Hello from Rutland / Yorkshire

[22900013A]

I'm hoping that Rob will do a thread on it in the interesting vehicles section. The airdrive was basically a Landrover fitted with an on-board air compressor for powering equipment such as road breakers.

[maudie]

The Broom Wade or Air Drive was an approved conversion for Land Rover 109's. The conversion involved fitting a rotary type compressor powered by the centre PTO underneath the rear floor, therefore leaving the load area free from obstruction. Many other compressor conversions had a traditional thumper style compressor mounted in the rear load bay which obviously was less popular than the Broom Wade. IIRC the output of the compressor was 100cfm and was used for running Jack Hammers and other similar machinery. I have no idea how many were made but I think the production ran from about the early 60's to the late 70's. I know of a 63, 66, and a 70 model plus I have seen pics in the 'Special Conversion' documentation dating from the mid 70's. They were usually powered by the 2.25 Diesel engine and a larger radiator was fitted for static running. This larger radiator meant that the front grill was changed and moved forward and gave the Land Rover a very ugly appearance. The lights on pre headlight in wings 2a's were moved quite crudely to the wings similar to the rare 'bug eye' 2a. Some of the Broom Wades were also fitted with a Land Rover Hydraulic Winch. This was run off a Bottom PTO. The bumper was moved forward to accomodate the winch which must of made handling very interesting.

The thing is I have never seen two quite the same!

The attached photo is just one I found on the web. I will add some of the photos of mine a soon. Although very little remaining of the original conversion except the BPTO.

Regards Rob

[DasLandRoverMan]

Bottom PTO eh? I think I can see why you were bidding on it...

Still, cheap for the PTO, and you got a Land Rover wrapped round it...

[22900013A]

Although usually mounted on 109"s some where in fact made on 88" vehicles as well, but they are even rarer than the 109" conversions. I think someone on the series 2 club has one.

[101-mechanicals]

Either the H plate is wrong or that has an early tailgate...should be 2 bolt on an H reg.

(I'm really getting sad with the rivet-counting aren't I? Please help.)

Yep...