Snagger

A lot of people bang on about Tdis loving vegoil and running varying mixes up to neat SVO on a single tak system, but the reality is that it's a very bad idea to skimp on the mods required to do it properly. If you want to use vegoil, then a dual tank system with heat exchangers for the fuel is not optional, it's mandatory. Running the vehicle on vegoil without the mods will cause the severe coking of the injectors you found, but also of the rings, valves and turbo, and also causes vegoil to get down into the sump, polymerising the sump oil and turning into a jelly, which ultimately leads to engine damage.

Try connecting the voltmeter directly to the battery terminal with a decent gauge wire (8A+ will do), and then try it all again. If you get the same results, then the alternator has had it, but if not, then the wiring in the dash is the likely problem - corroded terminals on switch gear connectors and in the fuse box are highly liklely to cause this trouble.

Gorgeous!

All I can suggest is taking to to Maplins and buying a new set of relays, replacing all of them - I wouldn't know which would cause the fault. www.Remotekey.co.uk sells new LR alarm units and I think he overhauls old units, so you could try him. When my RRC's fobs packed up, I bought a new two-button unit from him and he gave me a list of optional features that LR disable, like auto re-lock (relocks the doors if they aren't opened within 20 seconds of unlocking), auto-unlock in an accident, automatic reactivation of the immobiliser if the car is unlocked and a door opened but the engine not started within 20 seconds. There are more, but I had those activated at no extra cost, and he provides an adaptor harness to connect that later unit into the RR's existing loom.

Don't throw away failed switches - they're perfect for use as flywheel locking tools for timing belt swaps.

Play in the steering can happen in so many places that it can be hard to pinpoint. Worn rod ends are the obvious start point, followed but worn swivel bearings and pins, but very common are worn splines on the arms and shafts from the box and relay, worn swivel bottom studs (allowing the arm/pin unit to swivel relative to the housing), worn relay taper bushes allowing the relay's shaft to move, loose or worn bolts allowing the relay to move in the chassis and slack suspension bushes allowing the entire axle to slide left and right. The steering box can develop play. The worm gear at the bottom of the column is centred on two open bearing sets - loose bearings roll against radiused curves on the ends of the worm gear and against outer races secured in the box casing by the square bottom plate and the upper column clamp. The preload or end float on the shaft is set by adding or removing shims between the case and lower cover plate, but any of the 8 bolts securing that plate or the clamp loosening off will increase column end float and slop. Then there is the main nut, which is the carrier that slides up and down the worm gear as the column rotates - it has a row of bearings which can wear (or wear the worm gear if not lubricated properly), and its conical stud which engages the rocker shaft (output shaft) for and the rocker fork itself wear - this slack is what is taken up by box adjustment, but if the worm gear or any of the bearings are worn, then the adjuster will be ineffective. You can see all the innards cleanly laid out on the steering box rebuild post in my blog to help you understand how it all works.

If you jack the back end wheels up, make sure you chock the front wheels and engage 4wd, otherwise the vehicle could roll off the jack. Quality of shafts is down to source, not age. A genuine new shaft should be as strong as the original, but a Britpart one will probably be made of pasta.

Am I right in saying the weakness in standard 4.71 diffs is their flexing, allowing the crown and pinion to move apart, reducing the contact area of the teeth which causes them to strip (cured by pegging)? As I understand it, the 3.54 is stronger just because the crown wheel and carrier thickness prevent that flex, keeping the teeth messed, in which case the KAM gears should be similarly strong.

I wouldn't know how to, or even if you can, tell without removing the plates to measure them.

That should work, but could blow a cheap grease gun apart. You have the vehicle hydraulics sitting there, and they're the easiest way. You don't need to worry about proper bleeding to do it as you can just pump the pedal.

The horizontal slave was used on the SIII from 1972, and would not have been used long prior to that. The clutch you have is the standard SII type.

The injectors and swirl chambers are the same on the 10J, 12J, 14J, 15J and 19J.

Have you considered buying a scrap axle with the pan filler and just swapping everything across? It will all just bolt together.

Good to know you've fixed it, and also a nice nugget of information in case I suffer the same thing! Well done!

If you're set on it looking like a 10J, then I'd go with your option of transferring the 10J ancilliaries to a 12J or fitting a 12J crank, pistons and rods to a 5mb 10J.

I think that was the book I had, Hok, though the cover may have been different.

I'd connect them back up to the vehicle - the master cylinder puts out much, much more than 90psi!

That should do the job nicely. It's an impressive job, Chris.

