TheBeastie

Thanks guys. I think that at least the initial step (before I go off road again!) is to move the thermo-switch down to the bottom hose. I may try and ask the guy who did the transplant if there was any reason why it went where it did but may not be a clever call on my part. So next stop is to get a new top hose and then look at insinuating it into the bottom hose somewhere. Moving the electrics, if needed, should not be a problem. If it still looks wonky then will get a new unit. Thanks for the suggestions Malcy

I had The Beastie off road yesterday working quite hard and was a little surprise/dismayed that the temperature gauge hit 105C but the fans still did not come on. I have an X-Eng switch and after the 300Tdi was put in I did test that is I put power to the right poles the fans did work so I know the wiring and the fan is OK. I am also fairly sure the gauge is OK since it is a new VDO together with VDO sender and it suggests usual running temperature is about 80C The only difference I see is that originally the unit was in a bottom hose but after the new engine it has been put into a top hose (maybe not room or who knows!). Is it likely that this is the problem - in which case I will see if I can replace the switch to somewhere near its original position; or are these switches effectively consumable items? Mine must be at least 6 years old. Whatever I think I need a solution since I am sure going that high cannot be good for the engine. ANy suggestions would, as always, be most appreciated. Thanks Malcy

Thanks Si Will need to get some acid then and also work out a way of draining the original cells (suspect tip it upside down into a plastic bucket then lots of bicarb of soda. Help much appreciated and delighted both my hunches were correct!!

Not really a Defender question but the battery did come from The Beastie originall! I lent a spare battery for a big radio event and when it came back chap said he thought it had tipped (fair enough these things happen). Then discovered the big insulated bag I use (so it can operate in very cold conditions) had most of its stiching rotted and the inner polystyrene casing was swimming! Sluiced all out with water then cut the battery out out of the packing (very tight fit). Most cells were pretty empty so filled up with deionised water and put onto charge. Seems to have taken and given it a 1hr discharge on a 50W halogen bulb before re-charging. Question is - the acid in the cells will now be very dilute. Will this rebuild through the chemistry (think not)/ Will it affect charge holding capacity (suspect it will). Should I empty out fluid currently in it and then re-fill with sulphuric acid and if so where would I get the acid? Thanks Malky

OK, thanks. Will investigate this further since have been very taken with the value of the temperature indicator on my wife's wee car. Really rather useful at this time of year. Better start looking to source one but like idea of back lighting the screen since by the nature of the beast you are more likely to hit interesting temperatures at night in winter!!

Interesting. Any consensus on where best place to try and mount the probe is??

Thanks guys. Very helpful

Finally (only took 3 years I think) got the oil pressure gauge fitted and now wonder if what it is telling me is good or bad! So far it looks like about 3 bar when I start up and engine cold. Gradually increases to about 3.5 as engine warms and stays there doing 60mph round bypass. When I came to roundabout and idled at traffic lights it dropped to about 1.5 bar then at about 2 bar whist doing 30mph in fourth gear. Is this the sort of behaviour one might expect from a 22 year old 200Tdi? What should I be watching out for? OK catastrohic drop is obvious but I am sure it could be telling me other things if I knew how to interpret the results. Any suggestions gratefully received. Thanks.

Well overnight charging has now got both batteries passing the Ctek charger test saying that they are both charged and holding charge. The voltage looks good on both batteries and I can certainly start the old girl now. When I run engine at tickover I am getting 14.4V on both batteries which suggests that alternator and split charge are both working OK. I did a quick ammeter check and that seemed to be OK but I need to double check the main lead off the battery since with the isolator switched on there was some current. I think it is the clock, but I need to make sure that it is just that. It was too damned cold to work out precisely what current it was that was running (need Nobel Prize to work it out on my multimeter - or perhaps I am just dim!). I will try checking the voltage on the batteries at 6 hourly intervals to see what is happening there. Trying to work out AMB's suggestion #4 - presumably drill through the plastic bit and connect a cable to each leg of the fuse??

Thanks that sounds like a fair plan. Will see where I get to. May as well also just take all the connections off all four of the terminals since that isolates things completely back to the individual batteries. Preumably if the voltage drops by more than a few hundred mV from fully charged then it is the battery that is pooped?

Thanks. The second battery is on an X-Eng split charge so should only be in parallel with the primary when the engine is running - so yes, if it is down too it looks more likely it is something happening whilst the engine is on rather than off. Cannot quite get my head around how I can diagnose the problem. Will check charge rate when engine running once main battery is charged enough to get the old girl started.

Just been to start The Beastie only to find flat battery. Switched on internal jump and still not enough so brought out my spare big battery and jump leads which did start it up. Now moved it to a better location for maintenance (bang goes today's walk!) and confess to being perplexed. My old charger failed just before Christmas - I had noticed the battery had got discharged thinking it was due to the earth fault on the sidelights (now fixed) - so got a brand new Ctek automatic multi-stage charger and charged up both batteries which passed with flying colours and a nice 12.6V. Did a run up to Angus for Hogmanay and then back again on New Years Day (about 85m each way) without any problem. Certainly it was windscreen wipers, headlights and heater all the way but a good decent speed run. Yesterday had to go out and she started but thinking back it was not "normal service". So something is knobbling the batteries. Once I had got her moved and the seat box open I found 11.85V on the main battery and 12.0V on the secondary battery. Had not been running any radios and find it hard to think that just trying one turn on engine using the internal jump would knock out the secondary battery. Is there any standard operating procedure to troubleshoot this sort of thing? Seems to me it must be inadequate charging from the alternator or else some sort of current drain running when ignition is off but not really sure where to start. Currently charging up the main battery. However I suspect this will just get me going rather than resolving the issue. Any suggestions would be most welcomed!

