Leyland P76 Owners 2003

Technical information

T700 Auto box

Comments between Ted A.S.R. and Chris Dubbo

----- Original Message -----
From: The Ryans
To: Ted roett@tpg.com.au
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2003 5:51 PM
Subject: T700 into a P76
G'day
Let me first say that I am a fan of yours and a long time reader of ASR magazine.
I am also a member of an informal online P76 forum moderated by Adrian, the Publicity Officer of the Leyland P76 Owners Club of Queensland.
National web site http://www.leylandp76.com/index.html
Peter Hall posted a question regarding fitting a T700 into a P76 and I advised him that I saw an interesting series of articles in Technical Workshop section written by you.
I advised him to contact ASR in regard to obtaining a copy. He did this and has advised me that they were not able to identify the articles.
I seek your permission to copy the articles and post them several of the members who are interested (with due acknowledgments to you and ASR, and the ASR web site details, of course).
I would only post on the forum details of which magazine issues the articles can be found in.
Larry is OK with it but advised that I seek your approval.
On another note.
The articles on EFI prompted me to investigate the Megasquirt and I now have a kit through the Australian group moderated by Stewart Ford at http://au.groups.yahoo.com/group/oz_ms
I have purchased VK EFI 3.3 motor and intend installing it all into my Bedford CFL van I will let you know how I get on.
Regards
Chris Ryan DUBBO
From: The Ryans
To: Ted
Sent: Monday, July 28, 2003 9:09 AM
Subject: Fw: T700 into a P76
G'day
Further to my previous email. The articles I would like to send are in ASR issues 126,127,140, and 147. When is your book due out as it would be of great interest?
I have heard of V6 Commodores starting to throwing rods. Locally one
Sold the other day for $400 because it had a hole in the side of the block. It would be a cheap way to get a T700.
Regards
Chris Ryan
Subject: Re: T700 into a P76
Chris [and Peter]
Thank you for advising the actual issue numbers involved. I have been busy with deadlines and not able to research the issues myself.
Just in case you are not aware I do not work at/for Graffiti Publications and have to fit this stuff in with 2 other casual jobs. As such corresponding with me takes patience because I must do first what pays the bills.
Mentioning either Willys or P76 tends to get e-mails to the top of the pending file so you are first cab of the rank today :-)
I have no problem with you either referring to or reproducing in total any of my P76 related TWS columns with the Editors usual proviso of giving credit to the author and reference to Australian Street Rodding magazine and the particular issue involved.
I have been privileged to be able to promote this great vehicle through my column and if it has encouraged one person to get into P76's, or to retain one in the face of derision, then it has been worthwhile. If not then at least I have had a good time stirring up the Ford/Holden/Chev crowd.
Regards the T700 to P76 article it doesn't exist in magazine form, and is still in the draft stage for the T700 book, which won't be out until late this year.
I have a note that the Rover Centre has T700 to Rover and P76 V8 kits
But have not checked the conversion out to see if it is better/easier than the designed for off-road Rover applications CRS parts I used.
The T700R4 is the best single improvement a Leyland owner can do to his P76 -period!
The lower first gear gives greater acceleration off the mark and with
converter clutch locked up and cruising along in overdrive the drivetrain is so quiet that it is easy to coast up to 120/130/140k's without realising it.
I still run the stock 2.9 diff as the low 1st gear still gives
Increased acceleration over the BW35 and when towing a loaded tandem trailer I just leave it in 3rd unless on the flat. My original intent was to install a 6cyl. 3.9 diff thinking the 2.9 would be too high but never got around to it as the 2.9 turned out to suit my driving style. Anyone with a hot cam would need the 3.9 diff or a higher stall converter [which would undo some of the efficiency gains of installing a T700]. VL Commode 3.45 diff gears would be a great all round compromise.
$400 is not cheap for a V6 T700. If the V6 engine it was behind threw a rod then an educated guess would be that the dickhead was doing burn outs and the condition of the trans would be suspect making it worth more like $100.
Keep in mind that the Commodore V6 uses a different bell housing bolt
Pattern [a narrow a frame shape] than the V8 version, which uses the common Chev V8 and late Holden V8 bolt pattern. Confusing the issue is that Chev also made V6 engines and these used the SBC V8 bolt pattern. The Commodore V6 uses the BOC [Buick/Olds/Cadillac] bolt pattern normally associated with GM front wheel drives engines.
However the Commodore V6 trans is a good cheap source of hard parts for use to upgrade an earlier Chev V8 T700 [best from 1987] or to use in rebuilding a blown up VN V8 T700. The Commodore V6 transmission is the same internally as the V8 version except for the input shaft which was redesigned to suit the smaller torque converter. Even the later V6 4L60E [computer controlled shifting solenoids inside] transmissions are a good source of upgrade 'hard' parts [basically all the stuff that rotates] to rebuild an earlier V8, or V6, T700 version.
A Commodore V6 adapted to a VK 3.3L [either Wholesale Automatics or CRS kit] would be ideal for a CFL Bedford van especially if the stock diff ratio is still under it.
I couldn't get all of the pages of your site to open the other night
But from what I saw it is interesting and does a good job of promoting the marque. I noted in the distributor upgrade section no mention of using the Buick 350 V8 HEI distributor. Not readily available out here but go for U$25 when I brought mine in a pick a part in LA nearly 10 years ago. Have seen the odd one at swap meets here when owners have replaced them with points type Mallorys!!!!! Wouldn't be too hard to latch onto a Yank and get them to mail one over then use locally available SBC V8 HEI parts to reco it. For
one installation I used a Buick V6 HEI that no one wanted [i.e. cheap
the way I like it] and used SBC V8 parts to convert it to V8 configuration.
Buick V6 housing is same size/length/height as the Buick V8 and drops
straight into the P76 engine save for some grinding of the nearest
intake manifold bolt head for clearance.
My P76 V8 c/w T700 is getting very close to being retired due to the
Rust bug [not a complaint - it has outlasted many of the big 3] but the P76 connection will live on as my eldest son Troy enjoys a white V8. Please excuse me for replying to you both in the one email - time is tight.
Technically yours
Ted Robinette
--- graffiti wrote:
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:31:42 +1000
From: graffiti
To: Adrian
Subject: Re: Referrence material
Adrian,
I think the best idea would be to contact our Tech Editor Ted Robinette regarding the four speed auto conversion as it was
done on his own car.
His email address is as follows.
roett@tpg.com.au
Regards,
Larry O'Toole
Referrence material
Tue, 29 Jul 2003
Adrian
I replied to both Peter Hall and Chris Ryan this subject yesterday and have tacked it on below. I have not written any in depth material on the engine - more tried to give encouragement for the use of the engine and the ownership of the vehicle based on my experiences with 2 of them.
It reads like Chris has a complete set of ASR and is able to copy/scan the info for the site which will be much quicker than I would take as I won't be visiting the magazine in Castlemaine for a couple of weeks.
For fun I attached some pix of the P76 I drove from Melbourne to Lake in S.A. were it is the fastest officially timed P76 in the world
BLR
Ted Robinette
Last updated
April, 2009
This web site may contain Copyright material
If you find any problems with the site, please email the Web Editor