David Sparkes

I'm not entirely certain that 'oversteer' is the correct term for what's happened here, BUT I'd look closely at any flex joints in the steering column. I'm wondering if the wheels failed to turn - the dead spot - so you turned the steering a little more as a natural reaction. A loose or badly worn UJ or flex joint started to transmit the turn, the tyres dragged sideways in the direction of the turn, and pulled the steering across without turning the wheel (because of the free play in the column). Thus the turn becomes too tight and the car crossed to the left side of the road.

I think the dash would look in keeping with a Series vehicle IF it was painted gloss Bronze Green. The Kenlowe is also a worthwhile purchase, darned expensive to buy new, but worth hanging onto if it's thrown in with the deal, as this one was. The car looks to me as though someone's cared for it. That they may have had a different colour choice is not so important as the 'caring' part. Could you do me a couple of small favours: How long is that starting handle? Does the bit you hold actually spin on the shaft? (IE, is it meant to?). Thanks.

The only guidance you have given us is "It is a BFG show pics of you truck around aus" I'd pick the fourth picture, with you both sitting on the car. The first one has the tyre wall visible, but after that, what other interest is there? A great picture of your car, but apart from that, what? The sunset picture shows the unmistakable BFG tread pattern, people enjoying life, 'family' values (not male only). It's a picture that identifies the tyre, but also has a strong 'wish I was doing that' quality. How many entries are you allowed? Sorry to throw in a discordant note!! I have no experience of marketing / advertising.

You need to specify what wheel diameter you are using, or considering. If you say nothing about suspension, people will tend to assume you are on standard settings.

I've just, the last two weeks, bought a chrome swivel from Paddock Spares (Britpart). Obviously I can't comment on the working life so far.

The classic question: Was it like that before you touched it? (You say you've had the decker panel off, and bishbosh says the bonnet has to be removed before the decker panel can be removed.).

"the attachment facility does pretty much " etc etc Sigh. BUT, as I explained in my first post in this thread, IME the attachment facility DOESN'T do it. Don't worry about it. I've given up, so further comment is of no value to me. D

I haven't contributed on this topic before, (that I recall). I did lose all pressure one cold morning a year or two back. After finding out how expensive a new one was, and that no-one had an exchange item on the shelf, I took it from the car and opened it up, without any manuals. I found, at the second attempt, that the pressure relief valve was stuck open,and obviously It stayed open even while I was manhandling the unit. It released easily enough when prodded in the right place with a screwdriver. I found a polished section on one side of the valve piston, so rotated it to bring another section into use. No further problems. A ZF pump on a 38A. It seems a lot of pumps are the same, but have an intermediate bracket added to make them fit the 'proper' bracket on a particular engine. That was the case with my BMW diesel anyway. Pump + intermediate braket becomes a BMW part :-))

88" is the wheelbase, (the distance between the centres of the front & rear wheels) The overall length will be longer :-) Cheers.

OK, thanks for the explanations. I've come here from the simpler world of the Series 2 Club Forum. Assuming (as here) that the file size is within limits, I don't have to open an account at a third site, nor even create my own album of the pictures I 'might' need on the Club site. As I'm writing my contribution to whatever topic I simply browse to the file position on my hard drive and the picture is uploaded and inserted. So simple no-one had to write an A4 sheet of instructions. (That comment I wrote with tongue in cheek). None of the guidance seemed to refer to the Attachments section immediately below the panel I'm drafting this reply in. So what's the Attachments facility for? Browse takes me to the Directory structure for my hard drive, so what file types is the system expecting me to attach, because it's ignored my jpegs? I've survived here long enough without posting pictures, so I'll just carry on as before, and look for this post under my name if I ever have a strong need for a picture. It's not as though I ask a lot of questions anyhow. Thanks again, Cheers.

Can you extend the garage backwards, or at least put a lean to shed across the back, on the understanding that afterwards you would replace it with a lean to greenhouse (if that sort of thing earns you Brownie points)? Would changing the door from an up and over to a side hinged help with the access / egress clearance problems? Sorry, I just plucked those from the air, I haven't seen any of your posts outside this thread, so have no idea on your current garage arrangements, apart from the fact that it's small :-) Cheers.

'Remind' me please. Where is the Help, How To, whatever, that guides me through adding a picture to a post. I have looked through the Help, even searched it using the term Picture, to no avail. I've read the Help on Posting generally, and it explains how to mess around with fonts etc, but nothing about Uploading files. Without any guidance: I can see the 'Attachment system ready' message displayed, with a ticked green circle even. I've used the Browse button to select the 53kb file on my hard drive. I've made sure the full path is displayed in the window. I've then clicked the Upload button and there's been some screen activity. Then I'm told I did not select a file for Upload. I can upload files OK to the Series 2 Club Forum, so what have you done wrong? :-) Thanks!

