Dave W

I've used them for a few years now, very useful especially those with a geo fence option. The TK104 is a good option for vehicles, particularly as it gives you an "engine kill" option ad is mostly waterproof. I've also been known to carry a TK102 when I'm off on my own on my mountain bike. If it's of any interest I wrote an app to make controlling them a bit easier day to day, in particular making it easy to quickly define a geo fence area and control more than one device... (iPhone only at the moment)... https://itunes.apple.com/tr/app/tkcontroller/id601959183?mt=8 It supports a number of different device types and more get added each time someone sends me a manual for yet another device type.

As I understand it the main problem with seamed (blue band) is not just about the method used to create the pipe but more to do with it's consistency and the material/carbon content. I've seen the issue myself with blue band both when bending it and in use. The material specification for Blue Band means it has to have a specified average carbon content along a length of 100 metres. The problem with that from a roll cage POV is that it's not consistent along it's length so some parts can be too brittle and some parts too soft. I've seen a blue band cage bend when the vehicle was literally just rested against a tree because it just so happened that the piece they'd used for the front hoop had a very low tensile strength at that point, the right hand side of the front hoop was MUCH softer than the left hand side (as proved via some very basic tests with a hammer after the hoop was removed). CDS isn't any more difficult to bend than blue band, the bender needed is a bit more expensive but not THAT much and if CDS was made mandatory I'm sure most clubs would end up with a bender or two available for people to use. It's a similar reason for the change to AF/R helmets, it wasn't due to the fire resistance part but was due to a change that meant those without FR had the test sample rate reduced dramatically so AF/R helmet shells were far more consistent as a safety specification.

I don't know the reason why the event can't run under an MSA permit but I doubt it's the MSA as such that's the reason. The more likely reasons are that the vehicles simply won't comply with MSA regs and the MSA wouldn't allow an exemption or that the MSA didn't feel the organisers were suitable for the event. At the end of the day it's just a comp safari or point to point as far as i am aware ? We've been running those in the UK for donkey's years without any issues. If vehicles last year did not comply with MSA regulations but were allowed to compete anyway then that might also explain the withdrawal of a permit. Not much point in having regulations, getting everyone to sign to say they'll abide by them and then finding out that the scrutineers and/or CoC didn't do their job properly. Technically, anyone competing in this event who holds an MSA license is in breach of MSA regulations and can be excluded from MSA competition. The organising club also cannot be an MSA club because MSA recognised clubs cannot run competitive events that are not sanctioned by the MSA. Any MSA recognised club that promoted the event risks fines and the loss of their MSA status.

Re the CDS vs Seamed I think the MSA have a long term intention to phase out seamed but they've never set a date for it (that I've seen) and it'll probably keep getting pushed back if they ever do. I think I'm right in saying that the FIA have already "banned" seamed.

As others really I guess, I would providing that I was either happy that I knew the vehicle and who had built it or it was cheap enough that the component parts would cost more second hand. A few challenge motors came up a couple of years ago that fell into that category but they are few and far between now as many "modified" vehicles are just standard vehicles with lots of bolt on bling that are overpriced because the owner thinks the bits they bolted on are worth what they paid for them. I've always tried to buy the most standard vehicles I can and then modify them myself with a chassis up rebuild so I know every part is sound and I know what compromises have been made and where. I often get asked this question by people starting trials competitions and my advice (not always heeded) is to ignore the modified vehicles, get something standard and solid, put some tyres on it and compete. When you find you need to modify it you'll then know why you are modifying it and what difference it made when you did.

Side (door) protection are standard requirements for most speed based events, it both protects the occupants from side impact and helps maintain the "survive cell" in any major front/rear incident. Some regs allow them to be bolted so they can be removed when not competing but most require welding. They can normally follow a line just above the occupants legs/hips when seated so they are lower at the front making it easier for the occupants to get in/out of the vehicle. Tree bars don't come close to meeting those regs. If you look at most "space frame" designs the side bar is usually used to form the top of the "door" or more accurately the bottom of the opening. Note if you go down that route then there is an MSA requirement for the bar to be so many cm above the top of the seat base to ensure that the occupant is enclosed and protected. Another regulation a LOT of people forget about concerns the height above the occupant's helmet when seated, always worth double checking your design, especially when building a space frame.

Is the March date fixed ? It clashes with The Muddy Truckers Trophy.

It's used to open the air intake flap on the heater.

From memory, the vacuum is also used for cruise control and heater control. If you don't have ABS then it's also used for the brakes but I think by the time the 300TDi soft dash came out they were all fitted with ABS.

