Dave W

If you do want to use a Triac then something like this one would easily do the job.... http://uk.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProduct&R=3552841 A normal relay should easily take more than the 5mA it needs to hold it on and it'll handle 5A all day and 73A surge so it's more than capable of handling a relay (normally they take around .5A). Stud types are easier to mount than this kind of pin through but they are significantly more expensive - over 10 quid each rather than 70p each ! You can get them for free though if you have access to scrap washing machines as they're often used to control the power in those. This is a typical stud mount one... http://uk.rs-online.com/web/search/searchBrowseAction.html?method=getProduct&R=7005588 You just need to be careful with the higher powered ones that the holding current is below the current the relay draws or it'll keep turning off.

I can't think of any reason why you couldn't do what you want to do using a triac. They are dirt cheap and reliable, all you'd need to do is connect it to the coil of the relay. A triac is often used for AC switching because you can connect, say, 12v to the trigger and it will switch on allowing current to pass both ways through it. When you remove the trigger voltage it will stay switched on until the current flowing through it drops below a certain threshold. When switching AC this happens straight away but when switching DC, as in this case, it will stay switched on forever or until you momentarily apply 12v to the other end of it or disconnect it's supply. In the diagram below momentarily applying 12v to Input A will turn the Triac on, activating the relay. Momentarily applying 12v to Input B will reduce the current flowing through the Triac and turn it off so when you stop applying 12v to Input B the relay will deactivate.

You need a YWC106280 for central locking. It'll work quite happily without the TD5 ECU although you'll need someone with a testbook or similar to register keyfobs with it. It's worth doing though as you get other things that it controls that you only appreciate afterwards, dim delay interior lights, interiro lights come on when you unlock the doors with the fob, interior lights auto turn off if you leave the door open for a period of time.

As above really, the stepper is used at all times to try and maintain an even idle. It is slow to react though and for that reason certain actions, such as changing gear in an auto (from park to drive for example) and the a/c compressor activating have an additional wire to the ECU which, when the state changes, tells it to wind the stepper out from it's current position for a second to give the idle control loop a chance to catch up. The base idle setting is important because it ensures that the stepper is working within the correct range and it also provides a minimum idle speed where the stepper algorithm can't stall the engine due to closing the stepper too far. Too high a base idle can lead to the stepper being permanently closed when the engine is hot and that leads to problems with it sticking when it does need to open. Cleaning (and lubricating) the stepper motor is never a bad thing although generally bad stepper motors on an otherwise healthy engine tend to reveal more problems at startup than when running providing they are clean. If you are getting problems with erratic or unpredictable idle speeds when the engine is cold/first started, that tends to be a more classic symptom of a bad stepper motor. Too low a base idle can result in the stepper idle control loop closing off the air flow too far, especially when you take your foot off the throttle, and stalling the engine as a result.

Have you tried setting the base idle ? I'm not sure this is your problem but it should give a good starting/disagnosis point. To set it properly you need to (with the engine warm) block off the pipe from the plenum to the stepper motor at both ends to ensure there is no air getting into the plenum via that route. You need to stop air getting into the throttle body too as it will be bypassing the AFM. With that blocked you need to adjust the bypass screw to give you a steady 600 rpm tickover. This gives the stepper the best range and should, in theory, stop the engine stalling if the stepper motor closes off too far. Another common problem that can cause what you describe is a blocked breather T piece. This is often what people end up trying to compensate for using the base idle adjustment. If you look at the pipe that goes form the flame trap on the front of the RHS rocker cover to the plenum inlet, as it passes the front of the plenum there is a T piece with a small pipe running to the plenum. Inside the T piece is a brass insert that restricts the amount of air/crank fumes that are pulled into the plenum. When this gets blocked it reduces the idle RPM. Be very careful when handling it though or have a spare ready - the plastic can be VERY fragile after years of having hot crank case fumes pass through it. A small drill bit can be used to clear the carbon build up inside the insert. After that I'd be looking at idle mixture as the further away from ideal the mixture is the less resilient the tickover is. Advancing the ignition timing a bit may help too and i'd double check that the TDC mark on your crank is actually TDC on your engine just for sanities sake. The high compression engines will normally run quite happily at up to around 10 BTDC without pinking. Check the throttle position sensor is both correctly adjusted and has a good smooth signal throughout it's range as a noisy TPS near the closed throttle position can do all sorts of weird things to your mixture at just the wrong time.

