steve200TDi

Small fry - Indeed I do mean that one push rod appeared not to be spinning unlike the other 7 which were! And interestingly enough its the third push rod from the back of the engine on the drivers side. Bowie - I'll check again, but I'm pretty sure its not! Thanks Steve

OK, Tanuki - Not easy without taking it all apart, how would you go about doing this? Nige - I've done an oil change as I thought it could cure it, I used 10w40 of the Castrol variety. Rock steady - People did suggest this, but there definitely no exhaust blowing! Steve So the tapping could be a hydraulic lifter failing or failed, but the valve train has no slack in it, at least on one side!

Right, So I have a 3.9V8 which has now been Megasquirted, originally from a Range Rover Classic with auto box and Broge warner transfer box etc. It's got what I believe to be a tappetty noise. I'm going to strip the inlet manifold off at the weekend, but I just thought is there any easy diagnostics to do on it to prove its tappets or other wise. So far I've taken one rocker cover off and barred it over to see if there was a loose rocker, but none are loose. I've also had it running with a rocker off to try and see of hear anything, but nothing has become obvious. One thing I thought I saw was that one push rod was spinning round like the other 7. Any thought greatly appreciated. Thanks Steve

It's the bit that the speedo and gauges fit onto! It's great idea, I've replaced mine with a metal option, as the little ears broke off. Unfortunately Raptor engineering also thought it was a great idea and already sell a product like that here: http://www.raptor-engineering.co.uk/defender-s111-binnacle-mount Steve

Could you incorporate it into your greenlining trip to the Lake District? Steve

Hi, The caliper threads are M12 x 1.25. The stub axle threads are standard M10 x... Upper swivel pin are standard M10 Lower swivel pin are standard M8 Swivel ball to axle threads are also standard M10 x .....I'm guessing 1.5 without looking and checking. Thanks Steve P.S. I look forward to the build thread!

I remember asking about this very same thing when I had the red one in bits, I still wanted it insured but it had no tax or MOT, so ring your insurance company and explain your situation and I'm sure they sort you out as you say on a limited mileage policy. Steve

Ahem, cough...Delta-Tek! Good choice! Steve

Well, I don't know what to say, its certainly interesting. http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Td5-Real-tree-Cano-Hydro-Wrapped-Rocker-cover-Inlet-Simex-Arb-Warn-Off-Road-/141191915205?pt=UK_CarsParts_Vehicles_CarParts_SM&hash=item20dfb1a6c5 But may not be all that useful? Steve

What about a crankshaft table? I made this for my parents and it sits happily in the lounge! Steve

Well I've seen a few pictures of people with their new trucks for this year. Fancy sticking them on here for all to see? Should be wet enough for next weekend though! Steve

Another great forum greenlaning trip! Thanks to James and Mark for route planning and map reading. Thanks also to Si for letting me come along and drive your 110! Good to see everyone again and to see some new faces like Scott, Mike44444 and Jon W (He's Darth's brother!) Great scenery, but shame the weather was a little cold, I think the cold weather has passed it onto me and now I have a cold! Steve P.S. Hope you got back ok Dan.

Hi, Found this this morning and thought it could be another useful resource to have in the bank. http://www.landroverworkshop.com/ It also has what looks to be the start of a comparison page of the price of a part from various retailers. Look out for comparethelandroverpartprice.com Steve

So with a fresh battery we had another go. It was still cranking, but no signs of bursting or coughing into life, Mmmm. We took a spark plug out and rested it on the engine and stood well back as I didn't want to get an electric shock! We had spark! So that proved that the crank sensor was working and the engine was turning over around 150rpm. Do we have fuel? We took the return line off and with a few ignition on/off's we thought we would see fuel. No fuel! So we took the feed pipe off the tank, again ignition on, no fuel.........Then the penny suddenly dropped, what about swapping the wires over for the fuel pump? Ah, thats better, lots of fuel!! So after we re plumbed the fuel system back together we were ready for another try. With the first turn of the key it burst into life! How happy we all were! So we let it warm up and the idle came down to 800rpm when fully warmed and it reved up ok. So the next step was to tape the loom up, fit the heatshrink and do all the wiring tidying. Steve