I have one fitted to mine, good piece of kit. It uses VDO sensors so additional sensors are easy to source locally. I was talking to Brendan at http://4x4overlander.com about them and they had just been appointed UK distributors although I think he was having problems getting stock. Might be worth giving him a try though, not sure how up to speed he is with them yet though so technical questions are probably better asked here ! I bought mine direct from ZA with no issues after failing to find a UK distributor at the time. I'll be buying another to fit to my comp motor later this year. Pic of mine in the dash - replaced the water temp gauge.

I missed this the first time around, on my Defender I ran with double shocks, one at the front and one at the back of the axle. I bought a couple of replacement standard mounts (they are handed) and fitted them with the RHS one on the left and the LHS on the right. They weld to the axle and needed a bit of trimming so that they would also weld to the original mount. No reason at all why you shouldn't mount them behind the axle, I never had a problem with mine and, as you said, the early RRC had one there anyway. You just need to get the angles right and the top mount holes drilled in the correct place.

I have a 5.7 LS1 with an LS6 top end. I bought it direct from an engine builder in the US as a crated engine. It's mated to a 4L80E gearbox with an LT230 transfer box so it's running LR axles uprated with Ashcroft shafts/CVs. Fitted it in 2007 and only transmission damage was a transfer box (forgot to put diff lock in and destroyed the centre diff) and I've twisted off a rear prop shaft when I hit a tree root going uphill and landed with the power still on. Both of the above transmission failures I count as driver error ! There's a blow by blow account of the installation here if it's of interest... http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=194 Video of it's first proper outing here...

The plus side of the RV8 is it's simplicity and it's cost. You can pick up second hand versions for not a lot of money and there is a plentiful supply of parts both original and third party to keep it running almost indefinitely. The downside of the engine is simply it's age. It's a very old design that, rather than being scrapped and redesigned from scratch to take into account "modern" tooling and manufacturing techniques it has been "evolved" over time. As such it is a bit of a hybrid and a lot of it is over stressed and many of Land Rover's "improvements" over the years have revealed some of the design and manufacturing problems that are inherent in the engine design. The LSx engines, by comparison, were designed from scratch with all the later RV8 mods already in there from the start and with the whole engine designed around them rather than being added on as an afterthought. One effect of it's age and antiquated design is that there is a "cut off" in terms of power versus money spent. If all you need/want is a sub 200 (ish)BHP engine than the RV8 is a very good option, it has huge flexibility and quick response, is relatively cheap to run (especially on LPG) and it will pretty much put up with any abuse you throw at it as long as you change the oil regularly and never let it overheat. If you want an engine that's more powerful than 200BHP then there are far cheaper, more reliable ways to go and that is pretty much key to the whole discussion in my mind. If you want a high revving engine for comp safaris (especially given the inlet restrictors that many of the regs insist on nowadays) the Lexus is a good option. If you want a flexible, high powered engine and aren't trying to keep the displacement down then one of the LSx range is a good cheap option. (Remember by "cheap" I'm referring to the power versus money curve). Extra displacement always comes at an economical cost though, even at idle the thing is chomping through fuel faster than a smaller displacement engine. I've run all sorts of engines in my Land Rovers, lots of RV8s, even the odd diesel and the absolutely horrible 2.25 series waste of space in both diesel and petrol forms. For general use the RV8 is the most flexible and has probably the best , what in IT terms, is known as, cost of ownership. Currently in my fleet I'm running an LS1/6 in my challenge motor, a 4.0 Thor RV8 in my daily drive/commuting car and a TD5 in my overland truck. Of the 3 the LS1/6 is the best engine but has a high cost of ownership and is impractical for daily use but perfect for a flexible competition motor that competes in challenges and trials at least once a month and also tows the caravan to competitions. I'm glad I fitted it but would have been happy to keep the RV8 if I hadn't needed the extra power for the Australian comp. The RV8 in the daily drive is a good workhorse but is starting to show the normal RV8 problems, it had new heads a couple of years ago and is now exhibiting coolant loss issues that I'm having to deal with. I'm optimistic that they are external problems (heater matrix) but with any RV8 there is always that nagging doubt that it might be terminal or at least so expensive that it's pointless putting the money into it. The TD5 (15p) is a good lump, reliable, solid, relatively economical and never has you watching the temp gauge when stuck in traffic. The downside comes on colder mornings though, it takes forever to get warm enough to get the heater working properly and if you get stuck in traffic it actually gets cooler ! At least with the RV8 and the LSx you're toasty warm

