Steve 90

The system im looking at has a built in pressure releif for this very reason. Steve.

Any chance you could let me know where you got the spreadsheet or did you work out your own formulas to do it? Think I have got my head around the maths of the job now, Just waiting for some ram dimensions and I can get going on the sums but a spreadsheet would make things a little quicker im sure. Cheers. Steve

Pretty much exactly as I was thinking. Which is kind of what im looking at doing. How are you setting yours up? What is the rrelationship between king pin, rack, steer arm etc? Steve.

So Daan, Your saying that Ackerman is not that important. Quite interested in that and If its correct will make the fitting process/my life easier. My main concern was that when turning at tighter angles (When the ackerman is at its greatest) on a low grip surface the last thing I wanted was the tyres fighting against each other and destroying the small amount of traction we do have, causing the front end to push on where it may have turned. The fact that the outer wheel can turn through a greater angle with parralel steering before the inner wheel hits the radius arm is something I hadn't thought of. Would the wheel fighting against each other cancel out any advantage gained or has it proved to not be an issue. Any experience anyone? Very interested to hear more about the possibility of parralel steering and if you think it will cause issues when turning tight angles on poor surfaces. Scrub steer, You are correct. The scrub steer on my truck is terrible. More so running Boggers, less so on the Simex (which we ran in Croatia) but still quite bad. I completely agree that the increase in load through the steering box due to this is massive and steering box failure would probably be almost a thing of the past if we ran center point steering. But, I dont know of a strong axle set up that will correct this without going down the line of custom Spider trak or similar. So, a steering solution is probably the most cost effective/straight forward fix at the moment. As far as driving style is concerned. These events are getting faster and tougher (Which is exactly what I like, which is why I want to do them). We have broken boxs with very hard hits, sometimes driver error, Sometimes bad luck. We have also had broken box's that have never had any shock loading that I wouldn't expect it to have to take through normal driving on this style of event. Probably all comes back to the scrub steer issue, but it is what it is so we'll deal with it. If everyone ran a defender box then driving to the strength of a defender box and staying on pace would be an option. But, we are traveling at speed on tracks we have never seen before. Even the most careful driver is going to take a hit if they want to run at the front. As soon as people build trucks with stronger steering systems they are going to get away with pushing a little harder. You either have to let them go, Risk a DNF and keep up or build the truck to survive. A few years ago people were having the same discussion about standard half shafts and driving in a style that will not risk breakage, Things move on, so do the trucks. If someones truck is stronger you cant sit back at a safer pace waiting for them to break something..............and most of all, whay would you want too whan you could have strong steering and drive fast :D So, the threads not about driving within a defender steering box's capability, Its about making the truck stand up to the inevitable hits it will take on these events and mainly the geometry when fitting Hydraulic steering. I think the question is now, Will Parallel steering be ok???? I hope so! Steve.

Other way round! Steve

Afternoon guys. Just in the process of modifying the steering on my land rover. Really fed up of broken steering box’s and giving serious thought to a full hydro set up. That way I can have a strong setup that can easily be tuned for speed/force etc. Does anyone have any experience in using a double ended (not the type Simon keeps under his bed) ram in front of the axle and its affect on the Ackerman effect? My limited knowledge is that I need to have the steering arms as straight as possible and keep the rack (or ram in this case) behind the line of the track rod ends, This gives an angle between the steering arms and track rods of less than 90 degrees. The resulting increasing/decreasing angles when locking the steering around will give the difference in steering angles needed. I have googled it quite a lot but had very few useful results, maybe I need to tweak the search terms. Does anyone know of a calculator or can give me any pointers in calculating some dimensions to fit the ram and maintain (roughly) the correct Ackerman effect. On my axles (Ashcroft force 9’s) with the existing (8” ctr to ctr) steering arms I can just about get the ram behind the line of the track rod ends and use an 8” stroke ram. I would like to check if this will give roughly the correct geometry. If not I will need to make some longer arms which of course will require a longer ram, different orbital etc etc. Any help/pointers from anyone who understands the sytem or has any experience would be great. Cheers. Steve.

