WesBrooks

The original donors chassis was given last rights earlier today. A heavy day today. Kit body lifted onto 4 axle stands, old chassis dropped onto skates on one end and dragged out with a little dodgy jack work to get around the body mounts reaching out further than the axle stands. All out on to the drive, cut into 4 pieces, and shifted around the back until we have access to the tips again! Following a massive shift of stuff about I was able to get the Range back into the garage for a more concerted effort on getting it stripped down and ultimately much of it transfered over to the new chassis for a dry build before sizing up for the new bulkhead and floor. I'm shattered!

All of that can only really start when I'm placing the drive drain over the chassis in the intended final location. I want to see it all in the flesh before spending too much time designing.

That's fair enough, thanks. Linking the front two body mounts is of course compromised by the drivetrain, particularly the bell housing being in the way. My intention is to create a bulkhead along the lines of the guide listed in the roll cage book (forgotten the name, MRA red book?) and pick up on as many of the original body mount points as possible. I intend for the floor to be substantial enough to take all the seatbelt anchors in a manner substantial enough to satisfy an IVA inspector. If the red book guide is more substantial then I will shoot for that. I'd like to take the rear cross member from a defender or similar and modify that to meet the base of the rear hoop stays. The floor width wise pieces are comprimised in shape due to the chassis and drive train. The aims are to have substantial strength holding the sils a fixed distance apart while maintaining practical aspect such as removable tunnel cover and keeping as much height available for the seats as possible. Other challanges are trying to avoid water/muck traps on either the underside or, creating ponds on the inside! A big thing I need to get my head around is how to weld on the stiffening plates for any new mount points on the chassis without creating a rust sandwich. Is it simply ensure the weld seem (executed in small tacks with masses of cooling time) is around the whole exterior of the plate and hope for the best?!

Donor got a little more stripped last night. Should still run ok but no need or time to test last night. Next few spare evenings of work are not so photo worthy as I (carefully, slowly) snip out the unused cores from the loom.

As far as I can see the graph is detailing what the potted driver block does. I was hoping that the flyback diode was in the valve block or directly on the solenoids. I should be able to check this with a multimeter. Other point of interest would be of there is any transient voltage suppression on there. It's probably best if I assume there is no protection in the block and double up atbthe processor end.

Haven't found a schematic yet but I think this is the 'valve driver' and according to an EAS manual I found online the signals it expects are 12V logic and it creates the PWM to drop the current draw shortly after the valve has been activated.

Is the schematic available for what is potted in resin? Is it the MOSFETS/Transistors and a controller to drop the PWM shortly after firing? All 12V logic signals?

So you'd stick with bolt to chassis rather going full hog and welding it all on then? I will be making bulkhead and floor up and intend to make it strong, but nothing crazy. Reasonable safety when on the motorway etc is the aim. I'm trying to strike a balance with this as It's so easy to go chasing perfection loose many thousands and not get it! This one is a play thing with no specific competition in mind. Some green laning. About as much purpose as a normal kitcar I guess! I would have gone down the plain defender rout but I was doing serious motorway miles at the time and just didn't fancy my odds if the worse came to be. As it is this one will likely do regular longish runs but not a daily driver. Not with a V8!

Ironic, it's my complete lack in faith of the defenders body that set me down the path in the first place! The body will be plenty strong enough by the time my floor and bulkhead are in. In retrospect the full Tomcat route would have been simpler, but I've started, so will finish! 😉

I'm not done yet! Original kit build it the original floor is bolted to the tabs all the way along the sills. The bulkhead isn't bolted to the body but retained it's original two forward mount points. There is also a total of 6 mount points direct between the chassis and kit body. I will be fabricating a floor and bulkhead which will weld to the existing kit body at least. Undecided on whether to weld it to the chassis or not, but currently favoring bolt. I will also be making up a new rear cross member that better connects to the base of the roll hoop stays.

