Q.
I want to fit a centre power take-off (PTO) kit to drive a belt pulley on my 1952 80in. I can’t find much information on this, though I know centre PTOs were supposed to be an option. A friend has the right parts (I think), with a three-belt drive. They’re fitted to the back of the gearbox on his derelict Series IIA. I already have a centre PTO rear section (but not the bit with the knob, and no pulley) that I could use for parts if necessary.
Am I right in thinking the centre PTO from the IIA would bolt up to my 80in? The selector is different to that shown in my 80in parts catalogue, and it sticks up through a hole in the seatbox. Do I have to use this selector, or can I just use a standard item – if I can find one?
A.
Centre PTOs were available from very early in Land Rover production, and certainly from before your 1952 80in was made.
The complete kit is called ‘centre PTO’, but it sounds less confusing to call the top unit ‘selector’ and the rear unit ‘output’. The pulley simply bolts to the output’s drive flange, where a rear-PTO drive can also be bolted. You already have a rear output, but when you remove the kit from the Series IIA you may find it’s different. This is because when a three-belt pulley was fitted, a longer output unit was quite often specified to keep the pulley in the right position – quite close behind the handbrake drum (see below).
It depends what sort of pulley and how many belts are being driven, but if the usual three-belt pulley is fitted it’ll be with the longer output unit.
Often, a type of pulley is fitted that installs partly over the output in such a way that part of the output unit is inside the ‘hollow’ part of the pulley. This helps to balance sideways load on the bearings, and brings the pulley as far towards the front of the vehicle as possible (if positioned far rearwards, a lot of cutting is necessary to bring the belts upwards through the bodywork, but if the pulley is in the right place the belts will come up through the seatbox). But you’ll have to try it on your vehicle and see how it goes – specialist equipment manufacturers often specified their own pulleys, so one pulley isn’t necessarily the same as another.
Where only light work is required, a single pulley can be fitted, and for that the standard (short) PTO output can be used – the type that’s used to drive a rear PTO. In fact, a rear PTO driveshaft can be fitted together with a pulley, depending on specifications.
Will it fit on your 80in? As far as I’m aware, yes. Just be careful to collect all the bits – I’ve sometimes had to source parts from farmyard scrappers buried in mud or nettles, and found it useful to spend some time cutting down vegetation and sliding a sheet of white cardboard or plywood under the vehicle, which makes it easy to see and retrieve anything that falls off.
The selector you describe was a type introduced in the autumn of 1960 – though, strangely, the earlier types of selector were apparently still on offer in the mid-’60s.
The rod protruding through the seatbox is push-pull, and the selector shaft (the bit that would have a knob on it in earlier versions) has a ring end that’s pinned to a bar across the back, behind the selector. A pivot point is provided to the left side of this bar, so the selector’s rod is pushed in (forward) when you pull the seatbox rod. Apart from the selector rod itself, the selector unit is the same as any other, so you may well be able to make up an early-style selector knob and its little lever from an old transfer lever (the knob is the same). It would be best to make the curved-forward version, which keeps fingers away from belts (another reason to adapt the existing selector unit, since you’re unlikely to find one of the curved versions).
The standard three-belt pulley is cast steel, and the few I’ve come across have been rusty, so get an engineering shop to put the pulley in a lathe and skim the V-belt grooves slightly. If you don’t, the rough surfaces of the pulley will shred V-belts belts in no time.
Peter Galilee