There is a single large branch of the loom that goes from the front LHS of the bulkhead down under the floor, across the gearbox and into the driver's side seat box. At the end of this branch are the connectors for the underseat fuse box, one of the TD5 ECU connectors and a number of relays/connectors. (fuel pump, main relay air con relays). It's all in a single loom spur but there's no real reason not to just ignore the ECU connector. A couple of small branches come off it to pickup the speedo, OBD connector, diff lock and low range switches. The TD5 engine loom has the other TD5 ECU connector on it and that loom runs down the RHS chassis leg from the seatbox and it also plugs into the bulkhead loom at the front RHS of the bulkhead then goes on to connect to the engine ancilleries. When i did mine I bought a second hand engine loom as well and grafted my real engine loom into it (I'm using it with a 'squirted V8). I did the whole conversion without "damaging" the main TD5 loom as, at some point in the future I may end up putting a TD5 in it so wanted to keep it "plug and play" should I ever need to do that. I have a couple of spare wing looms if you're interested in them, one of them (RHS) is brand new, the other is second hand.

You should be able to use the underseat fuse box, just use it on the passenger side if you have a fuel tank on the driver's side. The wiring from the bulkhead loom to the underseat box all comes from the LHS of the bulkhead anyway so it'll go to either side. Doing it without the under seat fuse box or the later dashboard gauges would probably be more work than it's worth.

I've done exactly what you are proposing to do. Leaving central locking aside the loom needs some minor modifications to get it to work, mostly just connecting a few wires together in the seat box as the TD5 ECU has two plugs, one goes to the loom and one goes to the engine so some things need connecting across. The temperature gauge wiring goes through these plugs too and you may need to put a resistor between them to get the gauge to read correctly. If you go for central locking I would just get the 2002 immobiliser/cl ecu and a couple of fobs. It'll work quite happily without the TD6 ECU. There are a few types though, some don't have CL and some work on different frequencies so the fobs need to match.

You could change to a TD5 2002 Defender setup, they moved the wiper motor higher up, basically getting rid of the bend in the lead screw and tubing. It seems to give a slightly improved wiper performance too as everything is working inline rather than trying to work around a bend. You'd just need the tube between the LH wiper wheel and the motor unless you can straighten out and shorten the one you have. You also need to cut away some of the metal in the lower dashboard and add a couple of rivnuts to hold the motor in it's new position. It gives a lot more room for a speaker at that side.

I have a similar setup and eventually gave up on having them in front of the spring mounts and put them behind. Not sure why they are better behind although in my case I don't think the double front shocks made life any easier at the front. You can use the standard mounting bracket, just drill a second hole for the flexi to bolt to. At the axle end you'll need to make a bracket or you can get away with swapping them from one side to the other and drilling/cutting them as needed. Here's a pic of the first one I did using the existing brackets (swapped axle end brackets over from one side to the other): Not got any pics of the second vehicle I did but it was similar, the main difference being I made the brackets up from scratch. Don't forget to slot the brackets so you can get the calliper off without unbolting the bracket or splitting the brake system.

The air filter isn't an oiled type is it ? In real money I make your fuel consumption to be around 16 mpg... ! That means it's putting in twice the amount of fuel you'd expect. Are you sure you've not got a hole in the fuel tank ? Someone in the neighbourhood siphoning fuel out at night ?

I had a 3.9 block without any serial numbers on it. I believe there were a lot of them around from when LR were replacing blocks under warranty. I've come across 3 or 4 of them myself. Anyway, I was shipping my motor out to Australia which means undergoing a customs inspection where they check that the number stamped on the engine matches the number on the documents (V5 and carnet). No engine number would give me all sorts of problems so I just made up my own number with two letters (my initials) and 4 digits and stamped it into the block. DVLA were quite happy to change the number on the V5 without querying it. Customs in Australia and UK were perfectly happy and passed the vehicle both ways and stamped the carnet (or whatever they do to it). Since then (this year) the engine was fitted into another vehicle and, again, no problem at all changing the V5 on that vehicle either.

