Club 80-90 Forums

Off to france for a 9 day tour, not going off road,

is it worth dropping the prop?

how easy is it to drop?

have had nine off for the past couple of weeks, dose make it a different van to drive, parking and low speed driving are a bit easyer (lighter). only takes a few mins well 20min 8 nuts and bolts. to drop it, cant see me puting it back on untill syncropendence.

neil

depends on how tight the VC is really.. if it gets a bit tight, then worth doing to save straining the rest of the drivetrain..

Mine is normally off, my VC is stiff, wont be going back on until next offroading/Syncropendance....

eight bolts and nuts. easy enough to do... but need to get a front a rear wheel off the ground if prop bars are still on as access can be limited.. need 2x good quality open end 13mm spanners, 1 preff a stubby/short as that helps access too..

To get the prop out once bolts undone, lever the front diff forwards a few mm, prop drops out... dont let it hit the floor though... (or your head)

Wont make your MPG any different though.

Neil said to me that he is getting an extra 30-40 miles from a tank with his prop off
Goes against common sense I know. I always thought that "pushing" an idle front diff was just as inefficient as driving one, but it would seem not. Or is this a symptom of drivetrain wind-up due to a tight VC?
Fwiw, we had a Suzuki SJ years ago and it was much easier to drive and a damn sight perkier in 2WD than 4.
Here we go again...

I can only speak from my own experience of two trips to Corsica in consecutive years first with the prop out and the second with the prop in with a new VC and getting a .01mpg improvement in mpg over 3000 miles with the prop in. Was done brim to brim and on similar routes. It was not what i was expecting to see but that was what I got. Think the data was put in the WIKi somewhere.