Range Rover Classic - Transmission

Transmission

The Range Rover used permanent four-wheel drive, rather than the switchable rear-wheel/four-wheel drive on Land Rover's Series vehicles, and had a lever for switching ratios on the transfer box for off-road use. Originally, the only gearbox available was a four-speed manual unit (with an optional Fairey overdrive after 1977). A three-speed Chrysler automatic gearbox became an option in 1982, which was upgraded to a 4-speed ZF box in 1985, coupled to an LT230 transfer box. The other major transmission upgrade in the Range Rover's lifetime was the switch from the LT95 combined four-speed manual gearbox and transfer box to the LT77 five-speed gearbox and separate LT230 transfer box in 1983. The LT230 was later used on both the Defender and Discovery models, but was replaced on the Range Rover by a Borg Warner chain-driven transfer box incorporating an automatic viscous coupling limited slip differential - earlier transmissions had a manual diff lock (operated by a vacuum servo on the LT95 and mechanically on the LT230). The LT77 had two major design changes: first an upgrade to larger bearings for the layshaft and new ratios around 1988, then a newly designed synchro hub for third and fourth gear and double sunchros for first and second. This is also known as the suffix H gearbox or LT77s.

In 1995, both 300 tdi and V8 Range Rovers were fitted with an R380 gearbox which is identical to those in the same generation of the Discovery. The same gearbox was later fitted to the P38 model The r380 comes this full synchronization even for the reverse gear.