lo-fi

Hello Have you given the ECU some really good earths? If you can see 12v on the feed, that's the other place to check. Failing that, best thing to do here is go to back to basics. Pull the ecu, feed it 12v on the bench and see what happens. The DB37 connectors are not hard to get hold of, so setting up a little test rig is quite easy too. The power regulator circuit inside isn't complicated and quite easy to fault find - in fact it's the first thing you build when making one from parts, so there's a lot of good guidance in the manual. But check the earthing first, and see if it fires up and the laptop will connect on the bench before pulling it apart. When it powers up, you should see the fuel pump led light up for a second or so, and the laptop will connect so long as the ecu is powered. A, little more info about the setup, particularly the ignition setup, would be really helpful too please. /Ian

Or a Maltese cross grille and put the lights further out past the radiator?

A female spade connector - the type without the insulation boot the whole way down - slips over the round endy bit like it's a male spade at a right angle to the sensor. Edit: ninja'd by Red 90

Figured it was worth throwing in while it's apart I'll try and dig up where it was mentioned...

Good info on the cam - thank you! Have you checked the rockers/shafts for wear? Somewhere (I think on the RPI site) I remember reading that worn bits of cam readily get embedded in the soft rockers and wear the shafts away.

I occasionally need to weld up galv and stainless stuff, which really isn't good for the old lungs. My usual setup with a fan blowing behind me works, but I really ought to find something better. I did a little research and found a promising set of 3M products recommended here and there, but I think they're either discontinued/superceded or were for the American market. Looking for a slimline half face mask that will fit under a welding helmet with appropriate filters. Could be disposable or reusable with changeable filters. I found the literature pretty confusing - is it a gas, a particulate or something else that needs filtering? - so I'm none the wiser for looking! Many thanks!

You might find this useful:

Who wants to bet the rear prop is a single piece of scaff bar? At least he's honest that it's not road legal and been hacked together for a specific purpose well away from the highway! But still... Wow.

I got bored too, and skipped through. There's a section about 3/4 of the way through where this finished product is briefly shown. It's a lesson in how not to make YouTube vids tbh. As the the work... Hmmm

I've got my V8 109 running a 1.003 LT230 transfer behind an LT85, which works very well with the 4.7 diffs. The transfer was originally 1.2 ratio, but I converted with an Ashcroft kit, plus part time 4WD. It could still be a little longer for the V8, but would probably be perfect for a 200tdi. I also have the 6 cylinder front brakes and servo setup that Fridge mentioned, and I'm very happy with.

I'm all signed up as a member - thanks everyone for the advice. She's got a towbar, so I'll do the usual checks beforehand and consider myself good to go. Sounds like my kind of club. Bring on the mud

Hehe! In a leafer too. Good on him! One question... Is it best to fit some kind of recovery eye to the front? I don't intend on going nuts and get wing deep on mud or anything like that, but I'm bound get stuck somewhere and need a pull... If so, what kind without spending a fortune?

Thanks Sid, appreciate it. You're right, I can't afford to write it off, and need to be able to drive it home! Trashing her certainly isn't on the agenda - I'll probably be a bit over cautious tbh Thanks for the clarification Fridge, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Sounds like I'm in good hands for a first outing.

In my conversion thread there are some pics of my port matching work on the dual plane carb manifold. Some ports needed quite a shocking amount of work to match the gasket. Interestingly, the 3.9 heads have ports cast with far greater precision and matched the gaskets almost perfectly, including the little notch for the injector. I can't remember if the 3.5 heads are similar in that respect, but might be worth attacking the manifold anyway. I don't have a before and after comparison, but it certainly runs well! Thanks for the heads up on the porting detail, Doug. Very interesting!

Thanks Mike, no missing you in that! Quite excited.