Only had mine in for 3 years but no problems so far and they've had some serious abuse at times. I run the oil lubricated setup though, not sure what, if any, difference that makes to the drive flange splines. As above, I always convert my vehicles over to oil lubricate the bearings, seen too many grease lubricated ones collapse and/or seize.

The data capture part of the app is just about complete now which, for me at least, was an important step and it's now running happily on both the simulator and my own iPhone. There's a short video of it displaying the raw data in a very rough and ready data view here...

You don't need the key you just need to push the small sprung pin in. You can push the pin in through the small hole in the lock cylinder. The hole's location varies depending on the age of the lock. the earlier ones have the hole on the outside of the lock mechanism and you need to take the complete mechanism out of the door to get to it. The later ones have a longer barrel (more secure) and the hole is located inside the lock mechanism and you have to access it through a slot in the top of the mechanism. The later lock keys are the same as the ignition key, much longer and more tumblers than the early ones. As the pin is a few mm down the barrel from the end of the key you should be able to figure out where it will be by the length of the key.

No idea how the reception compares but most of the internal glass mount aerials give very poor performance, the best of them only give an "average" performance. An internal glass mount antenna without a built in amplifier is next to useless. They also won't work at all on heated screens or on some tinted glass. The manufacturers recommend you stick the antenna in place with some insulation tape to test it before you fix it permanently. The best aerial you can use is an external amplified aerial but most of them are either magnetic (not much use on a Land Rover) or need a hole drilling. The external glass mounts get good write ups but I've not tried one of those myself. Which multiplexes can you get ? At the very least you should get the BBC National multiplex and the National Commercial one. "minority interest" channels are normally on local multiplexes not the national ones.

Flying saucer ??? I thought the JVC unit was quite restrained I have mine set to green LCD to match the vehicle displays but you can set it to just about any colour you want. The addon units are OK but I'd avoid going full digital atm, the coverage isn't there yet. With that in mind you also need to sort out a decent aerial, the ones that come with the addon units are pretty poor and you'll struggle to pick much up unless you're in a strong signal area. If you're thinking of using it abroad you also need to be aware that most of the addon units only support DAB III which is used in the UK but not all countries use the same frequencies. The sound quality of the addon units is generally not as good as the purpose built ones so you might want to try and hear one first to see if it's acceptable to you. http://www.dabonwheels.co.uk/ have a useful star rating system on all their products which gives you an idea of performance between different units. I have a 3* aerial on the Range Rover and a 5* external on the Defender. Both work well in this area but I've found an occasional "hole" in reception in the Range Rover - there's one on the M62 eastbound carriageway which, bizarrely, doesn't happen when I'm on the westbound side. I assume that the lower down the star scale you go the higher the chance you'll lose signal. Other than the time delay (DAB is a second or two behind FM) the JVC unit switches seamlessly to FM so I don't really have any problems with it but I suspect it could be annoying if you were running a pure DAB setup. Not sure what the current coverage is like in Scotlandshire although having said that the FM coverage was always pretty bad up there when it came to Radio4, It's the only place I know of where you miss having a LW radio !

I use JVC KD-R901's in both a Defender and a P38 Range Rover. The head unit is AM/FM/CD/MP3/Bluetooth with an external mic for the bluetotth hands free use. For DAB you add an external JVC unit which you can hide away pretty much anywhere. It plugs into the back of the head unit like a CD multi-changer. It has a USB port on the front. You can play music etc... from the iPhone using the Bluetooth pairing albeit at a reduced quality, or you can plug straight into the USB port on the front using a standard iPhone USB cable. You can choose to either control the iPhone from the head unit's controls or from the iPhone (my preferred option). It's happy to pair via bluetooth for hands free at the same time as being connected via usb. The DAB unit works well and it automatically switches from FM to DAB stations and back again. Very useful if you listen to Radio 4 a lot and you enter a fringe area for DAB reception. I was so impressed with the first one I bought for the Defender I went out and bought another for the P38 Range Rover You'll need to decide on a DAB aerial, on the Defender I used a joint FM/DAB aerial on the wing that works really well. On the P38 I added an additional DAB glass mount aerial on the inside of the rear quarter window.

