Ed Poore
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Posts posted by Ed Poore
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The problem I usually have is that non of my recovery gear fits on most vehicles. I remember once having to bump start a friend's car in Snowdonia a couple of winters ago and only just managed to get the shackle through the eye on the Micra. And that had a pretty large recovery loop on it.
Once had to give a 4x4 at Bisley a tug out of a ditch and ended up having to find a smaller rope because there were no suitable points to put my tow ropes onto it...
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Whenever I've stripped down motors / alternators then I've always used petrol to clean them. Building on FridgeFreezer's reply above an alternator is a very simple device so stripping it down isn't usually too difficult and things do usually benefit from a good clean - especially the way LR parts tend to get treated.
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Well that kinda sticks two fingers up at the Defenders reputation for being unreliable. Shows that if you maintain them they won't let you down
My philosophy on my 110 now. Plus the rate that I'm racking up the miles on it ~30k in 18 months although I've only just crossed the 100k boundary the sights are definitely set on the 200k. Although since it's an early 300Tdi it's suffering from the common gearbox input shaft / 4th gear synchro issues. Trying to decide what's better a rebuilt or simply get a recon unit - unfortunately it's my main form of transport so downtime is a major factor. Major items shopping list include - sort the gearbox, locker for at least the rear, perhaps the front as well. Some higher driving lights would be nice - predominantly to avoid the recent near misses I've had with a few sheep in the Beacons.
Aiming to do as much preventative maintenance as I can though. The next major fix will be the gearbox, although I suspect I can get another 100k out of it it's getting a little trickier with the colder weather. Become pretty damn good at double de-clutching though!
To be fair it has had a new turbo through no fault of it or me (see an old thread on here where a garage that did a service dropped a sump-plug washer on the wrong side of the air-filter. Needless to say that the turbo damage was pretty spectacular.Although I think my 110 has decided that it's the pack leader and there's nothing anyone else can do cause it doesn't feel the need to mark it's territory like any other Landy.
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I didn't actually. I've had Britpart (shhhhh) ones fitted on the rear to replace the previous ones and get rid of the SLU for the last 17k or so and they've been (touch wood) fine. Had a brief look around for Genuine ones but didn't look very hard for a reasonable price and that could guarantee a quick delivery (driving 9 people plus kit to a shooting competition next weekend) - the only firm that I've not had problems with to be honest has been Paddocks, tried out a few others and had (up to) months of delays for something that was apparently stocked - even when I paid extra for next day delivery
. Lady manning the reception in the office had a nice surprise when this lot (including a brake servo) got delivered - at least they're good about receiving personal mail and packages. Although I did chicken out of having a Famous Four tubular winch bumper delivered to the office - I'm not sure how well that would have gone down...It's not as if I've given them a particularly easy time either since 80% of that mileage has been with at least half a tonne in the boot. Fitted them initially to stop the back bottoming out when I was taking 9 people shooting regularly for a Uni club. Since finishing there I spent the summer back in Wales and most of the mileage covered then was driving (not particularly softly softly) on the farm with the back full of equipment / wood / general farm carp (including at one point our digger's bucket). The trips I did to and from London varied but again always carrying something - be it moving out after Uni so sofas / chairs / desks / guns / climbing stuff etc or doing some work for the department which meant I was shifting 250kg of motors (plus additional stuff) back and forth.
The pièce de résistance was a week or so before moving up to Surrey to start work was just a tad over 3.5 tonnes of lamb to go to market in a three axle cattle trailer. That was an novel experience even it it was only a few miles. Oh and I couldn't be bothered to unload the logs that were in the back from cutting up trees on the farm so had the second row of seats full of chainsaws, machetes, ropes etc and the back almost to the roof of logs. The only time I've ever had to genuinely go down into low first out of necessity - turned around after loading up the sheep in one of the fields and parked there whilst we loaded the other two trailers up and then when I went to leave couldn't get started. I would have said it was a flat field but this being Wales what we define as flat is what the rest of the country calls 1 in 3.
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What a difference!
As per suggestions went for HD yellow's on the front (already did the back with 110 hard-top ones - I've got a CSW) last year and only been for a short spin to go order an ammo cabinet but can notice the difference already. It's now sitting more or less level - at least 2" lift compared to the knackered ones. I hadn't realised quite how bad the old ones were until I started replacing them and noticed the bump stops had been hitting fairly regularly. The test will be the speed-bumps in Guildford on the way into work.
