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Series Land Rovers, Options

Hubs

There were several types of freewheeling hubs fitted to Land Rovers through the fifties sixties and seventies. One of the most common was the Warn Lock-O-Matic freewheeling hubs.

James Howard attempts a fuel mileage comparison with and without hubs locked up:

In order to fulfill an assignment in my Statistical Design of Experiments
class, I investigated this very point on my old Series III 88.  I decided to
get fuel every day on my way to work, and randomly selected which days I
would lock the hubs for, and which days I would unlock them.  I planned to
get 15 observations of each for a total of 30.  Unfortunately we had a big
snowstorm one week which shut off access to work for 7 days, so I was only
able to get 13 locked and 10 unlocked measurements.

I got 13.7 +/- 0.8 Miles per US gallon with locked hubs, and 14.8 +/- 1.0
mpg for unlocked hubs.  In other words, I could not tell the difference.  My
notes for the next experiment (which I never got around to doing) stated
that if I wanted +/- 0.5 mpg resolution, I would need 74 observations, or a
more accurate way of measuring fuel consumption .

Making these measurements was a pain in the hiney.  I had to start the Rover
in the morning, and drive 300 ft up the street to the Mobil station.  I had
to use the same pump every time, so if someone else was there, I had to
wait.  I then pumped a little less than 2 gallons into my tank, and
consulted my log to see whether to lock or unlock the hubs or not.  Despite
using the same pump each time, there was a lot of variability in how full I
got the fuel tank each time.  I then drove 11 miles to work, and then 11
miles back.  I was not allowed to deviate from my route, which made it hard
to stop at the grocery store on the way home.  After doing this for over a
month, I was sick of it.

 

   
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