I follow your logic there @deep. I'd had disagreements with senior folk at the Uni that I did my research at because they were so proud of their new building with fancy colour changing lights all over the sides of the tower. It just seemed a huge waste. For electric I've only thought electric bikes make sense, and had thought about using stuff salvaged from leafs and the like to make an electric truck, but skipped due to the level of work that was needed. Now for people playing off road I think light is king for electric. But light ultimately looses maximum traction and motive force - and so not useful for some forms of working vehicle. Ineos may have spotted a niche, but ine size won't fit all of the use cases. There is room for others.

Minor progress this weekend. I dropped the looms from around the roof and started stripping the unwanted sections of the loom from the donor. Removed the air suspension valve bolck with very little fuss, but the cylinder bolts were heavily corroded, and rounded. To be fair I wouldn't have reused the cylinder, opting instead for a new pressure vessel with warranty. I'll need to double check the IVA manual with regards air and leveleing suspension. If it looks like too much work I'll shelve it for post IVA, but would still like to use it. I was pleasantly surprised that the pump and valve block looked ok on the outside because of the level of corrosion on the box. Here's the body again. Slight variant on the stock sahara kit, but I get the impression most changed a bit! Mine has the van back shape and the rear door modified so that it isn't full width which causes less IVA issues and looks a little more defender. This however is how blank the canvas is for the bulkhead and floor! Think I've already said but I intend to mock up in wood then jig and weld up the chosen solution. May get an order of wood in soon as I think I may stall soon. There's only so far I can go before I need to get the RRC inside, or need to lift off the body from the original donor chassis and scrap it.

@deep I follow what you say there. I always liked he idea of hydrogen fuel cells, but they are building a very thorough defence against that based on efficiency. Thing is an easy way to mislead is just to through shed loads of information and over whelm. As it happens we in St Helens are in a little centre of the hydrogen production with a a few sources near here. Anyhow without gest I fear I'm accidentally playing my normal card and diverting the topic. Feel free to chat via message. I'd like to attempt an electric light weight 4x4 after current projects. Electric push pikes are just about the only thing that makes sense to me at the moment.

Full charge on a nissan leaf from complete zero capacity to 40kWh is in the region of the same energy released from dropping 3000 tons of water 5 meters... Anyway I'm diverting the thread there. I'll dam my thoughts there. (and get my coat)

Thoughts divert to a mill-style header pond and water wheel charging point... 😄

I'll answer my own question after catching up. 2021. Seriously shifting! I'll be impressed if this makes it to market at entry level for the £30k - the lower end of the range that's been floated on some of the links.

I'm going to catch up on the presentations as I'd love to find a way to contribute somehow. While the marketing grates on my nerves the preaented technical detail is very interesting. Edit: Marketing and sales normally grates to be fair. That's just me, nothing specific to these guys, I'm just not much of a sales guy! Bit of a current issue while networking for.my work! 😄

I'm puzzled by IC engines being forefront in any measure. What is the target/guestimate release date? This article reports the petrol/diesel/hybrid/plug-in-hybrid ban as 2035. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40726868 So there is a lot of effort being put into incorporating a power source that has an imminent and significant obsolete warning on it. Yeah, batteries aren't great yet but I'd continue the design for maintenance theme around removable and easily replaceable batteries. Would anyone think this will be for sale any sooner than 2025? Fair enough there's ten years of sales there... Edit: Guess this obsolete warning is for EU/UK markets and may not be similar for the majority of international markets.

Cheers for the tips. I did hand (/socket) crank the engine over for more than two revolutions to ensure there was no significant evidence of seizing or mechanical collisions. Watched the oil light as it cranked to ensure it dropped out quickly. Fuel pressure was a given as I knew the pump worked (muddled - yeah, I'm a prat at times - flow and return lines and ended up with ~4m of fuel line at full pump pressure!) as it came on and shut down quickly.

