Retroanaconda

Your font wasn't as invisible as the farmers shops....I couldn't find any so decided to go to an auto electrician instead. I may have not looked hard enough, but I don't think it really matters to be honest. I don't think I paid over the top for what I got, in line with the sort of thing FridgeFreezer suggested.

Those of you who have seen my topic on Batteries and Cold Starting will know that my old battery couldn't do the business when cold. Considering this, plus the auto electrician I went to see reccomending it, I have decided to wrap my battery in some insulation to try and keep the worst of the frosts and cold off it. As far as I know it's reguarly done in a lot of cars, but I couldn't find anything on Google about how it was done, or any accounts of people doing it themselves. So here's the method I decided upon, which may or may not work. A trip to B&Q and £3 odd later, and I have myself a Mangers heater tank jacket (18" x 12" x 12" size). First I put the smaller piece provided on the floor of the battery box: Then in went the battery, and I put the rest of the insulation (a long piece 12" across I believe) in around the battery. Like so: And that's it. I don't know how effective it'll be, but I figured it can't hurt. I made sure to leave some gap at the top for any gasses to escape should the worst happen battery-wise.

Watching it on my PC right now, loving it

It did indeed. Didn't bat an eyelid, wasn't as cold this morning as it has been though. Typical that we get a warmer spell now ¬_¬ It also held up today being while started, driven a mile or two, stopped for 30 mins, re-started, repeat etc all over an Army Training Area for an airsoft game without any problems

Excessive play in the propshaft UJs? Or diffs? Grab and twist to check for play.

He just missed out on a Darwin Award, shame.

Yeah I cut mine off

The solution to which is....more lights to remove the shadows

Well this is the battery I've ended up with: It's a Trane T16, capacity of 95 Ah and a CCA rating of 680A (EN). Cost me £115 including VAT, which is much better value than the Halfords ones...which are £100 odd for something nowhere near as big capacity-wise. Hopefully it should do the job a lot better than the previous one (which is now going to serve as an airsoft-gun-battery-charger ), it's got a good healthy 12.7 volts on it now, but the real test will be tomorrow morning when I go to start it at ten-to-eight.

Thanks Fridge, I will pop to these guys tomorrow and get one similar http://www.autoelectrical.co.uk/batteries.html

That's my plan, although I'm tempted by... http://www.devon4x4.com/component/option,c...howcaticons,yes

Well, the man with the machine told me that while the battery was in fine condition (and charged, thanks to the journey there), it wasn't beefy enough to supply the amps needed, especially with the cold temperatures. Looks like I'm in the market for a new battery!

Checked the earth straps today, and all seems to be well. They're all in good condition, and there is good continuity between the battery negative post and anywhere on the truck's body. I got 13.5V - 14.2V from the alternator when it was running the other day, measured at the battery terminals, so I think that's okay. I will jump if off another vehicle, and then drive to the auto-electrical place in Tamworth and get them to test my battery for me.

On Firefox here, all good. Ironically it seems to be the only site that actually loads within an acceptable period of time here. Never choose Virgin Media cable if you're in a group of four students...20 meg is not enough as it is...never mind when they put stupid download speed limits on

Cheers guys, will have a look tomorrow and see how I get on. Thanks for the help so far, will let you know how it goes

Well I shall have a look underneath tomorrow (supposed to be dry), and look for dodgy earths and other connections. Ralph, is testing the charging system something that I can do, or is it a specialist job? Cheers

Heh, well before I had a dry enough day to want to be crawling around on the floor under the truck...it's completely let me down today. Didn't have enough charge to turn her over and fire up So tomorrow I guess I'm off to the battery shop, there's a battery specialist reasonably nearby...am I right in assuming I should just get the biggest (in terms of CCA and capacity) I can fit in?

To be honest I think if you take away the ladder-frame chassis, live axles, and bolt-on bodywork model...you're going to lose pretty much everthing that is great about the Defender

That is simple amazing :|

Well it appears to be snowing here in Stafford for some obscene reason, and so this has prompted me to ask about something that's been bugging me about my Defender. When it's cold in the morning, it seems very reluctant to turn over and does so very slowly before just about kicking in. Once it's running it runs fine, if not a little lumpy to start with (but I assume this is just a trait of a 16-year-old diesel engine in the cold), after a few minutes it is smooth as ever. My immediate thought of course was the battery, as I know they don't work as well when cold, and mine is only a cheap Halfords one. Not even a 'heavy duty' Halfords one at that. I got the multimeter out and found that before I turned anything on the battery was reading 12.1V. I'm no expert, but I thought batteries were supposed to read around 12.5-12.6V when fully charged? Or is it just because it is cold? At ignition stage two it dropped to 11V or so. Once the engine was running the alternator built it up to around 13.5V on tickover and 14.2V at normal driving speeds. As far as I know this is fine in terms of alternator output voltages. Then, once I'd had a drive around in the snow (and puddles ) and the engine was up to temperature, I switched it off and watched the voltage fall back down as normal. It then started on the first turn of the key. So this makes me think that it is one of two possibilities: 1. The battery doesn't have a good enough C.C.A rating and is copping out when cold, being warmed by the charging process, and then working fine on second start. OR 2. The battery is actually okay in terms of C.C.A. but is being discharged for some reason, however I feel this is less likely due to the fact that it's only started doing this as it's got colder. We've yet to have a day warm enough for me to try and start it and observe it's behaviour. Any ideas guys? Many thanks

I've done the same to mine, much better now Shame it doesn't help the fact that it takes 15 mins for the coolant to warm up enough

Apparently the server's in Oxford. Or at least from what I can tell, it appears to be.

Mmmm, let us know how it goes. My cappings are rusting through at the top of the centre bulkhead, behind my seats

I'm going to have to replace all three doors on my 90 at some point, as the metal worms have very much been at them. My plan is to just buy a set of three brand new doors, or second-hand ones in new condition. Take-off ones off of a crash-damaged vehicle etc. My reasoning being that I'd like to fit them and forget them, happy that well looked after I should get another 15-odd years out of them if needed.

Seems to be working fine here, average ping of 32ms Of course now I've said that....