Dave W

Last time I bought some of the 16x8 modulars, Devon4x4 were actually cheaper than Paddocks by a couple of quid each, which came as a nice surprise !

You should be able to tap into it, MS works really well off the OEM crank sensors and building your own coil driver box is very simple when you come to driving the coils too.

I normally just use a multimeter as they're pretty much impossible to tell apart at the switch end ! The start inhibit and the reverse are completely separate so use two wires each so using a multimeter or a bulb and battery is the simplest way.

It's at the front left of the gearbox, it's the same unit that houses the start inhibit switch, round with 4 wires coming out of it.

I've used mine for a mixture of parts, from custom enclosures for electronics and controls to repair pieces that need structural strength. The choice of material, the design, the setup of the printer and the orientation of the print can all effect the strength of the finished item. So far the part that has the most force exerted on it was a replacement joint for a camping chair. The original snapped and I printed a replacement from ABS and, having seen where the original ABS part had failed, I made sure that I reinforced the design in those areas. I don't know much about the Ultimaker, I've only used a cheap sub £200 one, but that doesn't look a bad price assuming that it's got a quality print head and doesn't need a new set of bearings etc... The reversed motor is probably just a software issue, it may have been flashed with an incorrect setting. I've spent around £100 upgrading my £200 printer with auto bed levelling, dual high quality (E3D) hotends and lead screws instead of threaded bar so assuming that the Ultimaker has a similar quality it won't be a bad option. Some of my creations... End caps for the bars that support the tent on my trailer conversion Enclosure for my dual fuel tank and dual battery monitor Bonnet vent

I went for a Noco for my Sankey conversion, it charges the batteries (2 x 110AH AGM Numax) whenever the trailer is connected to an electric hookup. Initially I chose it because it's rated at IP65 so shouldn't have problems living in the trailer even if it gets damp. The reason I mention it is because, as you'd expect on a camping trailer, it's constantly disconnected/reconnected from the mains and never misses a beat. I don't have to reset it or turn it on, it just starts charging as soon as I connect the mains.

The XYZ switch is on the side of the gearbox where the shift cable goes in (nearside). It tells the gearbox ECU which gear you've selected so faults in the switch can lead to some interesting behaviour ! Replacements aren't cheap but it's worth contacting Ashcrofts - when I need a replacement for mine I was fortunate that they had a good second hand one available. They are a bit of a pain to adjust, it takes two people (one underneath to adjust to and one in the cab to move the lever) and a lot of patience to get it just right !

With that size tyres I'd go for 1.4 or 1.6. 1.6 will give you better acceleration and give the engine a more comfortable (albeit lower) cruise speed, 1.4 will give slower acceleration and a higher cruise speed but it will be harder for the engine to maintain the cruise speed. A standard 300TDi won't pull a 1.2 box with those tyres, you'll find driving it hard work as it will need to change gears on even the slightest incline when trying to stay locked up.

There isn't a calibration for the lambda sensor however the fact that it shows 0-1v in the lambda meter in TS suggests you've not set the lambda environment settings up correctly to match your WB lambda. I'd get that right before you try anything else. Remember that the ECU also needs it's settings updated to support WB so make sure you are saving the settings to the ECU when you make your changes. Remember that when you load/save the tune (.msq file) you are also saving all the Lambda settings that the ECU is using, if you revert to a tune that was saved using the NB sensor then you'll lose all the changes to the WB sensor. This is often overlooked if you are so focussed on the maps and forget that loading/saving them can wipe out changes you made other than in the VE tables. Don't bother trying to autotune if it's not displaying and recording data correctly because all you'll end up doing (as you have been) is chasing your own tail. MS installations need to be done methodically and one step at a time. You need to take the time to get the basics right, make sure all the values, including lambda, are displaying as you'd expect before letting autotune loose on your maps ! 0.2v doesn't strike me as an issue, as long as it changes when the engine is running. Remember that the lambda sensor is measuring oxygen levels, thankfully normal air does contain oxygen !

