Ed Poore

I've actually got some turret rings (four of them in fact) but not the Td5 ones - that's if I can find them and assuming I brought them when I moved to Surrey...

I did need a compressor when I did the rear ones (ended up putting the blade of our 3 ton mini-digger onto it and then tying it up with straps) but from what I remember when I redid the shocks the front axle drops a little lower. I suspect the rear-axle didn't drop enough because I still had the anti-roll bar attached.

Cheers, I was thinking about the HD springs given the lump up front. Just ordered a set - now the challenge of trying to fit them in the new house with limited tools... Hopefully shouldn't need a spring compressor...

Right after a nice long 14h drive back down from the highlands with the head-lights pointing very low rather than simply adjust them I'll rectify the problem and fit some new springs to the front axle (already done the back about 6 months ago). The majority of my driving is road-based but I do have a 10,000lbs electric winch (wire cable) and a First Four Tubular Winch Bumper on the front (probably weighing in at about 60kg in total). So the question is - standard duty of heavy duty?

I rebuilt the gearbox on my 88" over the summer (unfortunately was on rather a tight schedule so didn't get much opportunity to take photos) but didn't need to do much other than replace the main bearing on the input shaft. One tip regarding that bearing in particular is it helps massively to freeze the bearing and the input shaft, I luckily had two places locally where I had access to a 20t, 50t and 150t hydraulic presses. Basically the procedure was to freeze the bearing, press into bell-housing, heat bearing (just used boiling water underneath in a jug and then poured some on) and then put the frozen input shaft into the bearing. Went in surprisingly easily (to the point if you're confident of hitting it in square you could do it with a hammer and some blocks of wood). The only worrying bit we had initially was it seemed to "jerk" in and then we realised that it was the cold bearing temporarily freezing on the bell-housing. Now got an R380 to do but might just get an exchange unit for that one since I need to minimise downtime.

Nope, didn't want the hassle of trying to find some insurance for it. Or for that matter trying to stop it on drums. Settled for stripping and rebuilding the 2.25. Unfortunately because I was on an extremely tight deadline didn't get any photos of the engine rebuild. Got a few (profile pic is one) of the gearbox rebuild. Do regret it now though...

Pah! I should have made some enquiries for you about an engine I was semi-seriously offered for my Series. Was a V12 from a Daimler IIRC, something in excess of 5L anyway, but the chap wanted a lorry axle in exchange and I didn't happen to have one handy...

Just out of curiosity where and for roughly what price are people getting their heated windscreens? I've been thinking about fitting one to my '94 110 for a while. The seals are beginning to perish around edges and someone threw something out of a Saxo on the M4 about a month ago and has put a sizeable chip into the driver's viewing area (I think it's just below the 10mm diameter but will ask the guys at Challenger to have a nosey tomorrow when I drop it off). So with that chip and the seals and wanting some decent demist (although my heater's not too bad at demisting), and the fact I have a decently paid job now means that it's even more on the table than before.

Well I already offered you my 110 It's (internally anyway) a standard non-A/C 300Tdi CSW so has no vents and plenty of carpets. At least now I'm not the other end of the country to you...

I can arrange for the most difficult test. Can it survive three labradors? Particularly when one's trained for delivering cardboard boxes to the recipient then destroy the box.

Oh dear do I detect a sense of glee there... What have I let myself in for...

I'll volunteer my 110 as a test vehicle if you want

Regarding the ATmega vs. Arduino - they are effectively one and the same. The ATmega is just the processor whilst the Arduino adds a defined hardware platform and a software library on top of that. The Arduino platform basically consists of a small micro-controller which provides USB <-> UART translation whilst also simulating the STK programming protocol which can be used for ICP (In-Circuit Programming) of the Arduino. There is then the main processor which on the Arduino Mega 1280 and 2560 is one of the ATmega series, on other boards it's a less capable processor. The software aspect of Arduinos consist of the "IDE" (if you can call it that) and a set of libraries which abstracts the hardware. Basically it creates a (slow and in-efficient) abstraction layer which means that you can say pinMode(...) rather than interacting with specific registers on the processor. What I was indirectly referring to with the previous posts were that the hardware for the Arduinos are actually fairly well designed and capable bits of hardware. It's the software libraries on top that limit things but those can be re-written and you can therefore utilise the full capabilities of the AVR processors. So my advice start with the Arduino because they're well supported, however if (unlikely in your project I would imagine) you do find that you need more processing power then you can just re-write the libraries. Or there are a couple available - such as mhvlib (makehackvoid.com if I remember correctly) which basically move runtime decisions which never change into compile-time macros.

