Ed Poore

Oh and I picked up one on ebay about 2 years ago for a tenner.

I've got one of those brackets on my 300Tdi for mounting my on-board air compressor (AC compressor). Wouldn't be too much hassle to whip it off. I also have a friend at work who, at least before Christmas, was low on work and bored and with a 3d scanner... I could ask him to cheekily scan it. At least that way we'd have an STL file of the bracket. Up to you then how it gets machined. Don't think 3d printing in ABS would quite stand up to it unfortunately but you never know...

Note a lot of galvanisers will either rufuse it or charge you a large surcharge if there's a lot of paint on it because it messes up their baths.

If you've got the luxury of not relying on it then what I'd be doing is stripping it down and inspecting things. Make a call then rather than buying stuff and not needing it. Shouldn't take too long if you've got somewhere nice (i.e. undercover) to work.

There was a thread on def2 about a chap seeing how much power he could get out of a 300Tdi purely for academic purposes. Might be worth seeing if that thread is still around.

Work allowing (which is unlikely) I'd be sorely tempted to come along as support crew. Sure I could round up a couple of mates, one of them is a bloody good cook for big groups. Just need to find somewhere to go hunting on route for the tender loin venison steaks

Presumably you have a standard intercooler lying around? If it were me I'd just wire up an EGR and see how she goes. In general I've found that LR actually do a damn good job on the engineering of their vehicle. There aren't very many things they actually got wrong. Yes I realise everything can be upgraded but as a production vehicle they generally do a damn good job. I remember a thread I read on a Yank forum about upgrading their axles to fully floating and how it was the bees knees and so revolutionary not supporting the weight of the vehicle on the drive shafts. Hmm, surprising no one had done it before... Anecdote aside what I was getting at is these vehicles in standard trim run quite happily in the desert and much hotter climates that would benefit from an intercooler. Therefore I don't think you'll have an issue in the UK. Whether you see any performance benefit is an unknown. I do seem to recall that Ian Bell did a load of dyno testing and if I remember correctly the only thing that was really significant in terms of affecting power and torque was intake airflow and the only thing that really affected that was snorkel and pipework design. I.e. If you want performance don't bother fitting a snorkel, the ram air effect people talk about with (notably those with Safari style) was rubbish. The snorkel itself does far more damage to the airflow than could ever be achieved from forcing air down. Not sure if the report he did looked at different intercoolers. Wonder if my rally contacts know anything. My folks company has also done some work for the guys in Llanelli who build all the cooling systems for the new Land Rover products so they are likely to have some hard facts.

I've recently been paying some attention to my long neglected engine (a 300Tdi but in a 110 USW). So far I've replaced a blown manifold gasket and replaced the jubilee clips with those bolt based ones (T clamps?) and been able to tighten them up quite nicely. Those two changes along with setting the valve clearances and changing cambelt have made a marked improvement on how she pulls (bearing in mind I'm running a 1.2 transfer box). I've got a bit of a knock which I suspect is a dodgy injector but not narrowed it down yet. But I suspect giving things a bit of an overhaul will make a big difference. Given it's done 160k in my ownership and basically just had oil changes done (and not at particularly regular intervals in the past). I'd be inclined do the sensible stuff like cleaning it up, new gaskets and running a standard intercooler first. See how it goes and then potentially talk about upgrades. I've never had an issue with mine and it's not been looked after as well as some but it's been 160k of trouble free motoring and it's always got me there.

If you get foggy / misty / cloudy conditions a lot where you are I'd stay away from the majority of the LEDs. They're normally quite a white light which is horrendous for reflecting back in foggy conditions. There's a reason why Land Rover fitted normal halogen bulbs to the fog lights on vehicles such as my L322 despite having Bi Xenons as the main headlight. If you want long range then unless you're willing to shell out a lot then I think the halogen / HID offerings are much more cost effective. Most of the LED light bars I've seen are superb for flood light effects but aren't great at long distance. Go Aussie style and aircraft landing lights on the roof for long range. @FridgeFreezer has I think a pair of Cessna lights on his ambulance if I remember correctly. As always the more you pay the better the quality. I've found doing the headlight wiring loom upgrade made a big difference and comparing it side by side with some friends which cheap LED light bars, yes they flood light the area better nearby but they really struggle to get the range of my bog standard H4 bulbs on high beam. I have also been contemplating a light bar (not really a fan off them since they're a bit in your face) but more for floodlight effect.