The engine bay was pretty much done after I added the new Intake air sensor and reinstalled the air filter. The fuel tank got reinstalled and plumbed in. I then threaded the new harness through the hole in the bulkhead to then start the wiring at the other end. I added the earth wires from the battery to the ECU, the wires for the fuel pump and Lambda sensor too. I knew where the box was going so I first thought about where everything is going to go in the box and got it fitted. My Dad chose to make a wooden board to mount everything too and also decided to mount the EDIS upright to conserve space. I nice bit of solid oak was the perfect choice for that! and some plywood to mount everything on. Once that was done I started by fitting the wires that weren't coming from the engine bay e.g. the wires from the EDIS to the ECU and wires from the fuse box to the relays. After that it was a question of soldering on all the wires from the engine bay and using the fancy heatshrink connectors that Nige supplied, great bits of kit they were! I left the heat shrink off the wires for the ECU connector just in case I need to move any of them. Once they were all done I added a few cable ties to hold all together. By this time we were very close to starting, so we went through Nige's instructions to make sure we had done everything and checked the wiring on the ECU plug and EDIS plug, checked all the HT leads were in the right place and everything looked pretty good. So with my new(!) £30 Dell XP laptop I loaded up the software and plugged it in to the ECU. Fingers crossed we flicked the ignition on. After swapping out a few dodgy relays the ECU became live and you could hear the fuel pump kick in and all the gauges were reading sensible temperatures. That was good, so we added some fuel ready to fire it up. After a bit of cranking, but no firing we found that we needed to swap the wires over for the crank sensor. But still no firing, Mmmmmm, we thought it maybe low battery voltage so we took the battery out and charged it up ready to have another go in the morning. Steve

I then ended up with this! Steve

Now onto the HT leads. I had never made HT leads before let alone fit them so I was quite looking forward to it! And I'd also bought one of Nige's HT lead crimping tools which worked a treat! I read both the instructions that Nige had supplied and the ones in the HT lead crimper box to get a good idea of what I was about to do. I also found a video about the crimper here: So I started by trimming the outer insulation off using the handy round slot on the side of the tool. I then bent the serrated edges over as suggested in the instructions. It's also good practice to do this anyway as if you don't, due to the profile of the crimper the edges sometimes get court as they slide over the metal insert in the crimper when you crimp the terminal. It still crimps, you just meat a little more resistance when you close the vice! One other advantage of bending the ends over is that you can slide the lead with the folded back inner core into the crimp without needing to hold it or glue it down. Next I was ready to line it up inside the crimp tool. I made sure that I had the open side of the crimp facing the side with the metal 'W' insert in. You may find just squashing the crimp slightly with a pair of pliers is needed to make fitting it into the crimp that little bit easier. Once it was in and lined up I added the other half and held it together before putting in the vice. I closed the vice until it could go no further and achived this! Using the wonders of silicone spray I fitted the rubber boot and popped it on the spark plug. I repeated this for the other 7 spark plugs trimming them roughly to length remembering I will need a little bit more for the inner core to be bent back on itself. I was know ready to crimp the other end, so I checked each HT lead as I went, routed it conveniently and crimped it! Once it was the right length I fitted the rubber boot and plastic clip and trimmed some of the insulation off. I bent the tabs over on the crimp. This also aided the fitting and holding of the lead as it held it captive while I lined it up in the crimper. I used the same method as before for lining it up in the crimper and came out with this! With the aid of silicone spray (and lots of it!) I slid the boot and plastic clip on and got this.