I only recently heard of LRTV myself after a thread on here, actually! I'll go check out the other links (thankfully I'm not on BT) - thank you all for chiming in

That's an ingenious way of checking cam wear, Soren. I'll remember that one! I had an old 3.5 many years ago that had a misfire I could never fix, which turned out to be a cam lobe worn almost round. I wish I had some pictures, but it was sadly before Camera phones Valve springs look very similar to the ones on the SD1 heads from that very same engine (many years of festering in the garage later):

I feel your pain! Sounds like Land Rover ownership to me! lol But I wouldn't have it any other way; it's part of the charm. In all honesty, I'm really not sure Soren. It's possible this particular box has a buildup of parts that on its own are in tolerance, but added up across many bits causes this problem with the pump drive. Having said that, the other box appears for all intents and purposes to be exactly the same, so all other things being equal I'm not sure how it's ever supposed to be what I'd consider "right". I did look at getting a set of plastic gears, but they didn't seem easy to find, and I wasn't sure the places that advertised them actually had stock or would just turn around and say they're no longer available having been superseded. If anyone is doing DIY rebuild, I'd encourage them to pop the cover plate on, put the drive through and see how it looks. An engineering firm just about anywhere could probably whip up something like I have just given the parts, photos and a quick explanation, so it's not out of reach even if you don't own a lathe or feel confident to tackle. I'd be interested to see how anyone else gets on! Once again, thanks for all the kind comments.

Thanks gentlemen, it's in the diary I'll confess my newbieness on the gate and keep an eye out and hopefully our paths will cross. Help and guidance will be very gratefully received! I'll keep an eye out locally too - blue 109 in the pic. I'd best get lubricating those leaf springs, hadn't I...

I've been a landy owner for a long time, but apart from a spot of light laning in the summer, working in the odd field and towing stuff about a farm here and there, I've never been done much off road. What's it like at one of these events for a beginner with an otherwise standard V8 109? It's not far from me (Basingstoke), so I'm very tempted to come along and have a go /Ian

