mk1-forum.net

hi all,
having a chat with a friend the other day ,and he mentioned a 4 wheel drive mini engine made by leyland as a prototype ,,where the power was also transmitted to a rear axle .has anyone got any pics or info on this gearbox ?

thanks
robert.

Hi Robert,

the car was called the "Ant" and was a military prototype.

later S/T cannibalized one of the prototypes, and made a 1275GT 4 wheel drive, for racing.

This car has survived, and you san see colour pictures on the back of every copy of Mini Cooper Registre,s magazine.


Jens Christian

The 4x4 mini was more than a prototype. There was a batch of 4x4 moke built for the Chilean army and there was one left in the Adbingdon factory. It was used for pulling MGs that wouldn't start of the line. It was then grabbed by the comp dept one monday morning and built into the 4x4 clubman mini in a week.

thanks chaps , you wouldnt happen to have any links to pictures would you ?

One of the Mini mags did an article on the Ant that was at the 1st Downton reunion.Its a superb car and the owner is a very interesting guy to chat with

Have a search for "quadra moke" - there's a aussie website with some detail pictures of the gearbox.

Basically a crwon wheel with a RWD-ish second set of teeth on it's side, and a diff cover with output shaft, a driveshaft to the rear, a hand/ccable operated clutch to engage 4WD and a specially made rear diffwith spacially made rear trailing arms & transverse leaf spring.

The 4x4 clubby used rubber cone suspension, though. But the rubbers were mounted upright like on the front if memory serves me right.

I'll dig out the pictures, have some stored on my PC...

Regards,
Jan

PS: have you ever though about a longitudinally mounted transverse A-Series behind the backseat and running the drive-shafts to a differential on the front & rear? Would have the advantage of a center diff, something that's been missing from the Moke & Clubby

JanWulf wrote:
Regards,
Jan

PS: have you ever though about a longitudinally mounted transverse A-Series behind the backseat and running the drive-shafts to a differential on the front & rear? Would have the advantage of a center diff, something that's been missing from the Moke & Clubby

Yes, but the real problem is that the final drive effectively requires a 1:1 reduction to gear the overall gearing anywhere near correct and that is difficult with the gear centres being fixed on a mini final drive.

1971 Special Tuning 4x4 Mini
Built in 9 days to compete with the 4WD 3 litre Ford Capris in televised Rallycross series
4WD system taken from Ant (used to tow cars from the MG line at Abingdon)
1293cc with aluminium cross flow head using Amal carbs developing 124bhp
http://www.delius.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/ ... efault.htm

The gearbox in the Quadra Moke (as well as the factory 4wd Moke prototypes) is different from that of the Ant which included a transfer gearcase. The Ant gearbox is a lot bigger and the steering rack passes through it.

There are pictures of an Ant power unit here: http://www.austinmemories.com/page48/page48.html

Tim

coop12g295 wrote:
One of the Mini mags did an article on the Ant

I am shure the 4x4 1275GT had a feature aswell ? or ?

JanWulf wrote:Have a search for "quadra moke" - there's a aussie website with some detail pictures of the gearbox.

Basically a crwon wheel with a RWD-ish second set of teeth on it's side, and a diff cover with output shaft, a driveshaft to the rear, a hand/ccable operated clutch to engage 4WD and a specially made rear diffwith spacially made rear trailing arms & transverse leaf spring.

The 4x4 clubby used rubber cone suspension, though. But the rubbers were mounted upright like on the front if memory serves me right.

I'll dig out the pictures, have some stored on my PC...

Regards,
Jan


PS: have you ever though about a longitudinally mounted transverse A-Series behind the backseat and running the drive-shafts to a differential on the front & rear? Would have the advantage of a center diff, something that's been missing from the Moke & Clubby

thanks jan , i had just about worked out that was how it was done ,and was wondering about how easy it would be to machine straight cut teeth into the side of a diff ,then mount a huge gear in the back case to give a good ratio , i think 1.5:1 may be possible . i'll hae a look for quadra , i found ant moke with one pic , i think its also possible theres an example at gaydon museum which is only 60 ,miles from me .

regards
robert.

re longtitudinal mount....yes but intermediate reduction gear might be needed for each prop so it can be used with a reasonably available diff ?

Theres an Ant at Gaydon.The engine/box is leant back to allow drive to go to the tranfer box,I think their fwd moke is a twini

Tim wrote:The gearbox in the Quadra Moke (as well as the factory 4wd Moke prototypes) is different from that of the Ant which included a transfer gearcase. The Ant gearbox is a lot bigger and the steering rack passes through it.

There are pictures of an Ant power unit here: http://www.austinmemories.com/page48/page48.html

Tim

thanks tim ,thats saved me a trip

[quote="robert"thanks jan , i had just about worked out that was how it was done ,and was wondering about how easy it would be to machine straight cut teeth into the side of a diff ,then mount a huge gear in the back case to give a good ratio , i think 1.5:1 may be possible . i'll hae a look for quadra , i found ant moke with one pic , i think its also possible theres an example at gaydon museum which is only 60 ,miles from me .

regards
robert.

re longtitudinal mount....yes but intermediate reduction gear might be needed for each prop so it can be used with a reasonably available diff ?[/quote]

Found the pictures from the 'Quadra' Moke, I hope it's ok if post them here...




















And the 4x4 Clubman. I think those pictures had been posted in the old Mk1 forum, again I hope it's OK if I post them again:










Longitudinal mount: unless you come up with a sort of 1:1 drive - might be easy with a simple chain - or you find a very long front/rear diff. All theory. But interssting to phantasise about

Regards,
Jan

thats great ,thank you jan.
i spent a fair while trying to get these pics from a site ,but all i could get was a red x !
this one



is the most interesting to me , it looks as if they have taken a crownwheel from a normal diff ,and fixed it into a recess machined in a mini diff wheel ,i can't see how its fixed ,and i wonder if out there somewhere there are pics of the pinion and case .

thanks again

regards
robert

The Moke photos above show (at least) two different cars. The Quadra is the one that has the transverse leaf spring (from a Triumph Herald) it was built by an individual from South Australia. The white car looks like one of the Australian factory prototypes. It has a modified factory subframe which uses front suspension trumpets with the rubber cones moved forwards so that the drive shafts pass through behind them. It used modified 13" wheel Moke trailing arms, which are a couple of inches longer than Mini ones.

Tim

After reading this very interesting thread I now regret not following up a lead / offer of an A series gearbox which had been built for 4 WD.
I think it came out of an Austin Ant, but seeing as it was about 24 years ago I can't be sure.
Ah well, win some, lose some.

I have a scanned copy (two pages with photos) of an article on the Ants in NZ by a New Zealand magazine. I can't figure how to post them here but I could forward them to someone that can. Let me know. Two Ants ended up here, one still survives and is in pretty good condition. I remember seeing the one shown in the article when it was new and we used to refer to it as a 4WD Moke, quite incorrect as we know now.

Regards
Al

Hi 66S, pm sent

Does anyone know how many Ants have survived? One in NZ (referred to by 66S), one in the Gaydon museum, another cream one in the UK (pics seen on flikr), I've seen a picture of one in Japan, heard of another in Oz, and two here in SA

Replied, need an e-mail address.

Regards
Al