Now seemed a good point to start the wiring. We removed the inlet manifold to gain better access to the injectors for the wiring, but also to fit the extended breather on the rocker cover which we removed, drilled and tapped and refitted. We started with the injector wires first and made two sets of 2 into 1 for each bank (slate and red, and green and slate). We adjusted the lengths for each injector accordingly to make the start of our new loom. We found it easier to fit the connector on the end and then join it to the main loon with a cable tie to achieve the correct spacing and no need to go back and fit a connector nor do you have to label every wire up. We continued to add in each connector with the corresponding wire and built up the engine harness. We double and triple checked the wiring for the electronic ignition coils as Nige had suggested! We added in a connector from the old loom for the crank sensor as outlined in the instructions and we had our very own engine loom. Nige was correct about having enough wire! We could have mounted the ECU on the rear bumper, but we thought it would be sensible to mount it between the seats in a nice little IP rated box. Don't worry about the two circles, there were speakers there before, but we'll be fitting a fire extinguisher there after the build! Steve

I should add that I'm a bit behind with this thread so don't be alarmed if it gets built rather quick. I spent most of my 2 weeks off over Christmas fitting the MS kit and a few weekends before! We modified the new fuel pump by extending the pipe and metal bracket. And I also modified the distributor to fit one of Nige's blanking caps. I removed everything out of it. And chopped it down with a hacksaw ready to bung it in the lathe. I also ran a bit of emery cloth over it to clean it up a bit! The cap is a push fit and I've added a bit of Araldite to stick it on. All fitted in the engine ready to start the wiring! Steve

I should also add that I had a long chat with Nigel and he talked me through each stage of the build and what all the part were for so I had a good idea of what I was doing when I started fitting it. So as the HT leads were already off I removed the existing wiring harness and ECU from the main vehicle harness. I also removed the coil, old idle control valve and all the belts on the front of the engine ready to remove the front pulley. Once I had removed everything I didn't need I was ready to start adding some of the brackets. I followed Nigels video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GHldV2aKg4 to fit the crank sensor. Once I had loosened the front pulley bolt and rotated the engine to TDC, I could fit the crank sensor bracket to mark on the pulley where the sensor points too. Once removed I could then fit the toothed wheel in the correct position. I then fitted the coil bracket. One of the stumbling blocks I had was that the existing bolts went through the first half of the coolant pump and threaded into the second half. The bolts that Nige supplied did not have enough thread on them to tighten the coolant pump together and then add a nut on the back to hold the coil pack bracket. When I rang Nige he said 'he hadn't come across this before', so I'll be interested to here how other people's coolant pumps are secured together. There were still a few bits and pieces to complete before the wiring could be started so we removed the Distributor to modify and fuel tank to fit an in tank fuel pump and get rid of the existing 'in-line' pump. Steve

My Dad has a Blue 100inch Defender pick up. The 100inch part is from a Range Rover 3.9efi with autobox and borg warner transfer box. He bought it as is and we've added some BFG tyres (255/85/16), a CB and a lockable box in the back. Its a great truck, but the Idle and starting issues of the standard Lucus system were deteriorating until it wouldn't start. So we decided to have a go at Megasquirt! After walking back from Nige's shed late one even, with Nige wafting a torch in my general direction and me carrying a whole megasquirt system trying not to gain any injuries while walking down his rather narrow garden path, I was ready to start the install! More soon!

Also check that you have fuel. It may seem obvious, but check anyway! Steve

Oh yeah, sorry forgot the drivetrain on that one. It's a 3.9 v8 with 4 speed auto and borg warner tranferbox, soon to have Megasquirt! What it actually is, is a range rover chassis with standard running gear with a defender body on top! Steve

Hi Mike, I have measured the fleet and the dimensions are as follows: Defender 200TDi 90, standard height springs, standard arms Front 667mm Rear 667mm Defender TD5 90, some sort of lift, maybe 2 inch, X arms Front 627mm Rear 712mm Range Rover classis 3.9EFi, I believe they are standard springs, but not sure Front 688mm Rear 885mm Steve

You are very much correct, so this is next to useless! The best thing you can do with it is weight it in.