Just an update on progress, in case it broadens the interest or triggers further possible features. To help test the app locally I've created a simple utility for Windows XP that allows a MegaSquirt to be connected to the serial port and to allow it to be queried via any network connection available on the PC This removes the need, for testing at least, for the WiFi to RS232 hardware as a laptop or similar with WiFi can act as a bridge while testing/evaluating the phone app. I've figured out a way of killing the engine for HFH, restarting it from the iPhone is still a work in progress

There are already a couple of iPhone apps that will read the standard OBD II codes. Innovate, for example, sell an OBD II to WiFi unit that has an iPhone app that communicates with it. the hardware seems a bit pricey to me though and my Innovate wideband units haven't proved to be the most reliable things in the world so I'd be nervous about buying from them again. Regarding the various android/why iPhone type posts, I have an iPhone, I think that about covers it. The advantages of a WiFi enabled Megasquirt over a bluetooth one also appeal, using 3G tethering or a local WiFi internet based network you could even allow someone on the internet, anywhere in the world to view all your MS settings/telemetry while you talk on the phone to them. I originally looked at bluetooth, USB and serial connections but WiFi is the simplest and most flexible. If someone wants to send me a phone with a different OS on it I'll take a look at that as well once the iPhone version is up and running. If there isn't a TD5 solution available on the iPhone when I've finished the MS app and, assuming I've not lost the will to live, I'll take a serious look at an OBD II version with as many of the TD5 specific codes that I can reverse engineer from an Autologic/Nanocom/Testbook unit should I happen to stumble across one.

The problem, as I understand it, with TD5 is that it uses lots of custom PID codes and the meanings of each aren't made publicly available. If anyone has access to them and/or can supply them to me I'd be happy to create a free app to read/reset via an iPhone. OBD II to WiFi adaptors are easy enough to get hold of so comms isn't a problem. Just thought of another nice feature for the MS app - because, on a gps equipped phone, I'll know the speed of the vehicle and the amount of fuel being used I can calculate MPG values.

I'll post something on the MS forums too, just thought I'd start here I'll PM anyone interested in testing when I'm a bit further down the track with it. I'll set up a "test" option so you can evaluate the software with or without the WiFi unit. I like the idea of an out of bound values warning, I'll add it to the list.

I've been thinking about doing this for s while now and was wondering if there would be any interest in it, also looking for feedback on possible features. I'm writing an app for iPhone/iPad that will give a real time view of the current Megasquirt paramaters, store a log and allow transfer of a log to MegaLogViewer. In addition to engine parameters it will also log location, speed and heading if the device supports it. You'll be able to "play back" a saved log too, possibly with a google map overlay. I intend to make the app a free download from the app store but it will need some hardware that can be permanently installed in the Megasquirt ECU or plugged in when needed for those of us who have more than one ECU. Initially at least it will only be compatible with MS1-Extra running on v2 and v3 PCBs but at a later stage I may extend it to allow use with MS2-Extra. The additional hardware required is an RS232 to WiFi adaptor, this allows the iPhone/iPad to connect to it via a WiFi link and transfer data to/from the serial port. There are a number of these around and it should be simple enough to add support for any number of different devices but initially I'll be developing the app using this one... http://www.rfsolutions.co.uk/acatalog/WLAN_to_RS232_Module.html This one also comes with a pseudo serial port driver for Windows that should allow a netbook/laptop etc.. to link to it using the usual MS utilities. So, anyone interested in becoming a tester or have any feature requests/ideas or alternative hardware options, I'd be interested in knowing what you think.

Just empty as much as you can out of it then fill it to the top with petrol, any remaining diesel will be so diluted by the petrol you won't notice it. Obviously you'll also need to change the pump and fuel feed setup to suit the V8 but the pumps are interchangeable.

Yorkshire Off Road Club is holding a trial this Sunday near Helmsley in North Yorkshire. More details available here... http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/index.php?main_page=page&id=18&eventid=804 Come along and say hello