Turbocharger

I've got a timer in the Volvo. I often let it time out too. I'd like to apologise to everyone for buying the car.

Dave - thanks, that link is great, I'll drop you an order for some temperature strips then add 30°C as a guesstimate for the Morocco temps as per Robert's suggestion.

Three key questions: What's the operating temp range for the ZF 4 speed box? Is the standard bogbrush cooler sufficient for a Defender in the desert? Could I use a water temp sender to measure the fluid temp? I'm taking my truck to Morocco in May - it's got a bogbrush cooler but I've no way of measuring the fluid temperature apart from a hand-held IR thermometer. Non-fault paranoia is setting in and with no adverse symptoms at all I'm now convinced it's going to melt or catch fire and kill me. Question is, chance it or "upgrade" it and risk a relatively untested bigger cooler? If I did choose to "improve" it I've a 34(?) row cooler of unknown provenance, but I'd need to get pipes made up and mount it - hopefully in a way that won't crack the cooler by distortion or vibration, and which won't chafe the pipes anywhere which will leave me stranded. I'd put the water temp sender at one end of the new cooler; I'm aware that the fluid reverses direction but I'm thinking that any monitoring is better than none. Basically, either way I expect to die alone in the desert. Which would you choose?

I could do that...

It definitely shouldn't wiggle like it does in the video though. The problem is that the coolant is hotter (with the IR thermometer) than the gauge shows - so I can't have confidence that it's working properly. It looks electrical, I've run a new wire so the next suspect is the sender.

Had another look at it today, checked that the bubble ejector was clear and ran another wire from the sender to the gauge. I drove up a steep hill away from home, and the gauge settled to 82 degrees within three miles- at this stage the top of the radiator was 70 degrees on the header tank, and 55 degrees on the bottom tank (using an IR thermometer). Three miles on, the gauge showed 82 degrees, and the rad was 80 & 65 degrees. Then, after ten miles or so, the gauge started to waver (see video) in a way which looks like an electrical fault. Within five minutes the gauge settled on 70 degrees, with the rad at 75 / 55 degrees. Looking at the video it does look like an electrical fault - is this how senders fail? Does anyone have the same Racetech gauge and sender, and could measure the resistance across it when hot and cold for me?

The lawn mower is 9 miles from Derby! It coped with a foot of snow last year.

A small group of us are heading to Morocco for some desert driving, camping in the mountains and generally 'getting out there'. One of the group may have to drop out, which would leave a space for someone to occupy a seat, double-drive a Ninety ... and share the costs, of course. You will need: * your freedom from other commitments, outbound on Wed 7th May (Portsmouth) and back on 21st May (Plymouth). * circa £1k for your share of the costs. * a sense of humour, a driving licence and a sensible approach to taking a trip with a mixed group of five other people you've probably never met before. Basic plan is to get the ferry to Bilbao, drive Spain in a day, overnight near Gibraltar and then get the boat to Tangier, heading into the hills. Depending on progress, we'd like to get as far as Mhamid, south of Zagora, mostly camping rough to keep the costs down. We have two Tdi Ninetys and a Nissan Patrol in the group. This place is offered principally to share costs since one person has dropped out, rather than for a participant with their own car - we don't need another vehicle in the group (though if you'd like to tag along in another car, we can discuss that separately...). Volunteers or options here or by PM to me please.

Not quite in the same league, but this is a welded frame, bolted to a lawnmower with slightly more aggressive rear tyres. It's a bit homebrew and isn't perfect but it halved the amount of manual shovelling when we got a 1ft dump overnight last winter. Lessons learned: Snow's heavy - you need a lot of traction to push it, less so to shift it sideways An angled blade just steers a lightweight lawnmower A V-blade is heavily directionally influenced by asymmetric loading - you need to be using both faces or you simply can't steer. That means you can never clear a path, just shift stuff side to side, you end up ploughing snow onto the gap you've just made. A lot of these points will be easier with a LandRover, because it's heavier, weight over the steering wheels, and 4WD.

Most other days are ok, work permitting. My hours are flexible, anything from 6pm to 10pm at Swindon really, I'm nominally working office hours but it doesn't seem to work out that way!

I'd like to come along but Tuesdays aren't good for me - shame, since I'm passing Swindon twice daily now...

Forgot to add, I'm now on my third thermostat in four or five years, I've replaced them with genuine units when I've had a burst of enthusiasm to tackle the issue.

