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Drivetrain Ratios

Table comparing overall ratios in Series Land Rover drivetrains.

• Gearboxes SeriesII/IIA from 1958 to end of Suffix "B" in Sept.1963

• Gearboxes Series IIA from start of Suffix "C" to end of Series IIA.

• All Series III gearboxes (but not the full time 4WD Stage 1 V8)
  
  Some notes

       Notes

• I needed to decide on which gearbox to rebuild. When looking up various Series Land Rover manuals I discovered that there were strange misprints and arithmetic errors in the figures given for gearbox ratios and overall drivetrain ratios in each gear. After looking back through older manuals I could only surmise that the mistakes had first appeared in the official factory publication and have been perpetuated ever since by various other publishers. Look up your Haynes manual and see if I am not right. I can't be the first person to notice this but the same old errors persist. The table above has been recalculated and is correct.

• When purchasing parts for your gearbox, be sure to deal with a knowledgeable and reputable parts supplier and always quote your gearbox serial number.

• The "A" gearbox ran from the introduction of Series II in 1958 up to September1962, some eleven months after the introduction of the IIA. It can be distinguished by the presence of an oil dipstick and a top filler/breather cap in top cover held down by a spring clip. It also had a 1 1/8 inch intermediate gear shaft in the transfer case.

• The "B" gearbox saw the deletion of the dipstick and the filler cap, replaced by a combined filler-level plug on the left hand side of casing. The transfer case intermediate gear shaft was beefed up by a full 1/2 inch to 1 5/8 inches.

• All three gearbox ratio sets produce the same overall ratio in Hi-range fourth gear.

• All have a very similar overall ratio in Lo-range first gear. The gearbox up to end of suffix "B" has generally closer gear ratios than the later ones. Wider ratio gears introduced in the "C" gearbox, September 1963,  two years into Series IIA.

• The "C" gearbox brought in a lower first gear in Hi-range. At the same time, the Lo-range transfer ratio was raised for suffix "C", probably to avoid having a ridiculously low Lo-range first gear.
  
• If you really wanted a Lo-range crawler gear you could try attaching a "B" transfer case to a "C" or later gearbox. I have not tried this but I see no reason why it would not work. It could be best to use a "B" transfer case with the beefed up intermediate shaft for this rather than the earlier "A".

• So far as I know, any later suffixes than "C" covered detail changes to bell housing, layshaft etc with no changes in gear ratios to end of Series IIA in late 1971.

• The all synchro Series III gearbox is quite similar in ratios to the IIA "C" and later gearbox except that reverse gear was lowered substantially for the Series III.

This page last updated Sunday, 08 August 1999 14:16

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