a little stubby driveshaft running to it from the SM420. From there I'm running into salisbury series truck axles front and rear with stock 4.7:1 gearing.

[cellulararrest]

What is the difference/benefit to redrilling the swivel balls rather than getting corrected radius arms?

[junkyddog11]

What is the difference/benefit to redrilling the swivel balls rather than getting corrected radius arms?

Keeping a good pinion angle.

[slorocco]

What is the difference/benefit to redrilling the swivel balls rather than getting corrected radius arms?
The way I see it, using the radius arms maintains the angle/relationship between the pinion and the caster. Redrilling the swivel balls allows you to re-orient your pinion angle and then re-establish the correct caster angle.

[mikeslandrover]

What is the difference/benefit to redrilling the swivel balls rather than getting corrected radius arms?
Ah... I think we're talking leaf springs....109" is a series truck.
But I might be wrong :)

[ukoffroad]

did it with my 5" springs, drives normally again. Not sure about RTE since it sold, but Jordan was with Steve for a while so I assume the process is still the same.

[slorocco]

Yup, I talked to the new owners of RTE at the Mid Atlantic Rally. They still offer the service. I'm going to run them as is for now and see how it does. I've got the stock axle set in place with about 4 degrees of caster. The pinion is pointing lower than i want but I'll see how it does before I disassemble the front axle and have the swivel balls drilled.

I am running a leafer here with the axle moved to a spring over configuration with the springs bolted on top of the axle tubes instead of below. I figure that gave me about a 5.5" lift over stock.

This front Salisbury axle is interesting. It's a leafer axle with the 4.7:1 gearing but it's running CV joints instead of U-joints in the front axle shafts.

[mikeslandrover]

Could the axle be from a stage 1 v8?? They were permanent 4x4 but I can't remember the ratio.

[diesel_jim]

Could the axle be from a stage 1 v8?? They were permanent 4x4 but I can't remember the ratio.
the stage 1 V8 109" had 3.54:1 diffs (in the rear salisbury as well) and 11" export spec drum brakes on the front.
It also had tracta joints in the front axle, enabling the full time 4wd without any "kick back" through the steering wheel.

[mikeslandrover]

Couldn't remember but I suspected 3.54:1. Owned a stage 1 Sandringham Six for a while, it was a monster :eek:

[slorocco]

Well, I took it out on the trails for the first time this weekend. This cummins motor has some grunt! As for the front axle, I haven't pulled it apart to see what's really inside there but looking in the oil fill port, it looks like it's got a true CV joint as opposed to some of the other options.

I'm told there's a video posted on you tube at the following link. I'm at work and can't access it from here.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=turkey+run+2008+dryrock&search_type=&aq=f