One of the doors I'm refurbing has the steel shim strips, wasn't sure what they were for. I'm going to rip out the old channel, clean up the frames and bond in the new channel with some Sika.

Could it be something to do with the 'bubble ejector' - the black plastic piece just to the right of my hand? (Note that this photo shows the old header tank - I've just swapped it for a similar part with both pipe fittings on the bottom face).

Posted in International because this engine is in Defenders and Discos... I have a strange problem with my cooling system, which isn't causing me a problem! I don't use the car very often; usually I'm starting it after a week or two in the garage. The coolant temperature gauge works its way up to 85 degrees or so, then levels out and stays there. So far, so normal. Some time later in the journey (time varies, it was 25mins today but generally seems to be the first time the temperature would drop a little, eg a motorway services or the first long downhill section) the temperature gauge drops to 70degrees. It surges a little, swapping between 70 and 85 degrees in under a second, then within a couple of minutes it settles on 70 degrees and stays there for the rest of the journey. If I restart the car on the same day, or even the following day, it'll come up to 70 degrees and stays there. Concerns: - It could be an airlocking issue? I've swapped the header tank for a different type so that the bleed pipe now vents below the coolant level, but it's not had an effect. - It could be an electrical fault - but why 'fail' to the same temperature, after the same period of time, and then recover a week later? Reassurances: - It's been doing this for two or three years, has been laning, pay&play and lots of road miles incl crossing the Pyrenees, and it's not blown a gasket. - It doesn't use any water. - My IR thermometer shows 83ish degrees on the aluminium thermostat housing, after a run when the engine's idling and the gauge is showing 70 degrees.

There's some elastic 'give' in the material as you apply tension - it's actually only the first two or three threads which are doing the 'work', the shear drops away very quickly from there. (Think about a straight pull on a rubber bolt into a blind thread in a rubber block, both parts would deform as near to the surface as possible.) The need for 1.5D allows max elastic deformation before yield in most conventional materials. Since cast iron is much stiffer and more brittle / less elastic, I'd expect you'd be able to allow less than 1.5D for the same strength join.

When I set up my garage I deliberately put the radio at the far end, so I'm forced to maintain a path down there...

I've got some doors to replace my (utterly rotten) frames, but I'll do some other works while they're in bits. I want to replace the window channels - buying the furry guttering stuff to fit the glass (of the correct thickness) is fairly simple, but how is the channel supported within the frame itself? Do I need tiny countersunk screws, sticky-back plastic, Sikaflex or just friction and good luck?

As requested, here's some pics of my VGT. It's probably got 15,000 miles on it now, and since setting it up the only problems have been rewelding the manifold after several cracks formed, probably from heat cycling.

It's an aside but BCF isn't dangerous to you, the effects are just mild giddiness (and asphyxiation in high concentrations). It's a strong greenhouse gas though.

I've had a look and done my research, some people say this kit is excellent and some can't hear a difference after fitting it. Since it's rather expensive I don't want to waste my money when I could buy flat sheets for a similar, less neat solution at quarter of the cost. Does anyone have a kit fitted in SW England that they'd be willing to take me for a run in? Alternatively, did anyone do any before/after DbA measurements? Mine's a 300Tdi conversion in an early Ninety, currently with bare panels and BFG mud tyres.

Still no photos because I'm away for Christmas, but mine gave 26.7mpg today over 130 GPS miles at 60-70mph, measured brim to brim. I could probably improve that by opening out the steady-state position, but that would be at the expense of the transient response. Spec is a 300Tdi Ninety, Mitsu L200 turbo on my own manifold, RR ZF 4HP22 box with a V8 t/c, 1.2 tbox and 285/55R16 BFG muds. It's a ragtop with a cage too, which probably doesn't help things. With the gearing as it is, the T/C locks up at 50mph and it'd probably give 30mpg at 50mph but life's too short. It's not my daily drive now so 26mpg is fine.

Not sure about the images but I've still got the real thing, available for viewing in exchange for Jaffa Cakes

Yep, there's a build thread on here somewhere, search for "Turbocharger 300Tdi VGT". Once a mate had welded up a manifold for beer tokens, the rest was two-spanner rated tinkering.

Mine is boost controlled. It doesn't get the last ounce of benefit, and does spike a little in fast transients, but it's 85% of the solution for 10% of the complexity. I've a diaphragm which effectively reduces the boost as pressure builds. The size of the diaphragm, the spring force and the preload are the variables I tuned to get the final answer, and I've still got a bag of spare springs but I'm pretty happy with the result now.