I do mine slightly differently, I run a piece of thin wire around all 4 wheels at hub height, tensioned between the two rear wheels with a bungee. You can quickly see where the tracking and steering position is by the gaps between the tyre and the wire at the front and rear of each tyre. If both front tyres are touching the wire at the front and rear than you are at 0 toe out, adjust it until both front tyres have an appropriate gap to the wire at both sides, turning the steering to centre it as needed. You can also get the steering central position and adjustment of the drag link at the same time. It's not perfect but given the variability of tracking on a Defender with steering it's always worked pretty well for me, I often do it with the front axle on axle stands and not noticed much if any difference between the tracking when raised and when "settled" on the ground. Having had it put on a laser setup afterwards it was out but not by enough to warrant adjustment.

The Disco normally has much smaller tyres than a Defender which reduces the overall ratio. Put some 205R16s on your Defender with a 1.2 transfer box and it will be fine... pretty much exactly the same as the Disco apart from the aerodynamic issues over 50MPH. If you "upgraded" a Discovery to use the 1.0 transfer box (used on the early 3 speed auto RRC) they'd be having similar issues to a Defender running 1.2.

I've always mounted mine half way between the seat base and the roof in the middle of the bulkhead so it's equidistant from the sides and roof. I figure if the water level gets to it, whatever orientation the vehicle is in, I'm about ready to bail out anyway ! I was put off the roof thing after a trip to Ireland, one of the motors ended up on it's roof on a gravel track (don't ask !) and, as it was raining and on a slope, there was a stream of water running into the roof, it was only about an inch deep but, unfortunately, the expensive head unit that was mounted in the roof for safety from water, never worked again.

Extra connectors shouldn't have a negative impact, especially if you use good quality ones. The Econoseal ones are very good, I use a lot of these which are rated at 10A per pin which is more than enough for any of the MS pins... http://www.polevolt.co.uk/acatalog/Econoseal_Connectors.html I divide them up into 2 or 3 different connectors so all the signals from the engine go through one connector, injectors, fuel pump and fan control go on another etc... I've also played with the idea of using one of the Econoseal 36 way ECU connectors, make a PCB to accept the male and seal it into the side of the waterproof box with a ribbon cable or similar to the MS ECU. http://www.polevolt.co.uk/acatalog/ECU_Connectors.html If you go down the econoseal route, do yourself a big favour and also buy one of the professional crimping tools for them, saves a LOT of time and effort and gives a good secure connection every time.

One option I've seen is to use a waterproof multipole connector (or 2 or 3) either mounted to the waterproof box or connected inline externally. It does mean you have two connectors instead of one but you can still remove everything from the vehicle if you need to.

No, the wires going to/from the coil packs can generate interference that can cause issues if it's close to the ECU, especially if it's right next to it. That's one of the reasons people have big problems when they put coil drivers directly inside the ECU case.

As above really, it could be printed although the 3D model with all those compound curves wouldn't be simple. Having said that it may well be that the design itself could be simplified or customised to serve the same purpose as the original. You'd want it printed in ABS rather than PLA, PLA is the "normal" material for 3D printing as it's easier to print and is biodegradable (it's produced entirely from renewable sources) but it's less flexible than ABS and more likely to degrade over time. Having said that PLA is less susceptible to UV degradation than ABS so maybe PLA would be better ! If you can post some dimensions and some more photos I can try and model it for you, it may be simpler than it first looks...

You have the wrong Lambda set up, a narrow band shouldn't be giving you 5v !

We might get our mud tyres back if we leave, many of the big manufacturers no longer supply to Europe due to the regulations the EU imposed on us, the same regulations that saw remould prices double so they now cost almost as much as a "new" tyre. Anyone wanting to set up a new business near one of the major ports into Europe could make a killing selling tyres for "personal import" to people nipping over the channel or north sea for tyres that can no longer buy in the EU !

Yes, you should use 8.8s but be aware they are not metric, off hand I think they're something like a 7/16 UNC. Having said that the bolts don't actually do all that much on the 8274 when compared to other designs where the winch bolts downwards through the mount. To attach the winch mount you need 8.8 and an absolute minimum of 4 M10 bolts bolting it to the chassis.

The free account is probably all you need, you can do an awful lot with that. The problem with OnShape for eventual use with 3D printing is that it tends to produce odd results in the .stl if you're not careful how you build it. I did a CAD design in OnShape for my Sankey conversion and it was great for producing the drawings for the steelwork that I passed to the fabricator. When I tried to do a scaled 3D print though it failed to slice properly due to the polygon designs it produced, I ended up having to build the 3D print design from scratch.