After having attempting to deal with them on the phone I might be tempted to put up a mini-keg from my local brewery to the first person that offers photographic proof of this

Interfacing SPI with the Arduino boards is dead simple - I did it for my final year project when I built an OBD-II simulator for part of the project. The Arduino (Mega in this case) communicated with a Microchip SPI CAN-bus transceiver. Pay attention to the quoted "range", I suspect for 300m you're going to need an aerial (not just that board) and it's surprising how much aerials cost (they're not expensive but more than you'd think for what is essentially a tuned piece of wire). Again it's "up to" 300m so chances are it'll need to be line of sight and with a decent aerial attached. Not an issue here but do pay attention to the current demands of any electronics - beefier transceivers may not be able to be powered directly off the Arduino (that one should manage at a guess) and therefore you'd need to factor in the cost of building some form of voltage regulation. Similarly - when you have the choice of using a break-out board for prototyping use it! (Ask me how I know that!) Once another member of one of my groups ordered just the camera (not the breakout version). Thankfully using some ingenious methods which involved a candle and mini blow-torch at one point one of the technicians managed to mount it. When it came to using a gyroscope for my final year project because it was automotive rated and therefore stupidly expensive (region of £70 for just the chip) we opted to pay the extra £20 and get it pre-mounted on a breakout. After all bugger up attempting to solder it on once and that's £50 loss compared to buying the breakout board.

The Arduino's are great if you haven't had much experience programming, however once you get down to the nitty-gritty they're incredibly bloated. Wouldn't really matter for this project but if you try and do anything remotely fast then you need to pay attention to how you code - or do what I did - rip out the Arduino libraries and write my own. You're kind of correct in how you interface - it completely depends on what transceiver you're talking to. The one thing to note is that Serial0 on the Arduino's are usually interfaced to the USB transceiver so you can use them but then you lose a useful debug port. Most transceivers I've come across tend to operate either over I2C, SPI or Serial so depending on which interface will dictate which pins you use. Re: your switches - unless you get some highly specced switches they're going to suffer from the mud as well.

I like - I might have just enough clearance between the seat-box and cabinet to build something similar...

Not really when you consider the mileage you tend to get out of them. The current set I have on the 110 were from the previous 90 since being on the 110 they've covered (almost) 30k and look exactly the same as when I put them on. The back tyres were replaced a thousand miles or so before we sold the 90 but I have a feeling that the front tyres were on the 90 when we got it (about 3 years before selling it) so may be approaching 50k by now...

I'm fairly sure that's play in the shaft that drive the wipers (I've got the same thing, just putting off pulling the dash apart to fix it).