VAS (the VAG dealership tool) will not allow the system to regenerate at anything above 90% ash mass. I have done them for people that have been told by VAG that they need an expensive replacment many times. After checking everything is OK with the system, I have forced regeneration at 150% ash mass, but would only do that on the road as the heat would be scary when stationary. If that fails we soak and wash them through and re try. As said above, We do a lot of stuff for other garages including sort stuff that the dealer has failed to fix. Steve.

They will reach a limit yes. Assuming the system has been operating correctly (a lot will not re generate if there are any fault codes stored, DPF related or not) , some PSA stuff (peugeot and Citroen) was about 80,000 miles. VAG seem to go a little longer. We do now have a gel from Germany that we soak through the filter overnight and steam clean out the following day. That does extend the life a little. But, they will eventually get to the point where they need replacment. Steve.

On most systems you can not fool the ECU with a resistor. The differential pressure sensor will be looking for a different back pressure (or difference across the filter) for different air flow/engine load and time conditions. For example, If you have driven at 75% engine load and 80% throttle for 2500ms it knows what the differential pressure should be and that it will be different for any variation in engine condition. It has a MAP in the ECU that will cross reference all the engine load sensor readings against feedback from the differential pressure sensor and flag a fault if it’s outside of tolerance. So a constant value will flag a fault code for an implausible signal from differential sensor and the ECU will default to limited operational strategy. If you remove the filter without writing it out of the software it will see too low a differential pressure and again flag a code and default to LOS. Basically the system is pretty clever and will know if you remove the filter the same as it knows when it’s over loaded. Most systems can have it written out. Never failed yet with a Bosch, most the others are removable about 90% of the time but would need to read the software before being certain. Some of the Jap stuff (Mazda 6 etc) can be tricky but I think we’ve probably cracked that now. A lot of performance tunes have to be limited when a DPF is present so a lot get removed for that reason. Trouble is, very few have decent diagnostic equipment and even less have a clue what they are doing or how the system works. We do Diagnostic work for pretty much every garage and a few dealerships in our area, The level of skill and understanding in 80% of the trade is (I am ashamed to say) very poor. HTH Steve.

Sorry Nige, Hadn't seen this until now. Yes its a full locker. Can be seen here http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/index.php?act=viewCat&catId=89 An excellent piece of kit. Steve.

FIXED!!! I was sure all the external bits (wiring/sensor) were OK. So, I ordered a new ECU (I wanted a spare ECU before we go to the Croatia trophy) . Nige got it to me in double quick time, Plugged it in and the MAT is correct. Just got a TIG-a-thon tonight to get the last of the rear rad pipes welded up and I can get it running again. Hopefully everything will be well, but I have a sneaky suspicion there'll be some more logging and Tuning needed yet. Nothing ever runs smoothly! Cheers guys. Steve. P.S. Old ECU will be going for repair and kept as spare, I'll post up what was wrong when its done.

Have a look at the new offering from Ashcroft. Works in a similar way to an ARB but they have built it in a way that does away with the problem areas. Air leaks are a thing of the past and it engages and disengages quicker (IMHO). An excellent unit thats competitively priced. We've been using one for a while and its brilliant. Cheers. Steve. BTW, We are what would be called a heavy user, We took 1st place at Manby/90 degree challenge first time out with it. Ive 100% confidence in the unit.

Yea, Thanks for that!

Nope, Scrap that post, The sensors are around the 6K ohm so they are OK Steve.

Errrr what Fridge said! To be honest I don't know, Ive just used it as set up by Fridge and Nige. Its started and run without the slightest hiccup or issue until now so Ive never paid too much attention to it. I'll have to rely on the knowledge of others to make a call on weather the sender im using is compatable "as is" or if it needs to mave some correction. Cheers. Steve.

