geoffbeaumont

Better offer than I was expecting - thought I'd get "Build your own bleedin' truck!" B) 'Fraid if I had that much money I'd have my own workshop and toys (though I very much doubt the end result would be even close to the same class).

That makes sense - you've turned the pressure up, so it's pumping too much fuel in at idle As Nige says, just turning up the pressure is unlikely to work - you're unlikely to be able to adjust the fuelling correctly across the board without changing the fuel map in the ECU.

Haven't you got an X-Crank emergency starter gadget? Hole in the lineup there, Simon! Seriously, bummer. Lousy way to finish the weekend. Heard you had EAS issues too?

In a word...WOW! Can I have one?

If fiddling with the fuelling fixes it for certain rev ranges, surely it's more likely that the ECU is trying to fuel a 3.5 and getting it horribly wrong? In which case your options would be to get the ECU reprogrammed or switch to an EFI system which was either designed for the engine capacity or easy to set up for it (an ECU off a 4.6 or Megasquirt being the obvious choices). If everything else is running fine I'd investigate the reprogramming option first, simply because it's likely to be the easiest - not necessarily the cheapest though.

Bit more productive than my efforts then I've added a few drops to the pool of knowledge on the Range Rover EAS system, but no major breakthroughs. I was hoping I could con it into pumping the suspension up even though it doesn't know the engine's running, but it seems when the workshop manual (and other internet sources) say that the ECU won't run the air compressor without the engine running this is the truth, nothing but the truth...but certainly not the whole truth. You can give it a tank full of air but it still doesn't want to play Plus for some reason the bypass I wired in for running the pump manually doesn't work if the ECU is plugged in - I was hoping that if I could get the pump to run without the engine the rest of the system, once supplied with air, would do its thing. The idea being that if I was stuck off road with a dead engine and deflated suspension I could raise the suspension using electrickery from another vehicle. No such luck. About all I managed all weekend was to inflate the suspension to get me around for now, and fit a new bonnet release.

We'll have to wait for the spy shots

It's a Range Rover...

I wonder how much how the cars are driven is a factor in these figures? For instance, Subaru Impreza I think topped it's class for casualties - is that because the car has poor accident protection or because they get driven, by and large, by wanabee Colin Macraes? Defenders, on the other hand, tend to encourage a more sedate and considered driving style...

...and here's why

I know we said it before, but if you're in to heads off territory and thinking about what else needs doing, timing gear - preferably can, tappets, maybe pushrods and rocker assemblies too, but definitely the timing gear. Trust me when I say it's not wise to ignore this advice...

Not sure why removing the head would help with getting the thread out? Presumably, if you have enough of the plug to suspect there are bits dropped off inside, there's a hole through the bit that's in the head - can you hammer somthing into that (say a large crosshead screwdriver or even better an torx or alan key bit) and use it to unscrew the plug? You might well find the missing bits are still attached when you get it out, which would save you a lot of hassle! Taking the head off isn't difficult, but you'll need to lay in new gaskets (head gasket, valley gasket, rocker cover gasket) and new head bolts (don't even think about reusing the old ones - a world of pain awaits you there - trust me on this one... ). Get the compound type head gaskets, not the older tin ones - a bit more expensive but much better. Might as well do the other head gasket too while you're in there. Expect it to take you a couple of days, as there's all the inlet and fuel injection kit to dismantle to get to it It is possible to just slacken off the inlet manifold and remove one head without dismantling everything else, but you're unlikely to get a decent seal on the valley gasket afterwards, so this is a bad idea. Only consider it if you absolutely have to get the job done and the car back on the road as quickly as possible, and reckon on spending next weekend stripping the rest of it down to fit a new valley gasket (and the other head gasket, while your at it). So try getting the rest of the plug out first...

Or the robhybrid version, made from an old dizzy drive gear (it was loose, so basically scrap) and a steel rod: Took Rob about two or three minutes with a drill press and angle grinder (to take the teeth off the gear so it didn't engage with the camshaft gear). Even cheaper and easier, but only if you happen to have a gash dizzy drive kicking around.

