Oil for Ferret Fluid Coupling?

[Robin Craig]

Honestly, pulling the gearbox off the engine and thereby allowing you to remove fluid flywheel is a relatively easy job especially when you consider you are dealing with Mk1 vehicles and have a decent shop and overhead lifting abilities.

You are making more problems for yourself if you don't in my humble opinion.

I fear what is happening is Aquino is looming large on the horizon and the pressure is to deliver a running vehicle.

There are a few cheats to allow you to skip a few steps but honestly if you don't know when the fluid flywheel was last rebuilt then you have no idea when the seal was replaced. I think you are better to start from a known point and move forward with a trouble free vehicle for years to come.

I know you may feel it is easy for me to sit at this vantage point and pontificate but honestly if you want a smooth fluid flywheel its worth the extra effort.

I know when I get mine back together it will be one area I will have no concern over.

Robin

[LRDG]

Originally Posted by Robin Craig

Honestly, pulling the gearbox off the engine and thereby allowing you to remove fluid flywheel is a relatively easy job especially when you consider you are dealing with Mk1 vehicles and have a decent shop and overhead lifting abilities.

You are making more problems for yourself if you don't in my humble opinion.

I fear what is happening is Aquino is looming large on the horizon and the pressure is to deliver a running vehicle.

There are a few cheats to allow you to skip a few steps but honestly if you don't know when the fluid flywheel was last rebuilt then you have no idea when the seal was replaced. I think you are better to start from a known point and move forward with a trouble free vehicle for years to come.

I know you may feel it is easy for me to sit at this vantage point and pontificate but honestly if you want a smooth fluid flywheel its worth the extra effort.

I know when I get mine back together it will be one area I will have no concern over.

Robin

Robin,
It's a big job pulling the gearbox even with our good facilities (we just installed a hoist!) and I have so many other things to fix. I'll leave that for a winter project.

I'm going to try 3 or 4 suck-outs and refills with ISO 10 oil. That should get me down to the ISO 15-20 range. I'll see what difference that makes.

By the way, where do you get your spare parts from? Any Canadian sources?

Malcolm

[Robin Craig]

Dear Malcolm,

I understand and accept why you are doing it the way you are, enough said mate.

I hold my own spare parts supply as I have elected to sacrifice my second vehicle as the long term spares for the first. I might trade with you guys, we can do that privately off the forum.

As far as spares being sourced locally, I sourced all the parts for my gearbox rebuild from this side of the pond, seals and bearings just by matching OD / ID / Height and style. We made our own gaskets etc and used industry accepted sealants of an equivalent quality.

I need a garage stood before I can go further.

Things like brake shoes I will have relined if I need to when I get there. I am having a Land Rover master cylinder stainless (for work's vehicle collection) sleeved at John Stuart Power Brake in Ontario. There is a lot more that can be done without UK sourcing than people imagine.

Glad to hear your making progress.

I am actually a member of the Ferret Club in case you didn't know!

Regards

Robin

[Robin Craig]

Malcolm,

as far as the transfer case change, of all the different Ferrets I have driven, I think it is 9 in total now, the change has always been done in neutral.

What I have found is that it does have to be a swift movement made with purpose.

I would say about one in 100 times it doesn't happen corrrectly and a shut down of the engine enables the change to be made.

I have not proved it but I always have suspected that the failed changes are because the vehicle has been allowed to roll back or forwards ever so minutely while the change is being made and something is now out of alignment.

To counter that I always have my foot on the brake during changes.

Robin

[LRDG]

To follow up with this thread, I drained the ATF from the fluid coupling and replaced it with ISO 10 hydraulic oil. The results were disappointing. It is still impossible to change into forward or reverse with neutral engaged. The only difference I noticed with the thinner oil was that the rpm drop when a gear is engaged from neutral (with the transfer case already in forward or reverse) is not so large.

What puzzles me is the old hands here who have been driving these Ferrets since we got them circa 1980 tell me they have always had to select forward/reverse with first gear engaged. It won't work in neutral.

Since my thinner oil experiment didn't work, I can only see two reasons the transfer case input shaft is rotating too fast in neutral to prevent forward/reverse from being selected - the fluid coupling is binding for some other reason than oil, or a band in the gearbox is a bit tight and partially engaging a high gear when in neutral.