Dave W

Where are you ? I'm sure there must be a Land Rover specialist in the area who could take a look at it without either charging you a fortune or looking down their nose at your "ancient" 5yo car.

It depends on the way your vehicle is wired and the type of alternator. If your alternator feed goes direct to the battery and the isolator cuts the power to the vehicle without disconnecting the alternator then you don't need the extra terminals. If your alternator is wired to the "vehicle" side of the isolator rather than the battery side then that gives you the problem of the alternator continuing to power the engine when you turn the isolator off when the engine is running. One of the extra pairs of contacts kills the ignition/fuel pump/ to stop the engine running and the other pair of contacts connects a large power resistor from the vehicle side of the isolator to ground, effectively loading the alternator while the engine comes to a halt. Switching the isolator off while the engine is running should kill the engine as well as isolate the electrics, for motor sport this is something that is checked at scrutineering and, hence, the version with the extra contacts is often called the MSA/FIA version. I prefer to use electrical isolators as they are easier to remote switch and are waterproof.... http://www.devon4x4.com/products_a/p2c127/.../-isolator.html

After all the compelling arguments on here I went away and did some more research/reading into low throttle/cruise fuel mapping and came up with some interesting results, particularly in the various race and road tuning books. While all agree that lean mixes at WOT are a bad thing the consensus is that this doesn't translate to low throttle/cruise areas of the map. Some of the tuning books even go as far as to suggest you should simply lean the mixture out as much as you can in the cruise positions while the engine runs smoothly. So, contrary to the points I made earlier about lean mixtures at low throttle being harmful, I now think the whole lean at cruise causing liner/block problems should be consigned to urban legend. I have a tuning session planned in the not too distant future where I'll lean out the cruise areas and hopefully save some cash in the process

Personally I'd go for SuperPro but the Britpart ones are OK if you can't afford SuperPro, just make sure your supplier is actually cheaper than SuperPro otherwise it's a no-brainer. Assuming there is a real cost difference I'd be tempted to use SuperPro in the high stress/wear bushes - panhard, front and rear radius arm bushes(chassis end) and so on.

Not forgetting of course that the act in question is from 1986 and the SD1 was at teh end of it's life then so the case may have originated before this version of the act...

With that reasoning you could get prosecuted for speeding while being parked up at teh side of the road...

A trial set for road going vehicles, drive there, compete, drive home.... a nice relaxed day's trialling with superb views (if the fog lifts this year ! ) Several clubs already on the invite, if you want to compete and are already a member of an MSA club PM me with your club name. More details available here..... http://www.yorkshireoffroadclub.net/index....e=page&id=7

Can't help on the gearbox front - I don't do manuals. You can run an EFi pump in your existing tank, just make sure your tank has the small "swirl pot"/sump in the bottom (basically just a box at the bottom of teh tank that the pump sits in. Most 90 tanks seem to have these already. You'll need a decent radiator, I'd recommend one from a 2.5TD or 50th anniversary - the TD one will fit easier though. You'll need to add a T piece in the bottom hose for the expansion tank (use a plastic one from a RRC or 300TDi Defender. The AFM needs to go behind the engine, above the bell housing. You can either make up some pipe work or get the pipe from a 50th anniversary Defender. Beyond that it's a case of altering engine mounts, making an exhaust and wiring it up.. in theory at least Use the existing transfer/gear box mount positions so your props stay the same length and fit the engine mounts accordingly.

I'd second the club membership thing, we get quite a few people joining our club just for the insurance discount, it's a bit annoying in some ways (from a club perspective) but when insurers are offering 15% or more discounts for club members and membership costs £15 it's worth joining a club if you pay anything over £200 for your insurance. The clubs do, of course, benefit financially although I'd prefer members who took part in club events but at least they subsidise some of our events and activities.

It's all been done before, why do I need to go out there myself and prove the world isn't flat ? I'm more than happy to accept the findings from someone else and on my own RV8 maps I make sure the engine runs at or slightly below 14.7. On my LS1 however I run target AFRs and run at 16:1 in cruise as a compromise between economy and keeping everything sweet using a wide band lambda in closed loop. On the more general discussion regarding combustion temps on lean mixtures, I found this explanation to why internal temps increase with a leaner fuel mixture... Not saying it's right, just that it's a better explanation of what I've been taught in the past but struggled to explain

TBH having read those posts they seem to be concentrating on EGT and aeroplane mixture controls used to compensate for the lack of oxygen % and cooler air at altitude allowing the mixture to be leaned out based on EGT. Having melted pistons and seized engines due to running them too lean I'll take a lot of convincing that a lean engine runs cooler ! I can see I'm going to have to start reading some more recent tuning manuals though because there are some interesting theories in there that contradict some of the things I've been taught over the years.