Today's exercise is probably get some more homebrew on the go, but with regards the project I am slowly stripping out sections of the loom that I'm not using. I have now completely removed the SRS system and gotten rid of the SRS warning lights on the dash. Likewise the central locking and anti-theft system is out and defeated. On the latter point if you have an old RRC or Discovery 1 the anti-theft system is shockingly simple. Don't trust it. Next up is removing, cleaning, and storing the currently redundant air suspension system. I want to use this on my kit but it will be with some very robust system locks/defeats just incase it does fail out and about. I'm following the air my 90 thread very closely! 🙂 Following that is unpicking the loom from the from the front two doors, removing the window controller, and dropping the roof looms to the floor in prep for stripping the removable body panels post lockdown after it finds space in my garage. Space is an issue. I really need to scrap the remains of the original D1 donor (the chassis) and prop up the kit body high (and safely) enough for the new chassis to slide/roll under. I want to do an exercise with the drive train to see if it is possible to move the engine back 10" (front to back prop swap) in the chassis and keep enough room to sit in front of the cross braces and seatbelt anchors on my chassis. That will require the majority of the RRC body to be stripped and scrapped/sold/out of the way. I plan to make a mock up wooden bulkhead on the kit body and slowly move the working loom to that before fabricating a propper steel bulkhead and floor. Most likely locost box section style, but bigger box than they use if only for simplicity.

Here's the donor! This is formerly @Bigj66 's '94 RRC. I'd had the usual share of guilt on breaking this vehicle but after swallowing that down and starting to strip it, it was more and more obvious that this body had seen it's last days save it finding a different owner to me who was dedicated to its restoration at a cost that would never have been recoverable on sale. Bit like my kit build that I guess! 😄 Rust is extensive, chassis in the usual place beside the Cats, through old repairs in rear boot floor, bottom of pillars, footwells both sides, and top right of windscreen which had rusted through from the rain gulley and had caused the footwell foam to soak up litres of water and hold it agains the metal slowly rotting through the floor and sills. Rust aside the car has been a work horse and has seen its fair share of maintenance that aside from metal patchwork had included work on the SRS system, replacement of fuel lines, aftermarket speakers (shelves for kit 🙂 ), ignition lock replacement, and the odd other repair on wiring here and there such as the posative feed to the fuel pump. While the car has seem much better attention than the first donor the end result is alas not much of the trim is saleable with clips here and there being broken or missing, but I am saving what I can for post lock down ebay. First recent attention from me has been to get it mobile again. There is a slope on my drive forward of where this is parked so pushing this lump around isn't much of an option. We have had success and after a new fuel line, battery, defeating the SRS (turned out to be not needed) and anti-theft systems it fired for the first time in around a year and after a short oeriod of rough running (air in fuel, hydrualic tappets empty), she was running smoothly again. This vehicle hasn't been read its last rights, more like just entering some serious plastic surgery!

I am just putting out feelers for what is common best practice rather than having a specific problem or concern. I didn't want to knacker donor engine #2 (first had had a hard/unloved life, needed full rebuild!) by not following some piece of common knowledge. On that subject thanks for the tip on engine storage oil. I will check it out. I've just got a new battery (useful to be able to start and move the donor, and later test the circuits as I build them into a mockup bulkhead) and will be doing my best to keep that usable with a little battery conditioner/trickle stage charger. I think my big charger is too powerful to be left on for long periods.

...catching up slowly, I've been away for a few months! I was thinking a modular style of chassis would have been best. Avoiding a stressed skin monocoque design is fair enough for something that is liable to be bounced about, but ladder seems odd for a new venture.

I'm a relative noddy in these circles so if I can spot bs that easily it's not a great start. Project may be a valid and interesting exercise but the marketing/pr has got my back up already!

What's the best practice for keeping engines in good condition while you are building a project? I know long periods of idling is not ideal. Would spinning over on the starter periodically with no fuel / spark plugs until the oil light goes off be a good thing to do to keep it all oily?