lo-fi

Jobs for my 109: Finish fitting the Eberspacher (there will be a write up). Put some insulation on the sides/floor Redo the exhaust in 3" stainless. 'Cos flames. Innit. Get to Leafers at T'Pit this year. Do a little laning in the summer. Figure out the conundrum I caused by mounting the V8 high and forwards, meaning drive to a capstan isn't possible from the crank nose. Rebuild the noisy LT85 General jobs: Overhaul my spare axles, steering box & relay, gearbox/transfer boxes (plus a million other bits) ready for finding a knackered 88 to restore. Build a trailer to house mobile workshop type stuff. Finish my jet engine (turboshaft). Purely for giggles, noise and flames. And to fit in a lawn mower maybe. If you want a natter and some encouragement for the 109, Fridge, it appears I'm just down the road from you. Was reading your ambulance thread, and realized you're local!

Sounds like you've been to Mongkok, so try Golden or Wan Chai computer centers. Or, if you really want something mind blowing and have the entire day to kill, take the metro up to Shenzhen. It's a crazy place - an engineers dream... Street traders selling steel, even! You won't believe the prices, and you can get just about anything you could possibly want in the markets. Huaqiangbei electronics market might be a good place to start, but there are countless others. And if you want a laugh, go and see the Minsk. The rotting hulk of a cold war era Russian aircraft carrier turned into a "tourist attraction" in the middle of an industrial town is quite a sight! Just don't try and find the engine room unless you want to be chased back up the stairs by an angry Chinese man with an assault rifle... EDIT: sadly, they've moved this. A shame!

What carb are you running? My twin strombergs are a devil for this, and run rich when the under bonnet temperature gets above a certain point. I've come to the conclusion a little fan to move some air over them when not moving is about the only way to deal with it. I'm running an electric fuel pump and regulator - it doesn't make any difference.

All the Tesla models are fast. Even their mass market model 3 base model will be sub 6 seconds to 60. The fastest model S is actually limited by the maximum battery discharge rate, not the power the motor can handle. 970hp, if I remember correctly. "at Tesla, we don't make slow cars" - Elon Musk Glad to see some enlightened conversation continuing on this subject - it's something I've considered myself, much as I'm actually in the queue to buy a model 3 I've often wondered how much a motor/inverter/diff pack from Tesla would cost. They've been pretty good about sharing parents with other firms to encourage EV production, but I've yet to find out if they're hobbyist friendly. Might be interesting to find out. If anyone is interested, they have a model S chassis at the dealership in London. It's a metal with of art, and you'll be gobsmacked by how small that 300hp motor is. Barely bigger than a large starter motor. Other avenues... Scrapped Prius? Though low power. As simonr points out, fork lift motors can be quite effective: http://www.currentracing.co.uk/Blackcurrent/bc3.php

I've got an ancient Arboga industrial pillar drill I slapped a single phase motor on years ago, and wouldn't swap it for anything modern (non industrial) if you paid me. Honestly, the thing is literally carved out of the solid. The modern hobby machines are, shall we say, flimsy by comparison. A nice sturdy machine is worth far more than a few hundred extra claimed watts and a bit of chrome.

Does sound like some kind of oil to water gallery failure. Oil pressure will be higher than the cooling system pressure, so it could trickle in. Unless you're running some kind of water cooled oil cooler, it's difficult to see how oil might get in the cooling system otherwise. Pull the head and look? They're simple creatures! You can make a decent pressure tester out of a spare radiator cap and a bicycle pump, though.

Weld porn. Nice one!

Yes, you'll need to check the timing. 4 wire lambda will be narrow band. Has your ECU come pre-configured for your intended application? Don't worry, it's not rocket science once you get your head around the terminology

That'll be the problem Leave it be, it might manage to get the drivers. Post back if not and I'll see what I can do. Do you have the cd that came with the converter handy?

It'll be your USB to serial adaptor. Do you know how to check in device manager on the computer to see whether the drivers are installed correctly and what number it's been given? If not, go into control panel, administration tools, computer management and you'll find Device Manager. In there, you'll find "Ports (com and lpt)". What do you have listed? If you can't find that, do you have anything listed in "unknown devices"?

I'm pretty sure the tapered hole is more to do with fit than being able to tighten the nut because the taper grabs... Look at it this way: a parallel bolt has a fairly fine tolerance between being interference and clearance. In between is what you'd call a "fitted bolt" - one where the hole is precision reamed to a known dimension, then a bolt machined to fit it exactly. Ever seen your average auto mechanic with a reamer? Not so much. It isn't really automative tech, or not in that environment anyway. The tapered hole "fits" itself. You take out any inaccuracy in fit caused by manufacturing tolerance just by winding the nut on. The other advantage is wear resistance. The parallel joint, if it's not perfect, will allow a small amount of movement under load, and movement leads to wear and more movement. The tapered bolt is held fast in the taper under considerable tension and really *can't* move laterally.

You'll see a lot of things jump during a misfire... If I remember correctly, EDIS will run on its own fixed to 10deg BTDC, so you can eliminate anything MS control related by disconnecting the SAW wire. Why run EDIS at all when direct fire works, though? It's an antiquated black box with little advantage.