I've only skimmed through the posts but thought I'd mention I have an alternative to the MSS drawers. About 6 months ago acquired a Bullbox second-hand for £150, from what I saw of the MSS stuff is that although secure they're not built to the same specs as gun cabinets which is where the Bullbox differs. New they're a bit pricier and ironically about a week after I got mine another friend was selling one for the same price. Originally I had it squeezed in under the bench seats in the 110 (a perfect fit more or less) with it offset to one side. Rather than using the existing angle-brackets to anchor it I simply drilled a couple of new holes into the brackets and mounted them underneath the 2nd row seat belts. I haven't actually got around to securing the rear (or rather front) of the drawer but it doesn't bounce around whilst off-road so can't really be bothered to dry and dodge the fuel-filler etc to drill through that corner. The drawer itself has withstood a fair beating and the first time it was substantially loaded was to take a university shooting team to a competition where we had 9 shotguns and 1000 shells (rest was in a trailer) in the cabinet. Since then carried lots of tools etc in it and it's perfect. Over the summer because the 110's been used on the farm etc I've removed the bench seats and put some thick sheets of chip-board (had it lying around otherwise would have used something thinner) over the top. To counter the fact that the cabinet is slightly below the wheel-box a couple of batons support the middles to bring them back up. I was originally worried about putting weight on the top (something like 2mm sheet metal) but it's survived having almost half a tonne in the back with no issues at all. Because it was originally intended for a Range Rover it's relatively short front to back and there's probably about 18" all told difference between the 110's boot and the cabinet. But because of the mounting through the seat-belts (it could only be moved 2 or 3" closer anyway otherwise seat-belts would have to be modified) there's probably about 12" between the back of the 2nd row and the cabinet and then a further 6" between the door and the drawer. However the front gap has proven to be quite useful for storing the air-compressor and spare bottle of windscreen wash. The gap behind (before the boards) was useful for people to use to climb in. The space on the right hand side (needed because of the door-stay) is also quite useful for storing the standard Land Rover jack, an umbrella and (at the moment) a couple of machetes. I don't have the time at the moment to take measurements (got to finish rebuilding the engine, install it and ideally MOT the Series tomorrow) but I am going to be in Surrey from Monday and moving up there permanently hopefully a week later so you're more than welcome to have a look at it. [edit] If you have some reasonably accurate drawings of what you want then it might be worth having a chat with Chris at CLH. They recently built a motor base for a project and all told (metal, bending, welding etc) charged £260+VAT for building this out of 4mm steel. The benefit is that they have some stupidly big presses (think their small one is 8ft wide and 75 tonnes). Not local to you but they are cheap and do really good work (can even galvanise it for you if you want that) and since they're local to my family home there's a neighbour of ours who runs a haulage company and would probably be willing to throw it on the back of a lorry to drop it off. They travel the M4 corridor fairly frequently. [/edit]

That is very true although in terms of saving fuel (in the scenario where you're pottering around London) then using as much of the electrics as possible would be most beneficial. Transforming a Land Rover lump (thinking my 300Tdi) into something that's efficient at stop-starting is probably non-trivial (haven't thought about it to be honest) and I'm guessing that having it ticking over the whole time isn't going to have that much of an effect in reducing fuel consumption. That's what I realised but couldn't be bothered to add them into the calculations .

Hmm, need bigger motor... Very rough calculation means that (I think) an electric motor on the PTO (excluding the transfer box ratio / diff ratio for the moment since that complicates things in my mind without paper) means that you'd need a motor capable of ~170Nm torque to get an unladen 110 moving. Maybe a Gigglepin style box for all four of the motors.

No idea to be honest, I've had some experience of the LEZ and no one knows how to correctly classify anything to the point where Land Rover just held up their hands and said anything pre Td5 was unknown. It's apparently meant to be based on whether the vehicle was intended as a commercial vehicle but they don't know what the definitions of those are... Station Wagons are meant to be exempt but because of LR's letter pre Td5's won't be but my 300Tdi is still saying it's exempt. Then you get into the area where a Disco has the same engine but because it was designed as a people carrier not a goods vehicle it's exempt regardless of the engine... So who knows? No one in authority in my experience and subsequently no one else.

Hadn't thought about other people following suit but a valid point. Wonder where they'd source the motors from though since these apparently set the team back in excess of £20k! Si's right some of us have to make sacrifices so others don't :S

Pah what's a few hundred volts . I'm fully aware of the consequences - surprisingly for Imperial I'm actually doing a job that my degree (Electrical & Electronic Engineering) relates to. Also had experience (and fun) playing with 15kV DC systems at one of the places I worked previously... In reality I'm unlikely to have the time to even start thinking about playing around with stuff like that for a few years. There's more urgent things I want to do to the 110 first like eventually fix / recondition the gearbox, fit lockers, on-board air etc etc...