Also kudos to Paul at Challenger - I found the turret rings but Paddocks when I'd ordered them hadn't sent the nuts to accompany them even though they were included. Tried to pilfer some from work but typically not a metric thread so no luck there. Stopped by at Challenger on the way home and instantly produced all 8 free of charge - I know they're pence but it's the little things that count, either that or the substantial service done a few weeks ago in preparation for the spin up to the Highlands...
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What you need is WokFi - seen it in operation up in the Beacons and they were able to get 10Mb/s over 2 km.
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Go heavy duty if you have a winch. I've never used a spring compressor to change Defender springs.
When you order the turret rings. Order Discovery TD5 ones. They have a rubber pad fitted, make the front a bit quieter.
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...
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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.
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I would put a set of yellow/white Genuine springs. They are 110 HD fronts if I remember correctly!
On my 90 they give a slight lift with a first four bumper but no winch currently. should sit nicely on a 110
HTH.
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...
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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?
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They are cowards, the dog barks and worries, meanwhile the bitch (littermate) goes for hamstrings - as I say, vicious.
Back from Cardiff, and I have to say, the staff in Machine Mart there are superb, knowledgeable and approachable, it's a pleasant change from some of their other branches. I have purchased a propane torch and a couple of rubber/plastic hammers (have you seen the price of copper hammers?!). I need to find a gas bottle now, and then we'll be off!
Anyway - once I get around to disassembling I'll start a new thread, unless someone else starts one first!!
G.
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.
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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...
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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...
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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.
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An AC version (as it has vents under the dash) needs looking at! As my only AC is the window at the moment - I'll have to borrow someone's truck to have a poke round at.
The project name at the moment is Defender-Defender - which has a 'does what it says on the tin' ring to it. X-Lock is reserved for another 'secret' project! I think you'll like it too - it's an uber-cool idea even if I say so myself!
I feel that something has to be done about the current spate of defender thefts. This is the best part solution I've come up with so far and I plan to make it as affordable as it possibly can be, to help the situation more than capitalise on it!
This evening I had a chat with Dave NAS90 who rind my favourite Laser Cutting and folding company about material choice and forming hinges and he made some good suggestions. My preference is either Hardox Extreme, Domex or Stainless as they are all a pain to cut with a grinder or drill. He is going to talk to the people who make the tooling for their brake press about hinge forming - so the project is under way! I think the best products I've come up with are the ones I want myself - and this Is definitely one of them!
Si
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...
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Mind you don't tear the cardboard though Ed
Seriously though it sounds like a brilliant idea
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.
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Oh dear do I detect a sense of glee there... What have I let myself in for...
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I'll volunteer my 110 as a test vehicle if you want
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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.
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For those in London an additional medal for towing a liveried TfL vehicle into the LEZ.
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
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As you have probably worked out I dont know much about programming so i am leaning towards using the Arduino boards. I have ruled out the Bluetooth Arduino boards as i have had reports that they kind of work at a distance of 10m and anything over that ive got to be 'one of the lucky ones', and also they are almost £100 each! What i am hoping to use instead is an Alpha FM Transceiver Module that has a range of up to 300m which is more than i will need and they cost less than a tenth of the price. The interface is SPI so they should be compatable with the Arduino boards (hopefully). Does all of this sounds feasable or am i barking up the wrong tree? While looking into the switches i have come across Rotary Encoders that would replace the job of using multiple reed switches, but once again they could suffer when it comes to the mud! Althought realistically as long as i can demonstrate it in the lab thats all i need to do.
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.
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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.
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For those that haven't seen ...
I like - I might have just enough clearance between the seat-box and cabinet to build something similar...
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So may be a bit more expensive but worth it
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...
To be fair it has had a new turbo through no fault of it or me (see an old thread on here where a garage that did a service dropped a sump-plug washer on the wrong side of the air-filter. Needless to say that the turbo damage was pretty spectacular.
. Lady manning the reception in the office had a nice surprise when this lot (including a brake servo) got delivered - at least they're good about receiving personal mail and packages. Although I did chicken out of having a Famous Four tubular winch bumper delivered to the office - I'm not sure how well that would have gone down...
Electric horns...polarity?
in International Forum
Posted
Just confirming what CwazyWabbit explained - didn't know about the way they function but certainly on my Series and 110 there's two 1/4" terminals and it doesn't care which way around they go.