Mmm, just tried it now. Grounded it and it showed a steady 170 deg F. Tok the ground wire off and it started to fall again, Re grounded it and it showed maximum value (over 200). The sensor is in the intake pipe inside the cab (where it runs between the seats) Its never suffered from heat soak and I'd be supprised if it did. Its a good few feet away from the motor and about 10" lower than the plenum. Ive also pulled the sensor out of the pipe and its still 100deg Cheers. Steve.

Just a couple more points, I think last time the truck was used it possibly did start to feel a little lean and crackled a bit. So its likely this fault started then but Ive only really noticed it now while trying to set up the new motor. Also, I'm pretty sure the RPM is slightly low (around 200rpm if thats possible), I cant recheck at the moment as the rad pipes are off it but should be able to run it before the end of the week to clarify. Cheers. Steve.

To make a long story short I've just fitted a slightly tweaked 4.6 to my challenge truck. I was kindly supplied an MSQ from Nige which should be a good starting point. But, The truck ran lean. After some logging Nige pointed out that I need to open my eyes as the IAT/MAT sensor was obviously wrong. It permanently shows 99-101 deg Fahrenheit. (we don't expect that temp in Wales until March ) So Ive checked the sensor, resistance seems reasonable and near as damn it identical to 2 other new AT1010's I have. Sensor earth wiring is good, .002v drop, no resistance. All ECU earths seem good. Pin 20 from ECU to MAt also has no resistance and the resistance across the sensor is the same as measured from battery neg to ECU pin 20. I finally load checked the wiring (disconnected it, Used it to power a bulb and checked for volt drop) all still seems good. So I'm confident wiring and sensor is good. If I disconnect the sensor the Megatune drops very very slowly to 77 deg F but will not go any lower. Ive re loaded the old MSQ for the 3.9 (which used to be fine) and it shows the same so I'm confident its not a software issue. So could it be an ECU issue? What would the effect of a fault in the load resistor problem for this circuit be? Any idea's appreciated as I really need to have it running before the end of the week if were going to make the phoenix. Cheers guys. Steve.

Those pics were taken quite a bit further along than the round bales, All the way along the Pass then turn around the end of the mountain. We were the only ones to travel the road in days.

Yea it was a bit like that . I know the road quite well, Its only a couple of miles from my house and I travel it a couple of times a week!

Blimey, You must have just missed us, We were up there trying to get over the gospel pass (which we did successfully). Was deep in places.

Why do you say theres no room beside the transfer lever?? Is it because the seat is too close or just the profile of the tunnel makes it awkward to fit? I have a 100" defender with the the engine and box moved back quite a long way, the shifter is beside the transfer lever which is perfect. Your hand falls straight on to it from the steering wheel.

Im just in the process of fitting power steering to an old (1988) Renault master van. I have the rack etc off a diesel one but this being petrol I cant find any donor vehicles to get the pump brackets etc off. Everything else that uses this engine has the pump situated in a place that it cant be in the master for various reasons. The layout of the engine, routing of pipework etc leaves very little room for the pump to be fitted without a massive amount of re working. So before I start making brackets and moving exhaust manifolds etc I was thinking about an electric pump. I am sure that somewhere on this forum I had seen a thread about someone fitting an electric pump to a 90, but having searched I have come up with nothing. Does anyone remember this post and could they point me in the right direction please? Cheers. Steve.

Anyone after rooms in the Hi-B for the three peaks. Not sure what the situation is but in previous years I know they have been fully booked. I have 4 rooms booked which we don't need any more so if anyone needs them PM me. Preferably before the end of the day as I will cancel them otherwise, Probably tomorrow AM. Cheers. Steve.

If I lock the wheel around so the track rod end is nearest the guard mine will come out with the guard on no problem! The guard is one of the best bits of kit ive bought. Used to bent the track rod all the time before I got it but its a thing of the past now.