Hello I recently undertook and documented an LT85 gearbox rebuild. Discussing the merits of DIY with various members got me thinking about where I learned enough to consider myself competent to undertake it. I'm not a professional engineer and have had no formal engineering training, but the knowledge has to come from somewhere. I have a feeling many members are of the same background, so I thought I'd start a discussion on resources we use for learning. Might be YouTube channels, forums, books, magazines, other hobbies, TV, podcasts or radio... The amount of free learning material is nearly limitless these days, and I can't help but revel in it! Here are some of my top picks - please chime in with your favourites YouTube: Abom79 An American pro machinist with an impressive home shop. Has a lovely style, edits well and explains superbly. ThisOldTony A home tinkerer of excellence. He makes videos of various home workshop projects spanning machining, fabrication, CNC and much more. Again, really well edited and has a fantastic style. AvE A Canadian who loves to take stuff apart and find out how it works, how it was engineered, and how it was inevitably "value engineered". Lots of useful tips, tricks, projects, ideas and tinkering. Has quite a warped sense of humour, but hugely entertaining as well as educational. AgentJayZ This guy works on full size jet engines for a living, and his employers are enlightened enough to let him film the work and talk through it. Aero engineering is fascinating, and a masterclass in putting quality over cost. BadObsessionMotorSport The home of Project Binky - a fabricators dream or nightmate. I suspect many of you know about these guys already. ClemWyo This chap is like Bob Ross with metal. Lovely projects of this and that, oddball techniques and the most relaxing voice on YouTube. MyfordBoy No nonsense casting and machining. No list would be complete without - a wealth of learning available here. Forums and websites: LR4x4 Of course Though being serious, I read a lot on here. My interest is in Series really, but lots of great discussion goes on across the board. Jet and Turbine Owners There are some seriously good engineers over here. Anders' projects are particularly inspiring and well documented and cover a vast range of topics. Mig-Welding.co.uk Covers much more than welding, and lots of knowledge locked up in there. My Google searches often end up there. Khan Academy Free maths tuition! Might seem a little dull, but this guy is so good at explaining maths, he gave up being a hedge fund manager to found this non-profit. If you need to brush up on some trig for making awkward panels, a simultaneous equation for gear ratios or suchlike, this is where to brush up. I often look here if I need a refresher. OnShape Basically free Solidworks. I use this making drawings of all sorts before I begin cutting anything. Even silly stuff made of scrap! Their tuition videos are excellent, and will get you up and running in no time. Don't be afraid of CAD! I cannot overstate how helpful it can be, even if you're on of the old school "I'll just wing it" types (of which I count myself one). TV: How it's Made The YouTube versions seems to be American voice over, but it's on UK TV. Either way, the voiceover is usually useless, and not all topics are of interest, but they show some amazing the footage of how stuff is manufactured. Books: I won't go into detail of specific books, but Camden have books on just about every aspect of engineering that might be of interest to the hobbyist. Hobbies! This is probably where I've picked up the most. I tinker with literally all sorts, but maybe the most beneficial has been getting involved with steam loco restoration projects, and I'd encourage anyone with an interest in engineering to get involved. This is a community of people who can't just buy parts - you can't even get a pre-made gasket for these old things - so everything has to be manufactured one way or another. It's an industry that's gone from most things being thought impossible without the support of the railway workshops, to literally anything being within reach. The best bit is that volunteers are welcomed with open arms, and attracts all sorts who've worked in industry and love to continue their trade in retirement. I've met and learned from some incredible people. It's also a melting pot of new and old, with cutting edge technology and techniques (lost CNC cut foam casting) mixing seamlessly with 19th century (old boy with a capstan lathe and a pile of hex stock) methods and machinery. This also leads me on to another interesting subject: Learning Transfer. The art of carrying skills between disciplines. A particular master of this is Elon Musk. That article explains why the old paradigm "Jack of all trades, master of none" doesn't fit in the modern world, and why studying widely outside your field is very beneficial. My many hobbies: model making, 3D printing, machining, classic cars, Land Rovers, steam engines, electronics, programming, computing, fabrication... all feed into each other one way or another, and I'd like to think I've now got a pretty decent skill set that for the most part I didn't pay a penny for, and had a huge amount of fun accumulating. So what do you guys get up to, and what on or offline resources do you find helpful in the pursuit of hobby shenanigans? /Ian

I could not agree more! I've spent many years now working on steam engine projects surrounded by inspiring engineers for whom this is a way of life because there simply isn't another option. It's impossible not to get swept up with it. The bronze bush is classic steam era tech, for which I make no apology... Owning an old landy should challenge us to be more fitter than mechanic, I think! As Davo points out, pulling parts out of a bag and assuming they're 100% is becoming increasingly hazardous. Not necessarily because the parts are poor quality (though sadly this is often the case), but because the parts surrounding them may well not be to spec in some subtle way not pointed out in any manual, and you're left with no option but to get creative. Thanks all for the kind words. I'll try and remember to photographise and write up my next bout of tinkering. TTFN /Ian

Just a follow-up to say that I finally got the box back in on Saturday, and I'm happy to report that it's running like a Swiss watch. This was after a little wrangling with the oil pump, documented here:

Following on from my rebuild thread, I had some problems with the oil pump. This manifested as a sort of ratchet noise that came from the bellhousing whenever the clutch was engaged. Not fun as I only found this out once I'd finished putting the darn thing back in, but such is life with Land Rovers. Here's the tale for those who might be interested: The oil pump on the solid case LT85 is driven from the layshaft via a square drive in the front end. Original gears are some kind of fibre/nylon/plastic something and come in two pieces: Inner and outer, inner having the drive built in. You can see this one has failed - the square has rounded off, so clearly the pump wasn't spinning. Ahem. No doubt this is why the later replacements are metal: Sorry I don't have a better picture. A three piece design, with the drive shaft being separate from the inner gear with a square drive broached in the inner gear. This is all contained in the front housing by a flat metal plate with a hole bored to let the drive through, sealed at the edge with an o-ring It all looks great - parts from a 100% reputable supplier, so apart from checking the housing for wear, I reassembled as per the book and instructions with the kit and didn't give it a second thought. Bevelled side of plate goes towards the gears, longer square drive into the layshaft. So what happened, and why was it noisy? The problems, I found, are many.... Having removed the pump, I could replicate the noise by simply turning the pump drive. I started measuring, checking clearances, and fits, and wasn't happy with what I found. First up: The metal gears are smaller width than their plastic counterparts. By 0.15mm for the inner and .1mm for the outer. Which is kind of understandable, but in the case of the inner gear, this is enough to let it rock over against the force of pumping the oil and have it foul the housing internals. It's also thinner still than the outer, which makes no sense at all. You'd think it should be located in place by the drive shaft and plate, but that's not the case.. Worse still, the plate itself was found to be undersize in outside diameter, leaving .3mm clearance for it to move about in the housing. It's not machined, just a metal stamping, judging by the parting marks. But the shocker is yet to come.... The metal driveshaft is a straight dimensional copy axially of the plastic original, which itself is arguably too short. Note that the worn off part of the square drive does not extend the full length in the picture above. No doubt this is to leave room for expansion, wear, assembly tolerances etc, and is OK for the one piece design. However, with nothing retaining it from migrating, it's free to move into the layshaft leaving only a couple of mm driving the inner gear, and the square drive grinding into the cover plate, rather than the round part: It's quite the cascade failure, and no wonder it was noisy. I did a lot of soul searching and research to check I'd not assembled the box incorrectly (layshaft out of position, housing wear etc.), but with an unmolested box next to me that measured exactly the same, I concluded it was nothing I'd done wrong. Now, I'm not the sort to take this kind of thing laying down, so out come the tools Clearly a spacer is needed to keep the driveshaft from disappearing too far into the layshaft, which is easy enough. I left .6mm axial clearance, and also added a little spring to help keep it in place: A small hole got machined in the driveshaft to take the spring too: So with that sorted, I started thinking about how best to fix the inner gear side clearance... the radial bearing surface on the plate is pathetic, as evidence by the wear on the plastic shaft, and could could both be fixed by a bronze top hat bush, so I set about turning one up and modifying the plate for a good press fit: Shown here doing a test run on an serviceable plate: This gives 10x more radial bearing surface than the original! The brim is 1mm smaller than the root PCD of the teeth, so no interference with the outer gear teeth is possible. It was pressed in, then measurements were taken to leave it slightly proud of the plate at its finished size, taking up the excess side clearance on the inner gear. I reasoned the the outer gear being much larger and having a smooth outer surface is able to stabilise itself well enough as was, so I left well alone. It leaves a bit of clearance which will let oil leak around, but it's just to circulate oil into the mainshaft for the needle bearings, not to create pressure, so I deem a little loss acceptable. Here it is assembled and being tested on the bench: I learned a lot from this! Firstly, that the forces are impressive, even at moderate speed. Those original washers holding the plate down bent in moments! Also that once freed to move a little and rock over against the pressure, the inner gear really tries to push the driveshaft out with considerable force... But it was still noisy even when clamped correctly This was the point that I found the cover plate to be undersize, so my only real option was to make a new plate and another bronze bush: This worked like a charm on the bench, so back on it went and the box got put back in. I'm happy to report, it's quiet as a church mouse, so I'm very happy. There you have it - I hope it's interesting! I could have waited, spoken further to the supplier etc. And indeed it's possibly just a bad batch, but it was Christmas shutdown, and I think my solution is better and should be longer lasting anyway. Gave me something interesting to do, and you guys to read about too! Happy new year /Ian

I did experiment drilling out the jets a few thou, but found it impossible to get the idle away from being seriously rich with any needle, float and jet height. That was my first failed attempt at fixing the high end mixture before reprofiling the needles. I believe there were different springs you could put in the dashpot too, but I never found any to buy. I do like the CD carbs, they're quite fun to play with. Lots of tinkering potential!