Not at all, as has been stated several times above, all engines are designed to run lean at cruise (lean being defined as an AFR greater than 14.7:1) You neither get the best power at 14.7:1 nor do you get the best economy at 14.7:1. The ideal (most efficient) AFR at cruise, as already stated, is between 16.2 and 17.6:1 it gives you the best fuel economy under low load conditions. The narrow band lambda sensors fitted to the engines have no way of telling what the mixture is other than when it's at 14.7:1 so they can only be used to guess the mixture at cruise. My understanding is that people have done just that on rolling roads and have shown that the engines run lean at cruise. The real question is how consistent they are and at what point is "too lean". After all, a perfect engine will run without damage at 17.6:1 at cruise but will an engine that has a flaw in the block ? If you run the engine at 14.7:1 you increase fuel consumption but reduce temperatures in the cylinder and as a result reduce stress on a cylinder design that could well be considered "borderline".

When you checked the oil level did you check it with the engine ticking over, in neutral, after cycling it through all the gears ?

lol, too right, the LS engines are what the RV8 should have turned into, rather than trying to adapt obsolete manufacturing and design to make a more modern engine they should have done what GM did and design a new one from scratch based entirely on modern design and manufacture. I assume the decision to stick with adapting the RV8 came down to lack of investment. It's a shame really that it was Ford and not GM that bought them last time out maybe we'd have avoided the "transit van man" philosophy and got something a bit more exotic and interesting. I still love my RV8s but I confess I love my LS1 a LOT more, it is well thought out, well put together, easy to work on (even the majority of the gaskets are reusable) engine that delivers more "bang for the buck" than an RV8 could get to in it's wildest dreams.. but we digress

What is it like in reverse ?

The ideal cruise mix for economy is between 16.2 and 17.6:1 but as Land Rover only have very narrow band lambdas fitted it's difficult for them to be very precise in cruise conditions so all they can do is adjust the "too rich" to "too lean" fuelling so that it errs more on the side of too lean than too rich during cruise conditions. In other words if you take a one minute period rather than spending 30 seconds running too rich and 30 seconds too lean effectively centering around 14.7 they would run, say, 45 seconds too lean for 15 seconds too rich as a way of guestimating an overall 17:1 ratio with the sensors they have available. The real downside of this though is that the earlier plenum chambers (pre-Thor) are prone to leaching with preceding cylinders taking part of the fuel charge from others. This can lead to one or more cylinders running leaner than the others and as the lambda is measuring the combined output of four cylinders it's only ever a best guess. The speculation (and that is all it is/was) that LR were running too lean at cruise in order to get better economy came about because after market maps that used a richer cruise mix set up around a 50:50 closed loop cruise for the engine or those that were set up on a rolling road to an accurate 16:1 mix at cruise seemed to be far less susceptible to block problems. Personally I suspect it's "all of the above", the later engines had better quality control on the blocks and a richer mixture so were more reliable. The earlier engines with weak blocks were less likely to fail if you ran them at 14.7 in the cruise areas as decreasing the internal temperature reduced the stress on the weaker block. Lean mixtures are dangerous for the engine because of the increase in internal temperature this causes. A richer mixture absorbs the heat and carries it out of the exhaust port, a leaner mixture will burn hotter than a richer mixture and less of the generated heat goes out of the exhaust port. In extreme cases temperatures inside the cylinder can get hot enough to melt aluminium, at which point the piston normally fails first. The point regarding EGT is valid up to a point because with a weaker mixture more of the heat stays inside the cylinder so you will get a decreased EGT whilst also getting an increased cylinder temperature. I doubt Land Rover will ever admit the full reasons behind the failures and we'll probably never know for sure but like all good theories it's fun to speculate

If you want to change the gearing it's not too difficult but you need to strip the box down a long way to change all the gears over, there is a crush tube that sets the end float so you just need a new one of those. You basically end up doing a complete strip down and rebuild of the complete box, just about everything has to come out of it. You also need to get hold of the gears of course, that can work out more expensive than a replacement box ! I converted mine from 1.2 to 1.4 using some nearly new gears out of a TD5 90 that someone had had changed to 1.2. It took about an hour to change it over once the box was on the bench. The replacement box is the easiest way to go and also has the benefit that, if you decide you want bigger tyres at a later stage, you can quickly swap back if you keep the existing transfer box somewhere.

