Disk brakes for Volvo portals?

[DaveS3]

Hey Dave.... pity i dont have a surf hey

arrrghh...shizen

its still a toy though!

[ozhumvee]

No probs with the heat on the drop hubs, the ones on my Humvee hardly even get warm after hours running at highway speeds. They hold less than a litre of oil, 5-600 mls from memory. Straight gears too, 2-1 reduction.
Peter

[daddylonglegs]

Someone told me recently that Unimog axles were actually speed rated to about 90kmh. I wonder if that is because they use helical gears that generate more heat than straight cuts. my home made portals don't get above ambient temperature regardless of whether I am doing extended periods of off road crawling , stop/start traffic or highway work, so i am considering sealing them off from the differentials and running them in around 500ml of oil too.
By the way Peter, do you have any experiences with your Humvee that would be pertinent to my thread on VEHICLE STABILITY OFF ROAD. in the General Tech Discussion forum? Regards Bill.

[ozhumvee]

Bill I made a few comments in the thread, basically the answer is no it doesn't seem to be affected by torque twisting the vehicle.
the combined effect of very low C of G, independant suspension all round, drop hubs (drive shafts rotate in opposite direction), diffs mounted solidly to chassis and wide track seem to cancel it out.

Peter

[WJM]

Someone told me recently that Unimog axles were actually speed rated to about 90kmh. I wonder if that is because they use helical gears that generate more heat than straight cuts. my home made portals don't get above ambient temperature regardless of whether I am doing extended periods of off road crawling , stop/start traffic or highway work, so i am considering sealing them off from the differentials and running them in around 500ml of oil too.
By the way Peter, do you have any experiences with your Humvee that would be pertinent to my thread on VEHICLE STABILITY OFF ROAD. in the General Tech Discussion forum? Regards Bill.

In Dakar, even combined support/competition Unimog's do 160km/h....)
(that's with tuning & blue-printed engines though....but the bottleneck is still the driver, without a tough bodybuilding training he goes nowhere at that speed....)

[daddylonglegs]

Yes Wjm , But I guess that the Dakar Vehicles they are much later and larger model Unimogs than the 404's and 421's that have the size and type of axle many of us would consider using in our Rovers, Cruisers, Nissans etc.
BTW, If you are interested most of the action on portal axles on this site can be found on the Rover forum.Just go back a few pages.
Regards Bill

[Catweazle]

Where could I Buy Portal Axles?

CW

[ptl]

Hi,

Where could I Buy Portal Axles?

That's not difficult, since I've managed to do that...

A friend of mine has a wild plan, that includes BMW V12 engine and volvo portals, he just bought a C306. H ehas an idea of modifying the volvo drive shaft (see part #16: http://stiletti.wipsl.com/Volvo%20C303/Volvo3.jpg ) to be suitable for toyo (HJ60) discs, the discs are cheap, and the other brake pads are not that expensive either.

So there seemd to be a fairly easy DYI disc brake plan, let's see how it goes, he has 2 extra drive shafts for testing...

If/when the project makes some progress, I'll send an update. Needless to say that I'm more than interested in it myself, too, the drum brakes <enter here your worst language>.

-Paavo

[Nev62]

Someone told me recently that Unimog axles were actually speed rated to about 90kmh.

I've driven a few different Mogs in the past. With knee pushing on the hand throttle and foot to the floor, speeds between 85 and 95 could be maintained (this was in the middile of summer in the NT). It didnt seem to adversly effect the vechicles.

N.A.M. Where's the up date, still waiting

[daddylonglegs]

Anyone with a bit of mechanical knowledge can adapt disc brakes to Volvo axles. The difficult part is making the conversion comply with the registration departments requirements re track width and welding or drilling axle flanges. USA is ok as they dont seem to have too many restrictions, but in most states af OZ we do and I have not been able to work out a legal way of doing Volvos.
Bill.

[-Scott-]

Bill

I thought that once you swap axles your vehicle is permitted to use the track of the vehicle from which the donor axle came? Then you're permitted an extra 50mm (for beam axles) which gives some lattitude for wheel offset. Admittedly you could end up with some ridiculous flares...

Or I could be wrong - again...

Cheers,

Scott

[ISUZUROVER]

Bill

I thought that once you swap axles your vehicle is permitted to use the track of the vehicle from which the donor axle came? Then you're permitted an extra 50mm (for beam axles) which gives some lattitude for wheel offset. Admittedly you could end up with some ridiculous flares...

Or I could be wrong - again...

Cheers,

Scott

As I understand the rules this should be true, but the stock volvo rims have 100% negative offset, so they aren't all that wide a track.

[RMP&O]

This is an old post I know....but if you want to see an MK Patrol with Volvo portals and disc brakes check here,

http://groups.msn.com/NissanPatrolClubA ... snw?Page=3

Looks to be well done and man the portals sure did make the Patrol into a mean truck.

[wilsby]

Looks good! And in Finland, not too far away from here.

Do you know what parts he used? I looks like he widened some Volvo rims, but the naked disks do not have eight lugs?

[ptl]

Hi,

more info & pics here (but in finnish...):
http://www.petrisimolin.com/Thepalsta/t ... C_ID=23935

There are several parallel "task forces" in Finland to make disc brakes for volvo portals, this is "just" one, but perhaps one with most progress. Toyo discs + patrol calipers and 6-bolt wheels.

I'm looking forward for the version where original volvo axle parts are not modified at all (I have a few sets of volvo rims), the disc is attached under te wheel bolts (longer ones perhaps needed), and the caliper support should be bolted on the same place where the original drum brake "back plate" (where the brake cylinders are) is. Toyo HJ6x front brake parts is the primary plan (4-piston calipers + cooled discs) for front and rear, but this is not sure yet.

-Paavo