Daan: "me talking about it being misleading -no- since I was one of the designers of dieselmax". Firstly, Congratulations for being part of a very successful team. Secondly, if you go back to what I wrote, in the extract you quoted, I think (hope) you will see that what I was saying is that Dieselmax is so far away from a Land Rover diesel that it's misleading to say that the solutions that worked for Dieselmax can simply crossover to a Land Rover cooking diesel. I was not intending to say that any facts you quoted were misleading. Turbocharger: "David - Six slugs of gas - what engine are you running?" BMW 2.5 6 cylinder in a 38A Range Rover. Checking the heat loss over the intercooler is interesting, and might help if you've found a stock intercooler to be ineffective, but I think the most important task is to measure the air temperature in the inlet manifold. If, when you want power, this temperature is less than 30 / 35C then I'd say there is no need to do more work on the intercooling. Apart from being a good figure to quote at the bar, of course :-) Cheers.

"Generally, the more leaves a spring has for a given rate, the more flexible the spring is, due to lower surface tension of thin leaves vs thick ones. A multi leaf unit would also have more inherent damping due to interleaf friction when compared to a spring with fewer leaves." That's pretty much where I got stuck, because it seemed like a contradiction. Thinner leaves equals more flexibility. More leaves equals more interleaf friction, equals more inherent damping, equals less flexibility. If we postulate that the increase in flexibility outweighs the increase in stiffness caused by the greater inherent damping, then why is the increased flexibility required? Is it just to reduce the vibration / shockwaves travelling up the steering column? (And perhaps contributing to increased wear on the various ball joints?). Cheers.

"Moral of the story - if the thermocouple isn't in deep enough to the gas flow, you'll get low readings". I'd certainly agree with that. Which is why I think it's so misleading to say this or that number is the target to either get or not exceed, when different engines are being discussed. I think I get high numbers because the thermocouple tip is wiped by every slug of hot gas leaving the cylinder head. That's 6 hits per 720 degrees of crankshaft rotation, thus there's 'no' cool down period between hot pulses, and the response to either throttle opening or closing is faster than the multimeter can really display. Cheers.

Isn't a guy allowed to play with his toy? If he want's to know the temperatures, and do original research, why shouldn't he be encouraged, instead of being shouted down? Dieselmax is a hell of a lot more complicated than just one limiting factor. I'd suggest that Ricardo's expertise cannot be reduced to a single sentance in a Land Rover forum. In other words, trying to use Dieselmax as justification, or not, for a hobby interest modification on a Land Rover engine is extremely misleading, and of no practical benefit to the original poster. Let's stick to the question, eh? For Turbocharger, the makers of multimeters that we can buy with plug-in K type thermocouples obviously think that any error generated by the intermediate contacts in the plug and socket are either of no significance, or can be calibrated out, within sensible limits for any application that would use such a cheap and cheerful meter. As you will know, you can buy K type thermocouples with 'any' length of lead attached, and the correct plugs to terminate the leads. Thus you could buy, say, 6 thermocouples and install them anywhere you like in the engine, intercooler, etc, and have multiple plug ended leads in the cab, then see if you can establish a pattern of readings under your test circumstances. Remove the plugs, rewiring to a switch of your choice, and see if the results change significantly. Regarding testing the effectiveness of the intercooler, you can put two thermocouples in, one at the hot point, the other at the cold point. Join the leads together, but reverse them. The output is then the temperature gradient across the intercooler, rather than the specific temperature. This is just an alternative view, I'm not saying it's better or worse. If you want to be a little more precise about measuring multiple temperatures, then Autospeed, the online magazine, did a circuit some time ago where each thermocouple fed into it's own termination circuit. The output of this circuit was something like 200mV per degree centigrade. The actual figure is not really important at the moment, but it meant that you can switch your display voltmeter to any of the thermocouples without affecting the TC termination, which was your original concern. I have built this circuit, for 8 thermocouples IIRC, and it works fine. More than an evenings work though :-) Jeremy Fearn, to drop a name, looks for 30C as a maximum air temperature in the inlet manifold, although this is in competition, a road vehicle will be higher when in a traffic jam, etc. BTW, I've seen well over 800C at the turbocharger inlet, and the turbocharger has lived to tell the tale. Cheers

Series 2A, 109" Diesel. Standard front springs have 11 leaves. Standard rears have 8 +2 leaves. HD rears have 8 leaves (presumably each leaf is thicker). Using the Paddocks Spares site as reference, other series motors have 9 and 7 leaves, depending on model and application. However, there seems to be a trend that front springs have more leaves than the equivalent rears, the 88" petrol has 9, for example. So, what is the reason for 'a lot' of leaves at the front? It can't 'just' be weight, as the HD rears get less leaves to carry a potentially greater poundage. Just because it's Series doesn't mean it's Simple :-))