I've kind of covered both variations with mine, albeit on a 90. Although the rear tank is different, much of what I've done is also possible on a 110... I've fitted 2 additional tanks to our overland 90, the first tank is a plastic one from Safari Equipe that fits between the main tank and the fuel filler, under the rear wheel arch. Essentially it replaces the fuel filler pipe with an under wing tank. It doesn't add a huge amount of capacity, perhaps 20+ litres so about the same as a jerry can. On ours it is designed for a TD5 90 but pretty sure they do a similar one for the 110. I then added a "standard" under seat 90 tank (pre-TD5) using standard parts. As ours is a TD5 I had to move the TD5 ECU etc... but I wanted to do that anyway for the increased wading depth. Fitting the standard 90 tank is far cheaper than any of the "long range tanks", it also has the advantage that the level sender is a standard part so will match your dashboard gauge. For filling you could either use a standard 90 setup (would involve cutting a rectangular hole in the rear wing and insetting a new filler or you can do what I've done and use a flush fit filler. To maintain the independence of the, effectively, two tanks I used a motorised change over valve, commonly used in SVO conversions. This sits between the tanks and the engine and switches the fuel feed, fuel return and fuel gauge senders over simultaneously using a switch on the dashboard. On the TD5 this works so seamlessly that you can change tanks while driving and not notice the change over providing you don't leave it until you run out of fuel on one tank. This is preferable in my mind to a simple balance pipe or transfer pump because the two tanks are entirely independent so if you get a holed tank at least the other can still be used without losing all your fuel. The valve I used is a Poliak one, I got mine from here... http://www.biotuning.co.uk/ShopValves.htm Potentially this valve can be used with any number of tanks as you can chain them together. There are some pictures of my install on our blog under the "Fuel system" tag. http://landytravels.com/tag/fuel-system/ Due to problems with the TD5 fuel gauge (the gauge on a TD5 is not connected directly to the sender) I ended up building a small PIC circuit with an LCD display that shows the fuel level in both tanks simultaneously and drives the fuel gauge based on the currently selected tank. (it also shows the voltage for both batteries and controls the solenoid that joins them together). This was calibrated for each tank so the fuel level for each tank is shown in gallons (as accurate as possible with a swinging sender unit !). The display for the unit can be seen top, right on the dashboard in the top picture for the link above.

The fuel system is pretty much identical to the older version, albeit with a few minor differences. The Fuel pressure regulator has 2 pipes to it (3 if you include the external return from the cylinder head). The fuel cooler has a pipe in and a pipe out on the fuel side, the former connected to the FPR. The low pressure stage of the pump takes fuel from the tank and pumps it to the filter unit, the return from which goes back to the pump to feed the high pressure pump. The high pressure side goes from the pump to the fuel pressure regulator, through the cylinder head and back to the FPR (15p engines use an external pipe, earlier engines use an internal feed), out of the fuel pressure regulator to the fuel cooler, from the fuel cooler to the filter where it is added to the low pressure fuel going to feed the high pressure fuel pump and any air separated out and returned to the tank for it to be vented. If you're building a custom install and want an external pump you can use a Bosch/Sytec pump and turn it into a single stage system using a 300TDi filter between the pump and regulator and a pre-filter on the pickup side of the pump. That way you can get rid of the crazy TD5 fuel filter/swirl pot system.

That looks like a P38 compressor off a V8, not a TD5 one

They changed from 6 to 7 bolt in the mid to late 80s - I think around 1989 on RRCs. It's often overlooked that RRC were around in the early 70s ! My 1980 RRC had 6 bolt and my 1989 RRC had 7.

To calculate the gap position the ECU has to see all the teeth going past the VR sensor and it normally takes at least 2 full revolutions of the crank to be "confident" in what is a gap and what isn't. It doesn't know which is the missing tooth gap as such but just makes a "guess" based on the frequency of the other pulses as the teeth pass the VR sensor. If it sees 600 pulses go past in a second and every 36 ish pulses there's one that's twice the size of the others it figures that's that gap. To manually turn the crank at a speed fast enough and constantly enough for the ECU to make sense of it is beyond the capability of mere mortals and certainly beyond the capability of anyone who can't figure out how to use a timing light !

I usually adjust them by feel, pull up/press in the lever switch thing and move the lever through the positions, the click you feel as it goes into each gear should happen near the central position of each indicator on the selector. As it goes into each gear position move the lever backwards and forwards slightly to make sure it's fully in that gear. You could also try this in and around the neutral position and see if the starter works while you're doing it. If the selector position doesn't line up properly when you feel the gearbox "click" into position then your cable needs adjusting. If there's a lot of slop/movement around the gear position then you either have something loose in the connections to the box or lever or your lever mechanism is shot. You can adjust the cable at either end with most setups and often the gear lever end is the simplest. Depending on the age of the vehicle, the type of vehicle, the type of gearbox and the type of lever fitted, it's normal for the selector to "lock" the lever into a specific position when the switch/lever/button has to be pulled up to release it. If that lock position doesn't coincide with the mechanical selection of the arm at the gearbox end then you will never actually be properly in any gear, including park and neutral. My best guess would be that you have a 300TDi Discovery, probably with a lever with a button on the side but then it could be a Range Rover with a lift up selector and if it's fitted to a Defender it could be absolutely any type of lever.