My vote would be that the difference is very likely to be in the ignition systems of the two vehicles - in my (admittedly relatively limited) experience it has by far the biggest effect of any single factor on the performance of the RV8.

It'll actually just be Quicktime that you need to update (think iTunes updates Quicktime too, because it uses it?).

Jonathan said he put his DVM on the tach feed from the new alternator when we were figuring out the wiring, and it was giving a pulsed output - so was I right and Ford are using a pulsed tacho signal where Land Rover were using the slightly wavy 6V DC that Simon described? If so, the easiest fix is probably going to be to by the right alternator for the vechicle...tacho I can live without, suspension I can't!

It was set up shortly before that, as an emergency refuge that was ready to go if LRE pulled the plug on us as they were threatening, but it wasn't really 'live' before the 6th. I'd go with that as our birthday

Correct Depends how the forum develops - one of the benefits of the tech archive is that if necessary Tony edits the threads that move there to remove the 'waffle', which makes it much easier to glance through and find the bits you need. The other thing, of course, is simply maintaining a consistent approach across all the forums.

So do the Ford and Land Rover alternator feeds work differently then? Any idea how they compare to the one from an EDIS unit (I'm hazarding a wild guess that will be pulsed - might have to ask on the Megasquirt forums)? Wondered how on earth the tach could work effectively off the alternator!

A mark 2 - hard to say more than that, there wasn't much left of it! I'm guessing it was either high spec with lots of toys or a diseasel? The 90Amp alternators I found at Stirchley breakers where, I think, a different fitting and maybe would drop straight on to a Land Rover bracket? I wonder if they were from mark 1 Mondeos?

Doh! forgot about the non-archive fab forum

Okay - Don't think they have to be in categories. Trev - can you see any way to move forums between categories, or do you have to create a new forum and move all the posts and copy the settings? If it comes to that, I think I'll get down and dirty directly in the database instead.

Sounds like a plan. I like this idea - how about we split the forums into categories (instead of the whole lot under one category - 'Technical')? Something like: Global (someone think of a better name for this!) International Getting Out There [*]Tech Archive Vehicle Tech Tools and Fabrication [*]Vehicles Members Vehicles Series Defender Freelander Discovery Range Rover Military [*]Around The World (Colonies? ) North America Australia and New Zealand Middle East and Africa There's a simple answer here - ask! I've asked some pretty dumb newby questions and got patient, helpful answers from many of the members on here. It would be a huge task to catalogue all the more generic knowledge available amongst us, and as others have observed it would largely duplicate noble tomes like the Haynes manual - I'd suggest it's better to answer those questions as and when. Experience suggests that people who are new to the forum and/or land rovers will often post their question without searching (or at least without knowing enough about what they're looking for to find it) anyway. I feel unappreciated After we went to the trouble of getting the advanced searching facilities enabled a few weeks ago... Maybe we should have announced them? On the search screen, click 'More Options'.

Well, the Escort's gone, but it's new owners turned up to collect it during what little was left of my truck fixing window after some idiot spilled petrol all over the M42 so I won't be seeing you all in Wales this weekend Have fun!

The catch with the Tech Archive is that it's just that - an archive. It's fed by the other 'active' forums - a sort of 'best of LR4x4' collection. So if we do have a gap in the coverage of the other forums, it'll inevitably lead to a weakness in the Tech Archive - Tony does a great job of editing the Tech Archive, but if the material isn't there in the first place, it isn't there. I agree that if we create too many specialist forums we'll end up with nothing much going on in most of them, but on the flip side providing a focus point for people with common interests fosters some really good collaboration - just look at the vehicle forums. I think a 'Routine tasks and maintenance' forum would be too generic and incapable of generating sufficient enthusiasm to work, but there are plenty of skilled and very enthusiastic fabricators on here so that could work quite well. I'm not sure about workshop skills and tools - I think it probably suffers from the same problem as routine maintenance. The novelty of the new power toy wears off pretty quickly, and then the tools are simply a means to an end (well, mostly ).