The two warning lights that flash at the moment of switching, where are they earthed? On what is almost an un-related line of enquiry; If the fan is switched on, the fan warning light will be lit; what is the sate of the rear fog warning light? If the fan is switched on, the fan warning light will be lit; if you now switch the wipers or washers, does the fog warning flash as it would do if the fan was not on? Cheers

I think Fisha is very probably on the right track, and my compliments to him for chasing it through. My own enthusiasm is now at a lower level, but I can add information from days gone by. Rovacom can store and record data from the Engine ECU, but only in the format and timescales that Bosch decreed when they wrote the ECU software. In practice this means there can be several seconds between records, so the output is not detailed enough for us. Neither will they record every parameter. The next step is an oscilloscope, of which the PC based versions by Pico Technology are the most cost effective, if you don't have one on the shelf. Note that 'cost effective' doesn't mean cheap, you will still end up paying several hundred pounds. Pulling back from such sophistication, an analogue meter could be used while the potentiometer is moved manually, but all you are looking for now is a smooth output displayed by the needle movement. Which level of sophistication we use, the problem is still that we don't know what the 'correct' results are, so nothing is clear cut. This is the shortage of information I referred to in a previous post. Even Rovacom error messages are 'unclear' as to what exactly is wrong; they mirror what Bosch have programmed. Specific detailed knowledge about the Bosch system is something the mechanic has to get from elsewhere. Looking physically at the FIP we can see that, after removing the inlet manifold, it's easy to take off the top cover, and even to split it lower down, without disturbing the mechanical timing. So, if a supply of parts are to hand, it looks as though the FIP, and particularly the potentiometer / servo arrangement, could be changed in situ. I haven't been there, but when I floated the possibility I was told these parts were so expensive it was financially inadvisable to gamble on a DIY partial rebuild. Far better to buy an overhauled pump with guarantee (assuming the overhauler doesn't go out of business within the guarantee period, as mine did). If you can pick up a second hand FIP for a song then perhaps the gamble of swapping parts over makes more sense. It's at this point I've stopped. I do have a problem with the fuelling, but it's not as severe as Geerts, thus I've put it on the back burner, living with the occasional lack of engine response. I've got three Diesel specialists to choose from. One doesn't want me around at all while they keep the car for a day to investigate, but assure me with complete confidence they can find the problem, although there was no verbal recognition of the symptoms when I explained them. The others didn't exude the same confidence, but at least one of them was willing to look, with me in attendance, but would I please do a flow check on the intank pump before making an appointment. Fair enough, and I'm technically capable of that, but I just haven't stirred my bones. The third, mmmm, big, expensive, they say they are capable, but I'm just not sure. Geert, I'm not sure how much help all that was, but it's as far as I can go. Oh, you asked " if there's anyone out there with a spare copy of Testbook or Rovacom...". Both use Hardware as well as software, so a 'spare copy' doesn't come into it. I'm no longer in regular touch with the Forum (... my enthusiasm at a low level ...) but there were Europeans on the Rangerover.net 4.0/4.6 forum. Whether there's a Rovacom owner, with the diesel module software in Belgium who would show an interest, I don't know. I couldn't resist searching: Gavin Short is a regular poster and is at Tervuren, Belgium, but I think he's petrol. http://www.rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic...um+diesel#17719 talks about Kempower in Belguim as BMW specialists, and the thread contributor VogueSE shows his location as Belgium. Stevemfr is in Strasbourg, France. He appears to have a diesel, and a Rovacom. HTH.

Geoff You are correct in this example, which is what is important with this query. Personally I'm not going to be so bold as to say this is always the case with EVERY Diesel with an ECU involved in the fuelling control, but neither am I going to dispute your assertion :-) I do regard this engine as an early example of Electronic fuel control, regarding it as only partially Electronic, as it is neccessary to time the high pressure pump mechanically, the electronics then doing the fine tuning. Just my take, perhaps Bosch wouldn't agree with my 'half-electronic' designation :-) The point here, in my mind at least, is that someone else may have introduced a half electronic system, and included a mechanical throttle cable. Shrug - Don't know, so I leave the possibility open. I was also responding to Fisha's suggestion that there might be a TPS on the engine, which is another theoretical possibility. You'll recall there is an engine mounted TPS on some versions of the petrol V8, which I thought might influence peoples thoughts. Cheers.