What happens when you put it into neutral ? I had similar problems on my Range Rover when the XY switch went faulty, it would always start first time in neutral but was temperamental in park. You could also check that the selector cable is correctly adjusted, doesn't take long to do and at least if it's that you're actually fixing the problem rather than bypassing it.

By all means give it a go BUT, one of the biggest issues I've had with MS installations is that it's not designed with any real concern for interference from outside sources. For example, lots of people who use coil drivers on board the MS have had issues but since I started putting the coil drivers in their own screened box in the engine compartment and using screened cables internally for the outputs, I've not had any issues. When using the MS with LSx engines where you bring the cam and crank signals directly into the ECU they are notoriously prone to interference problems unless you used screened cables internally and additional filtering components. The MS CPU seems very sensitive to stray radiation and although it will cope with most normal installations and normal electrical interference around it, using unscreened or high noise components near the CPU can give some very odd effects. The reason I point this out is that you are proposing putting a relatively powerful radio transmitter inside the ECU box which, being metal and earthed, will screen the ECU from a lot of external interference. Putting the transmitter inside that box is asking for trouble IMV unless you can be certain of adequate screening around the unit and you use a completely external aerial. I've had similar discussions in the past around my iOS MS app which has to use WiFi. The modules we use for that can easily be housed inside the ECU box but I've always advised against it.

I'm using coolant level, coolant temp, EGT, Engine Oil Pressure and transfer box oil temp. The kits come with all the sensors and adaptors you need. The only issue I had was the oil pressure sensor - it comes with a braided extension hose to move the original and new oil pressure sensors away from the turbo. This is a good thing BUT the "T" piece they supplied has 1 male and 2 female (for the sensors), the extension has a metric female end and they supply a male to male adaptor to convert it from metric to 1/8. That then means you need a 1/8 female to female adaptor between the T piece and the hose which they don't supply. Luckily I had one in the garage I could use but caused me a bit of head scratching ! The unit itself is pretty good, I like the max values for monitoring purposes and the mix of figures and a bar graph is nice. You can pretty much customise any of the sensors with min/max/alarm values and what they display etc... The text in the setup menus is a tad on the small side, especially if you suffer from short arm syndrome like me I can read the normal display though without my glasses !

They do, unless I've misunderstood your post. i replaced the coolant temp gauge in mine with the Madman gauge. It takes a bit of modifying of the back of the panel but it saves adding an extra pod, see pic below...

Found the figures for mine My calculated unladen front spring weight was 363kg and unladen rear sprung weight was 394kg (each side) Weighbridge had the front axle at 1060kg and 1000Kg rear (TD5 auto 90 hard top with full roll cage). So, front axle unsprung weight each side would be 1060/2 - 363 = 167kg per side or 334kg complete. Rear axle unsprung weight would be 1000/2 - 394 = 106kg per side or 212kg complete. On mine I was looking for a specific height front and rear when the 90 is in expedition trim all loaded up but that didn't need a ladder to get in when it was unladen. For that reason the spreadsheet was used to bracket the heights (laden/unladen) for all the springs I could find data on. I'm pretty confident in the calculation because for both laden and unladen weights the spring height at each corner is within a few mm of the calculated height. I think the front axle complete with CV etc... weighs significantly more than the rear axle. I can lift a rear axle case on my own but can't get close to lifting a front axle case with it's swivel housing etc... 20kg difference doesn't sound right to me. I don't think the calculated front axle weight includes the full swivel/cv housing. I can tell you a complete swivel housing without the hub weighs a damn site more than 10kg ! There might also be an effect of the bushes and gas shock absorbers as they can resist movement and supplement the springs respectively. The Koni shockers on mine, for example take nearly my full upper body weight to compress... assuming unsprung weight = total weight - sprung weight may not be reliable unless you replace all the suspension bushes with rose joints and remove the shock absorbers. The important thing is that the sprung weights are in the right ball park given the shock absorbers you are using and the bushes you are using.

I don't have the figures to hand but I went through a similar process last year and ended up working out the sprung weight from the springs that were fitted and their compressed and free lengths. This method worked out pretty accurately and the replacement springs put the vehicle within a couple of mm of the calculated height. I have a feeling that the unsprung weigHt worked out to be a lot more than I'd anticipated. I'll see if I can find the spreadsheet I put together.