TD5 8HP adapter kit

TD5 8HP adapter kit

This kit keeps the Defender TD5 engine and puts a Discovery 4 ZF 8 speed automatic behind it in place of the factory TD5 gearbox.

It is a true bolt in replacement: no cutting, welding or modification to the chassis or drivetrain. The front adapter plate and rear adapter housing are CNC machined from billet aluminium, the adapter shaft is 300M heat treated steel, and the flexplate adapter converts the three bolt TD5 pattern to the four bolt Discovery 4 converter pattern.

A TD5 8HP conversion kit for people who like their TD5

Most of what gets written about Defenders assumes the engine is the problem. Often it is not. A healthy TD5 is an engine plenty of owners have no wish to remove, and the actual complaint is the gearbox: the ratios, the cruising, what it is like towing, what a long motorway journey does to you.

This kit answers that complaint and nothing else. The engine stays, its wiring stays, its fuelling stays, and the job is contained to the bellhousing backwards. That makes it a fundamentally smaller and cheaper project than an engine swap, and a much easier one to reverse or explain to a buyer later. If the engine is the thing you actually want to change, the Defender M57 8HP conversion kit is the right page, not this one.

Where the engineering is

Three parts do the work. The front billet plate and the rear billet housing carry the gearbox in line with a crankshaft it was never designed to sit behind. The 300M heat treated shaft carries the drive between them. And the flexplate adapter deals with the detail that makes this a machining job rather than a bolt kit: the TD5 flywheel pattern is three bolt and the Discovery 4 torque converter is four bolt, so something has to translate between them accurately enough that the assembly runs true.

If you would rather not go hunting for a gearbox, we can supply the Discovery 4 ZF 8HP itself alongside the adapter, with a plug and play transmission loom, for a further €1,000.

What’s Included

• Front CNC billet aluminium adapter plate
• Flexplate adapter (3 bolt TD5 to 4 bolt Discovery 4 converter pattern)
• Rear CNC billet aluminium adapter housing
• 300M heat treated adapter shaft
• Complete bolt kit
• Installation documentation

Optional Extras

• Discovery 4 ZF 8HP automatic transmission (+€1,000)
• Plug and play gearbox wiring package (+€1,000 when purchased with gearbox)

Direct Fit

• Land Rover Defender 90 TD5
• Land Rover Defender 110 TD5
• Land Rover Defender 130 TD5

The other end of the gearbox

This is the single most important thing on the page for anyone pricing the job. The kit adapts the TD5 to the 8HP. It contains nothing for the back of the gearbox, where the 8HP still has to meet the transfer case. Our 6HP and 8HP to LT230 adapter is the part that covers that join, with its own housing, input gear and hardware.

Budget for both ends, and tell us what your build already has so we can confirm which parts you still need rather than leaving you to find out mid assembly.

Before you order

Decide whether you are sourcing the gearbox yourself or taking the optional extras above, since that changes the total considerably. Confirm which Defender you have against the Direct Fit list, and be sure the TD5 is genuinely staying: this kit only makes sense if it is.

Or let us do the work: book a drive in, drive out conversion, 12.000€

Land Rover Defender M57 8HP Conversion Kit