We were just using a standard (new) Discovery 2 auto oil cooler with a TD5. Ambient temperatures varied quite widely from sub zero in the Vic High Country to low 40s in the NT.

Not sure what classes as "serious overlanding" but the first rule of overlanding in my view is that you take spares appropriate to the vehicle... As an example, we had the auto/manual decision to make before we went on our trek around Australia. We anticipated driving long distances in a mix of terrain, from solid tarmac roads to desert crossings and sand dunes as well as the infamous mile after mile of corrugations. In the end we went auto because it's kinder on the engine and transmission, is less tiring to drive when you're covering 500k a day and they tend to be more reliable as long as they have a decent oil cooler. The weak points of an auto are: The lack of a tow start - to counteract this we carried a spare starter motor and the batteries were arranged so that either or both could be used to start the engine. The fact that a split pipe can leave you without any oil and no oil means no forward motion - This was the biggest issue to my mind, to counteract this all pipes to the cooler were nearly new and the routing was checked and double checked to make sure they couldn't rub through on anything, especially on the corrugations. We didn't have room to carry enough ATF for a complete refill so this was the biggest risk so was also the one we were most careful to avoid ! Had we not been travelling in a 90 we'd have probably carried enough oil for a refill but space was tight ! Our auto was also an electronic controlled one, as was the engine. This gave us the advantage that we could monitor the internal oil pressure and temperature so would have been given some warning had a problem occurred. In the end, we didn't have any issues with it of course. Even when crossing the deserts and climbing sand dunes the auto box never really got hot and we'd have struggled getting up some of those dunes in a manual !

I took the plunge a few months ago and bought a cheap 3D printer from China in DIY kit form. Total cost including shipping and customs was £200. It's been well used since then and I've produced all sorts of items, some of which I've been wanting solutions for for a few years. You can get really good quality prints out of the RepRap design printers and there are a number of improvements you can make yourself by printing out different part designs. My most recent upgrade is to a better hot end that will allow me to go up to much higher temperatures, allowing the printing of nylon and polycarbonate objects when needed. I'm currently printing a new X-carriage which will convert the printer to dual extruder, allowing the use of PVA in one extruder to print water soluble support structures. If you're just printing using PLA, ABS or similar (less than 260 C) then the MK8 extruder and hot end that comes with the printer is very good. As for software, I pretty much exclusively use OpenSCAD to create my designs. It's not too difficult to learn and has the major advantages that you can resize/adjust an element of a design very quickly and it's almost impossible to create a bad 3d print design from it. I prefer it to traditional CAD packages because it's simpler, for me, to create 3D objects simply by putting their sizes into a script. The .stl files it produces have a 100% success rate so far when printing. It's probably not something you'd use for general CAD work but for 3D printing it's pretty solid. I use Cura to do the slicing of the .stl file and creating the .gcode, again, I tried quite a few before settling on Cura and Cura has given 100% printable gcode including good support options to allow printing of some pretty complex designs.

It's never a fun job, one "trick" I use is to lift one wheel, on the axle I'm working on, off the floor with a jack, just enough so the wheel can spin. Without the centre diff lock engaged you can then use your foot against the tyre to stop the wheel spinning when you want to. That way you can spin the propshaft to the best position for the bolt/nut you are accessing and then "lock" it in position with your foot as you undo/tighten it. Obviously be mindful that it's only sat on a jack so make sure you're not putting your foot or anything else in a position that might leave it trapped fi the jack fails, that's also the reason you only jack it up just enough to spin the wheel. A windy gun makes the whole thing a LOT easier either way ! For the transfer box end I sometimes resort to using some thick cable ties to hold the weight of the propshaft when it's disconnected from the diff end, saves some arm ache when trying to both hold the prop up out of the way and use a ratchet.

On the odd occasion that I drain them I just disconnect the pipe(one of the advantages of push fittings) and tip the cylinder upside down, after all, without a pipe pushed in it's just a hole in the end of the tank so any water will drain out. I haven't seen much water in them though, certainly nothing compared to my garage compressor. Maybe it's to do with the pipe layout or position of the tanks.