I'm just speculating, Bill - I'm no engineer and like I said, have never even tried it. I think that offset wheels or spacers would have a significant effect on the angles - the swivel point may be unaltered, but the path of the wheel and the radius around which it is turning is affected. I suspect that it would have a similar but lesser effect than wider axles, probably related to the ratio between overall track and the distance between swivel point and tyre centre. For example, a Defender axle is 6" longer than a Series axle - if you fit wheels with 3" greater offsets than standard to a Series axle, I'd imagine the ideal Ackerman increase would be half that of the difference between the Series and Defender angles. Gets complicated, doesn't it! Fair point about the tyres contacting the suspension before the swivel hits the stops - I have seen that before too. It shouldn't happen, and shows that the stops have not been adjusted correctly when swivels have been worked on or different tyres/wheels have been fitted. I can see it happening on 88s being fitted with bigger tyres. I would imagine with how the Ackerman angles are controlled on Land Rovers, that fitting offset wheels or spacers to allow greater lock would be accompanied by a greater Ackerman effect - the more you move the steering, the greater the angle difference becomes. And while fitting wider wheels should require a stronger baseline Ackerman setup, a short wheel base vehicle like an 88 or 90 should already have an over-done angle because of the standard arms and short wheel base, giving the best lock and also the best Ackerman angles. I think you're right about weight transfer having a lot to do with the practical results. I also think you're right that the exactness of it all is unimportant, otherwise the different wheel base models would have dedicated swivels/arms.

The diff in my 109 hadn't been messed with other than a new pinion seal, and I don't think our Lightweight diffs had been fiddled with either. It's a good point about the diff carrier perhaps being a 3.54 unit to accommodate the KAM gear and shim. If that is the case, and it has a filler plug on the carrier, than that will solve Jim's problem with oil levels on his 3.54 swap (other thread) - he could swap the 3.54 internals from one of the new diffs to this carrier, giving him the new diff ratio he wants and a filler plug.

That's an impressive mod, and even more impressive speed of installation. Are you going to be fitting a grille of any sort to protect the intercooler and hide its piping? If that's the exhaust under the sill (and mud!), it might be worth making some kind of guard so that no-one burns their leg getting out of the car, but it depends on how hot it gets - turbos sap a lot of the EGT, so their exhausts sometimes don't get that hot. Certainly worth doing something to keep some of the mud off, though, just to stop it rotting. Not the flaming you prompted, I hope!

I'm happy to accept your experience - as I said, I've never tried it. I'm curious as to why simply reversing the angle would decrease a turning circle. Regardless of the scrub, the inboard wheel is not pivoting as much as it would otherwise do, so the outboard wheel must be pivoting more to compensate. It's usually the inboard wheel that its a stop lock, so having the outboard wheel be the restricted one should increase lock considerably, so having the outboard wheel pivot to full swivel motion and the inboard wheel a little less must be giving more average movement than having the inboard wheel limited by the stops. This would mean that it's not exactly the angle reversal that is the cause for increased turning but the position of the stop locks and the side effect of angle reversal on them. I wonder if winding the locks all the way in so that the inboard swivel's seal is just covering the chrome ball with standard Ackerman angles would provide a better turning radius than the work you have already done. Ican see why feel is enhanced - the only time the steering and transmission forces will be balanced is when the steering is straight; it'd be the same effect as increasing the castor angles.

I'd agree with the above - it sounds like the ECU has suffered from the wet. Removing it and drying it out gently may work, but if that fails, try Remotekey.co.uk - I got your type of ECU for retrofit to my RRC from them, and they activated several options from a list at my choice that LR simply disabled. Good price and service.

At £15, a spare ECU is a fair investment, but simply swapping them over will not extinguish the light - the new ECU will have stored a fault through being disconnected, and so will need clearing too. Your first task is to use a diagnostic tool to clear the existing stored faults and then power up the vehicle - it might be a transient fault that occurred when something was disconnected to do other work, reading as a failure. If you want to try the new ECU if that test fails, then it could be a cheap result, but if a genuine fault exists, I'd expect it to be the steering column cassette. I'd imagine you could get one from a breaker for £5 - I don't think it's a commonly needed part, even though it is the most fragile part of the system. It'd be best if you can remove it yourself so that you know it's in the central position and hasn't been turned. It's pretty simple - take the steering wheel and column trim off, disconnect it from the loom in the fuse box and unclip it from the column stalk switch assembly.

If you have pulled the fuse, the system mat still be drawing power through the indicator circuit and then spreading it around both sides through a seized relay that has welded its contacts together. If the relay is out and it's still doing it, I'd be looking at the indicator switch and loom for shorts and misaligned contacts. If the lights were coming on on both sides through an indicator selection fault, it may have overloaded the relay (designed for only half the lights) and fused it closed, hence the solid rather than flashing lights.