I have refit the original type of front casing to my Roverdrive, having suffered two broken new style casings. Â The design was changed to have three milled voids to increase oil flow through the main bearing, but I found the remaining lugs that centralise the overdrive on the transfer box too weak, the upper left lug breaking off under the tangential loads when the unit is put under high loads.
Martin Hogan of Rocky Mountain Spares, the UK supplier, says that he has not heard of anyone else having the problem, but given that it has happened to me twice, I can only speculate that it may be due to me having such a heavy vehicle and also using 3.54 diffs and a Tdi engine, a combined result of a lot of torque and a lot of resistance to it.
Martin was extremely helpful in sourcing  and supplying the original design casing.  I’ll refit the overdrive at a convenient point, once I have done something about the rattly rose joints on the selector link rod.  Because its oil will be shared less readily with the transfer box and will likely run a little warmer, I’ll use synthetic oil to cope with the higher temperature.
The photos show the difference between the two case designs.  You’ll see the small nature of the upper lugs on the newer type, and if you look closely you’ll see how one broke off.  The  photo shows the continuous ring for locating the older overdrive case centrally on the transfer box in a much more resilient way.
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