The tube length on mine is 1170mm (a tad over 46 inches). That's measured off my spare which I think is a genuine part.

First off, don't panic ! There are a huge amount of 3.9/4.0/4.6 engines out there that have no problems. I have no idea what the failure rate is but it's a lot lewer than the impression some people give. It can, however, work to your advantage when it comes to negotiating a price ! The 3.9/4.0 and 4.6 block walls are a bit on the thin side compared to where they should be and this can lead to hot spots and then cracks in the block behind the cylinder liner. There are two possible results to this, the first is that you start losing coolant for no obvious reason, the second is that the liner can start to move/slip, normally accompanied by a knocking noise when the engine is running. There is a theory that a lot of the engine's problems are primarily down to the management system, GEMS in particular runs the engine very weak in cruise areas of the map and the resulting heat build up meant that the GEMS 4.6 had the highest failure rate of them all. By trying to make the engine as economical as possible they basically over stressed it so you end up with a large number of pre-2000 4.6 P38s with replacement blocks. When I fitted my first 3.9 engine about 12 years ago I was warned about the impending doom and was told it was a huge mistake to replace the existing 3.5 because of the 3.9 problems. That first 3.9 is still running in Pam's daily drive and has probably done around 160,000 miles now without any issues other than a cam and followers change and a head gasket change. The second 3.9 I fitted to my Range Rover approx. 10 years ago and I got it on the cheap because it was using water, which all the "gurus" said would mean a new block. I replaced the leaking valley gasket and that engine served me well until I replaced it 18 months ago with an LS1. In teh next few months that 3.9 will probably end up in Pam's motor as that first 3.9 now has a problem with the crank (for some reason the keyway for the crank pulley has worn allowing the crank pulley to move about 10 degrees. The problems with these engines exist BUT they really are blown up out of all proportion because you never hear about the numerous good ones, only the bad ones. There are also a large number that get replaced by unscrupulous companies that will write an engine off without even looking at it properly. The assumption seems to be that using water = cracked block when in reality there are a lot of reasons for an engine to lose coolant, things that all engines can suffer from. In terms of running the engine, just make sure it's well cooled, check the coolant regularly, change the oil every 6000 miles and there's a high probability that it'll never give you any problems.

The aircon version is 50mm deeper than the standard one, you'll get slightly less than that on the inside as the aircon one is thicker material than the original so you'll lose a few mm. Here's a pic of the two together.... The standard one on the left is now for sale if anyone's interested.

As it happens I just bought an aircon front panel and have both a standard one and an aircon one sat in the garage... I can measure them if it will help. The grill is the same on both but the grill attaches using plastic pegs rather than screws. The aircon panel is GRP rather than metal which I assume is why it uses plastic pegs to attach the grill.

There was someone on ebay selling new connectors for the latest style modules and the modules themselves seem to go for not a lot of money... Can't help on the original ones though

As above, any LT230 transfer box will fit just be careful of Disco II ones as they don't all have a diff lock ! Look for the Q suffix for the ideal one just on noise grounds (or lack of). Alternatively you can change the gearing in your own transfer box but getting a decent second hand 1.222 ratio transfer box is probably easier and cheaper.

I'll PM you if I decide to sell it, if it's just the clutch that's causing the problem I'll have a spare clutch/pulley assembly regardless, the only question will be if there's still a compressor attached

For the built PCs you can buy power supplies specifically designed for the job, they offer facilities such as auto shut down when the voltage drops, starter bridging that keeps the PC running while you're cranking and the voltage drops for a short period etc... Take a look at the link I posted for car specific cases, power supplies etc... http://www.linitx.com/ http://linitx.com/viewcategory.php?catid=52&pp=52 The PSU I use is rated at 10-30V input and mounts directly on the motherboard as a daughtercard plugged into the power socket. The PC box is mounted behind the seats. I ran extension cables from the connectors on the motherboard to the outside, sealing them as they exit the box. I have provided 2 USB ports, 2 serial ports, a VGA port and sound ports via these cables. The monitor has a USB port on the side of it so the touchscreen uses one of the USB ports from the PC but provides another one so you still end up with 2 available USB ports. I have a small USB keyboard that can be plugged in to the monitor if needed although the aim is to get software that's actually designed for use with a touchscreen. Properly designed software removes the need for a mouse and keyboard, in normal use there are no operations required that can't be done with touch screen buttons with your fingers. Trying to use a touchscreen with software designed for a desktop PC with a mouse and keyboard is really frustrating when you're travelling across country and need to enter a waypoint ! The spare USB ports get used for bluetooth and WiFi dongles when I'm at home,