I see you have changed the transmission ECU and the TPS. It's little consolation, but I've yet to find any forum where members actually 'know' a great deal about the BMW diesel engine installation, in any car. I am onl;y looking at English language forums, if you can understand German you may have more success. Did you change the gearbox ECU on the basis of information gained from somewhere, or was it a guess, like the TPS? Incidentally, there is only one TPS, attached to the pedal. There is no mechanical throttle connection to the engine, as there is no butterfly to move. If it were me I'd sit down for a serious session and read the Workshop manual on the BECM, looking for any comments relating to the engine or gearbox, and then I'd read the ETM about the Engine and the Gearbox. As a generalisation, an electronic fault is more often than not the ECU responding correctly to a faulty signal from a sensor. In this case I'd be looking at what happens when you need full power. The engine can respond by switiching off the HEVAC, for instance, and possibly other loads that take electrical energy, like the heated windows. The gearbox will obviously respond by looking at road and engine speeds, the current gear selection, etc. Coolant temperature may also play a part. You haven't said that the engine is chipped, internally in the ordinary ECU, or with an external add-on box, so I 'm assuming it is a standard ECU. I'm not pointing the finger at anything in particular, I'm just highlighting that you need to have a wide awareness of all the possibilities, some of which you can think of now, others that may only occur to you after reading a chance comment in one of the manuals. I don't know what you are doing in the way of interrogating the ECUs, possibly you've been leaving that to the Dealer. Have they looked at the gearbox as well as the engine? Have they tried capturing live data, while the car is moving and you deliberately go into the fault condition? The snag is they may not do this sort of thing very often, if at all, so be unaware of both what the tester can do, and lack the experience on how to interpret whatever results they get. I'll just point out that the Rovacom can collect data in CSV format, and although it can take a bit of rearrangement to present the information 'nicely' in Excel, the results can be very useful, but interpretation skills will be required. HTH

"If there is a resistance in series with a bulb the potential difference accross the bulb will decrease, " I disagree, in this circuit. What you say is correct if the circuit is conventional, with an negative at one end, and a positive at the other. With this circuit you are dealing with TWO sources of voltage (positive), with a common (we hope) negative. If the value of one positive changes, the potential difference across the bulb increases.

Hmmm, I've had a high resistance ignition switch cause this 'ignition light glow', and poor battery charging. Your comment about 'resistance not causing the lamp to glow,' is where I disagree. What I'm suggesting is a circuit that is Alternator voltage - light - resistance - Battery voltage. Normally the Alternator and Battery are at the same voltage, and the resistance is zero. I think we can safely ignore tenths of ohms in the wire and connectors. If the resistance (perhaps of a faulty ignition switch) is 10 ohms, say, the voltages 'seen' by the light are unequal. It is the voltages at the light that are important, not the voltages at each end. I think to problem is in the detail: the voltages at the alternator and battery, even in a perfect installation, will be slightly different (otherwise the battery would not be fed any charging current). Thus some current will flow through the bulb filament, which may in fact glow slightly, but this is not visible due to the red cover. Add in the high resistance ignition switch and the current flow causes a voltage drop across the switch. Now the light sees markedly different voltages at it's terminals, so more current flows (heating the filament, which gets brighter, causing it to be seen). The increased current flow increases the voltage drop across the resistance until a new balance is obtained. Do you mind, I had to start thinking then :-)

There is nothing "glaringly olbvious with this plan that'll cause me injury, death or unnecesary expense", but you need to consider some sort of variable electrical load, so you can attempt to draw different amounts of current from the alternator, while monitoring the voltage. Multiple headlight bulbs, each with a seperate switch (or say three bulbs to each switch) might be easy to rig up. At least then you have some idea of the load withouit having to measure the current. I'm not trying to be too rude, but the comment "soon drops off to not charging, battery light only glowing very dimly" makes me ask whether you really know what you are doing? If the alternator is working, the 'battery light' (presumably the red charge or alternator warning light) shouldn't be glowing at all. It should have full battery voltage (via the ignition switch) on one terminal, and alternator output voltage on the other terminal. With a balanced voltage there is no current flow, so the filament isn't heated. Two reasons cause a difference in voltage across the bulb, one is if the alternator isn't producing enough voltage, the other is if there is some resistance in the battery / ignition switch feed. Say this resistance takes 3 volts to force current through, the bulb will have 11 volts on one side, and 14 (alternator output) on the other. the 3 volt potential difference across the bulb will cause some current to flow, and the filament to glow sightly. As this fault is in the car wiring, EVERY alternator you fit will appear faulty. By all means rig up an alternator test facility, but check the standard installation as well. HTH.

Moglite, Some Rover V8s are RH, some are LH. Personally I don't bother trying to remember which model does what, on any engine. Go from the basic principle, which applies to any engine PROVIDING you know which way the fan rotates when the engine is running. You ALWAYS loosen the nut in the SAME direction the fan rotates. That's it, simple. When you do it up again, you don't need a lot of force, just nip it up to make sure it's seated. The normal rotation of the engine will keep it tight enough. HTH