Honestly, if you want to work on automotive stuff, a MIG is the machine to have. Stick welding takes mode practice to get a decent result and can be incredibly frustrating on thin stuff as it blows holes very easily. MIG is king 0.5~3mm, and as already stated, forget the gasless option. A gas bottle from www.hobbyweld.co.uk is inexpensive and won't cost you annually - only for the fills. Wire is also cheap. Start on thicker stuff - 2mm will be perfect and will allow you to get the hang of it without worrying too much about blowing holes. As you get more used to setting up the machine, moving and holding the torch and what makes a good weld, move to thinner stuff. TIG is lovely on really thin bits, but much trickier when under a Landy! Decent auto darkening helmet, as already mentioned, is a must. Don't forget that the welder will give you evil sunburn too! If it sounds like frying bacon, you're not the right track. If it smells like it, you're on fire

http://vwts.ru/vw_doc2/trans/096/tr_096_over.pdf has all the info you need, I believe Looks like the computer modulates the pressure using one of the solenoids, though. Whether this is a problem running without, I don't know. Fantastic project; an absolute inspiration and fascinating to read about!

If it was my problem to be dealing with, I'd be looking at machining a pin the fits the taper, with a shouldered shank and a threaded end to take a common size of heim joint. Moving on to the problem of the cranked parts, can you cut the very end of the current joints off, cunningly machine the end sections down and thread to go into a female thread on a heim joint (which I assume are available)? Looks like there's enough straight section on each to make a decent job with a lock nut, though hard to say for sure from photos. If not, a piece of solid bar, suitably threaded, forged hot to the right shape and tempered correctly ought to do the job, and might actually be easier! Ian

Which PCB and cpu versions have you got?

Yeah, the moment I put a bid in! Now showing sold

Thanks for the heads up, Simon, I couldn't resist putting a bid in Ian

Why insist on messing with the auto tune thing?? I've done a bunch of MS installs from highly modified K series to turbo BMW engines, all tuned manually. I tried auto tune once, decided it was a time wasting gadget and never touched the thing again! More trouble than its worth, especially of you don't know what you're doing to start with. Really isn't hard to sit there with someone else driving while you watch the wideband lambda readout and play with the VE table. Even better on a rolling road with steady state... My advice, as someone who done this many, many times, and for what it's worth: Get your static timing right and set up your spark timing table before ever messing with the fueling. You can make a good starting spark map by understanding what a dizzy does. Get the engine started by modifying the req fuel value - you can trim later and globally modify the table and if the VE values are insane. Tune the no-load parts of the map on the driveway. Hopefully before attempting this, you know what AFR you're looking for in the various parts of the map, right? If not, do some more reading. Not just the MS manual! Try to remember that what you're "mapping" is air flow for a given manifold vacuum at a given RPM. This is what's calculated. Get a mate to drive. Turn off acceleration enrichment, start off gently, and tune the lower rev, lower load part of the map. You'll want steady, slow runs up the rev range and nice slow throttle movements. Third gear is good because you won't end up going too fast, and you can get some load on without the revs shooting up too quick. Keep eyeing the lambda readout as you hit different bins and adjust accordingly. You'll soon get a feel, and can often figure out what adjacent bins will want before you ever get there. Keep running up the rev and load ranges, and you'll soon (about an hour) find you've built a solid map. Remember, if you change the timing map (pinging, hunting or just trying to optimize), you'll find you need to tweak the fuel map again in that area. You'll learn far more doing it mannually, and can have the mapping done by the time you've finished fiddling about configuring that abominable auto tune!

Get a nice copper one from European Radiator Services in Sheffield. They made me a lovely 4 core copper rad with brass tanks to my exact dimensions, all for £300. Comes with a nice "made in Sheffield" sticker too. It's made to fit above the front crossmember on my 109, so smaller than the original series rad, but still copes fine with my V8 with a kenlowe. There simply isn't room for the viscous, or I'd have used it. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=european+radiators+sheffield&oq=European+rad&aqs=chrome.3.69i57j0l3.8731j0j4&client=ms-android-oneplus&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=lie

Carbs are easy - and I'm an EFI man! Get yourself a standalone wideband lambda jobbie and enjoy the simplicity. You might as well be reading tea leaves and chicken entrails trying to 'read' plugs. I went with carbs because I couldn't bring myself to put fuel injection on a 1973 vehicle. Info in my build thread. Sounds like a lovely project And agreed on the dizzy parts for the rover stuff being so poor these days. Another reason the Mallory is so good.

The connecting rod should be set up so the lever moves at just under 14psi above atmospheric. Make sure the lever is free to move, as they have a nasty habit of seizing. You've done all you need for the fueling with the turbo, and will probably get away with moving the smoke screw back. Experiment, see how it feels and how much it smokes.

I went with carbs on the 3.9 I put in my S3, and I'm very pleased with it. I have the serpentine intermediate front end, ditched the original dizzy and popped a Mallory with electronic points on, which has been fantastic so far. Megajolt not a bad option, though. I'm not using the viscous fan - wasn't room with th V8 and LT8 in the 109 - but the crank nose sits about in the middle of my custom radiator. That setup was about the shortest I could find! Build thread here: http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=95691&page=1

Was it running OK before it got laid up? Did the problem start after you rebuilt the carb and before you changed ignition?

Honestly, for that kind of thing, I'd find a couple of brake master cylinder seals for the chosen diameter and machine my own piston/cylinder around them. You would probably even get away with a couple of O rings.