Right after a very quick test drive it looks like the vacuum pump has sorted quite a lot of the issues. Dogs jumped in for the ride so didn't slam on the anchors but the brakes definitely felt better. Think I need to replace my pipe though, it looks like it's had better days.

In one word, it's painful. There's an oh **** mode as well if you pull the handbrake while moving (car does as much as it to stop). Never plucked up the courage before I sold it as someone who had been through both a brick wall and tried it out said the brick wall was infinitely more preferable.

Annoyingly a day or so after ordering mine I had the offer of not only a second hand vac pump FOC but an entire 300Tdi engine . Don't have the space but I know where it is now!

It certainly sounds like it. I've just had the new vacuum pump delivered for mine and picking up a gasket at lunch today. I'm unlikely to have time until the weekend to replace it but I can run the same tests you your father has so see if it's exhibiting the same symptoms. Can then let you know if it fixes it

At the risk of going off topic - what do you consider best in class? You mention Land Rover but from having owned a 3.6TDV8 L322 I'd have thought that's pretty much as best in class as you can get for an off-road vehicle. You did mention Land Rover not Defender ...

Hmm, now I've just recently (well still have to pick it up) had mine refurbished (seals began to give up) it'd be nice if it was motorised. Turns out I picked up an absolute steal, cylinder is rated to 700 bar (>10,000 psi) and if I remember the dimensions correctly its actually closer to 100 tonnes not 30. Not sure what the frame is capable of surviving. Enerpac still make the cylinders (for circa £3k ). [edit]Paid £150 for it[/edit]

Tell me about it - I seem to have a never ending battle with my drop arm, it's basically being replaced every year just before the MOT now. Gone from being a **** to get off to working loose over time despite having the correct nuts and locking washers (although the current ones are carp). Got a new steering box I'm refurbishing and probably going to change to a Disco drop arm instead.

Bit extreme

Do you have any "knocking" when running? Notably under load? I've been trying to track down a bit of a knock on mine and noticed yesterday in the rain that brakes were pants. Given I'm running mud terrains I can normally lock up the wheels on dry tarmac, yesterday I couldn't get it to happen at all. Thought, ah vacuum pump (shows how much I use the brakes). Anyway when I got to work I pumped up the brakes with the engine off and the pedal really didn't move at all. So if it sounds a bit more tractorish than normal it may be the same issue. Although pump is on order so we'll see whether it fixes my issue.

I was going to write "Someone would have thought a member of a Land Rover forum wouldn't have problems with fitting things inside their Land Rover". Then realised you probably don't have an issue with fitting whatever Mo wanted into / onto your Land Rover. Actually moving it once it's there might prove to be the difficult bit

Another possibility is I'm due to be driving past Fridge and TSDs office on the 17th again so if they can make their way towards Guildford / Farnham I can drop them off then. Ironically have driven past or could have driven past Oxford each weekend for the last month, just nothing planned now until spending Christmas in Scotland.

If there's nothing sooner I can collect on the return from the Highlands around the New Year. Also thought about it on the drive down last weekend and completely forgot on the return to pop into Chris' to pick up the transfer box. That I might be able to get Dad to collect when he comes stalking, if he's organised it...

Yep, 15Nm

I wish I hadn't seen this. Just done the timing belt on mine but followed the workshop manual...

Ah fairly obvious now - probably powered from the Megasquirt board itself rather than from the USB.

Even if it's Linux or Windows FTDI drivers are fairly ubiquitous and are included as standard normally so unless the IDs have been changed a normal FTDI driver should be installed. The driver will appear as a normal COM port but might be identifiable if you look in the device manager. You need to find out which number it is. If you've got a physical port then that'll almost certainly be COM1.