Thanks western. I ended up running an extension off the new earth cable I ran for the headlights back to the battery and now all seems hunky dory. Have to say the earths were pretty shocking!! One day I will build a 365 day maintenance listing with a set number of tasks for each and every day of the year (perhaps 5 or 6 each day); to be repeated each year ad infinitum :-)

Hi. Should be simple but prior experience suggests it won't be. Recently when I put sidelights on I generally get a wiper sweep or two. If I flash headlights (i.e. no sidelight circuit) it does not happen. My simple mind says ah! earth leak in the sidelights so am about to go and try and sort it given the day is fair (at the moment) and I have some time. Just before I start I now begin to wonder if actually, knowing LR electrics, the earth leak might be anywhere. I will re-do the four sidelight earths since it will not do any harm, but wondered if it may not make much difference. Any thoughts?

I think you would get rather a large bang and then molten metal, involuntary ejection of any passenger, and finally loss of new battery (the sequencing may be different!). What I did was wrap the metal bar completely with insulating tape (so no metal showing) as well as taping up the terminals. Very quick and easy to do and will give you a bit of comfort.

OK. Thanks. Will double check the earths tomorrow - a bit cold and dark now!! If that is all that is the problem then am mighty relieved!!!

I think I know the answer but hoping someone says it is something else! Re-did all headlight wiring last weekend and yes it all worked but I now realise that my offside dipped headlight is a dull yellow compared with the nearside which is fine. I used the heaviest cable I could find from VWP that would give me blue with a red or white stripe (28/0.3mm rated at 25A) but I am guessing that the longer run to the offside lamp has given me too great a voltage drop on that side. If I am right then I am not too sure solution since I now have solenoid for my winch where the relays used to be on the N/S wing but somehow I need to get 44/0.3 cable rated at 33A to carry the power further forward. In my elementary thinking this means either running blue cable and identifying each cable with flashes of insulating tape from the existing relay location (a recipe for disaster I feel) or find somewhere else to put the relays, possibly there is space on the O/S wing. But before I make any changes can anyone let me know if there could be other reasons for this? Thanks and best wishes Malcolm

Hi Mike It is your plan I am working to. It works really well! Did it first time round about four years ago with the relays inside N/S wing at front but now need that space to take solenoids for my winch. Then came up with idea of putting relays in the cab (much friendlier environment). Reckoned cable run from battery to headlights about the same as in my 2008 fix but will route the cables a bit more cleverly this time. That is why I thought of taking the switching off the actual switch rather than the rather tatty wiring I used previously. Mind you if that is still the best route then I will trace back to the closest point I can take a tap. Also looking at upgrading the lamps themselves this time too then heaven forbid I might even be able to see LOL

In process of rewiring headlights and want to create a new feed from the headlight switch on the steering column to the new relays since much of the original wiring is suspect. Is this an easy thing to do or would it be a nightmare trying to get two new wires across the dash and then up towards the steering column and the switches - since I am guessing there are already rather a lot of wires going that route? I am planning the relays and new fusebox on the rear bulkhead so am going to route the wires to the spotlight switch over the passenger door and reckoned it would be neatest to take the feeds for the low and high beam the same route, so long as I can get a feed. Thanks.

Replacement relay worked a treat. Thanks for the help Malcy

Bit too close to Christmas I fear - broke!!!

Brilliant. Thanks Will look up which relay and then get one. Glad I asked since clearly changing the park switch (again) would have been futile!!!

More wiper problems (getting a bit boring I am afraid). Completely replaced the wiper motor and park switch in summer. Recently the wipers have taken to having a life of their own that is touchingly inconsistent! On intermittent instead of one wipe every 20 seconds or so, I get that sometimes but often one stroke, pause, three strokes, pause, one stroke etc. Also when I move from either intermittent or normal use to off it tends to carry on for between two and six extra wipes. Most disconcerting. I know fear that at some point I will switch them on needing the screen wiped and nothing will happen! I am guessing the park switch but cannot for the life of me work out what the fault could be. Surely you would expect a park switch to last more than four or five months??? Or is it something else going on? Any suggestions as to what is happening and how to sort would really be appreciated. Thanks Malcy

Thanks everyone. Order now placed with VWP and will start as soon as it arrives. Will try and remember to give an update once all finished.

Thanks Paul, I think that does and can see the logic. I have tried to put it on paper using Visio (may have got sympbols wrong and the colours are simply to distinguish the route) and I have omitted the ground for the relays for simplicity. I have already got three 70A relays and would struggle to find space to fit a further three so I think I am restricted to running both sides of each filament on one relay but I now do see the merit in separately fusing each line. I think I will also take the live feed from the battery to the relay from the existing fusebox since it is already there and I have three feeds currently doing the three light pairs on the MkI wiring. I just now need to find room to fit another fusebox to manage the six line feeds to the lights. Working on basis of 55W per filament that would suggest using a 7.5A fuse (possibly 5A but suspect that is cutting a tad fine) for each of the six feed lines and 15A fuses in the existing fuse box to supply the relays. Will get there in the end!!!