LandyManLuke

fair dinkum, if that's what merlin says. if you parallel a flat battery with a full battery you end up with two half charged batteries. convenient yes, effecient no. on the two occasions when i've flattened my cranking battery i've just swapped over the battery leads. Each to their own. Luke

Yup, but that kinda defeats the object of having an automated switch, if the VSR does drop out, (voltage drops to 12.65 - 12.8 Vdc) under heavy winching, an ignition fed relay is the better solution, as long as its rated to the current draw of the winch. 'course, i don't have any first hand experience of this, I've got a VSR but not a winch (nasty electric things, oil! oil! ), so i'm interested to see how it goes, for general use the VSR is great. Luke

can see the trouble being, if the winch gets enough load on it to drop the voltage, the VSR will cut out, leaving you with only the one battery when you need it. be interested to hear what happens. Luke

that's a nice VSR! higher rated than the BEP VSRs, is the winch on the first battery? does the VSR cut out on high load winching(ie voltage drop)? Luke

I've not got enough dough atm to start playing with MMs, but wouldnt some sort of drive assist be possible with a PTO driven pump and spool valves, rather than the traditional solenoids? certianly dont like the look of that chain, and i dont think the radiator hoses like the look of it either. Luke

if Purely for winching, i'd say two batteries in parallel, simple as that. that way you get twice the capacity for winching, but the downside is you have no protection of your cranking ability, which isn't really relevant for just winching. for overlanding/cranking protection/running things with the engine off, i'd suggest a VSR (voltage sensitive relay) less wiring than an alternator fed relay, and more robust. (sorry Si) Luke

Great post, thanks especially as this job is on my to-do list!! Luke

We use Motorola's professional ones for comms training, well built, good battery life and good range, they'll also take a headset. Luke

Some of them are a bit Square though. Luke

The 200tdi rad is square, so unless you're fannying about with the intercooler, a single fan is what you want. a mondeo/sierra fan fits very nicely, being 15" in diameter. the cowling just needs cutting down. there's a write up on my site here Luke

Mine does, though it is a 65A alternator, originally fitted to air con models

The W terminal on the alternator. it's taken off a winding, before its rectified, i.e the tacho sees a sine wave, rather than a pulse. I've got a VDO one, VDO are OEM manufacturers for a lot of makes, including LR. Luke

OI! what's wrong with Ipswich!!! And er , three vehicles all the same, greater knowledge of faults across the three, preventitve maintainance, pooling resources etc etc. Like Tony said, got to choose the right vehicle in the first place. Luke

Nope, wrong way round, if you bend it, it needs to be longer to start with. Luke

Found them on Buck Hickman, ta. need a bigger piggy bank to save for one though! Luke

Ta Al, I'll try and find a local supplier. Luke

Gwyn Lewis do these any good? Luke

Evening, Has anyone got a UK supplier website or prices? There's no prices on the Speedglas site. Cheers Luke

Standard thread then, you're just looking at it from the wrong end..

That Si, is cool!

I've got one of those too, nice bit of kit, nicely made and it takes standard stat switches, so easy to swap for different temp ranges. AND you can have it in either blue OR red! wow! Luke

I know it's expensive, but i've dealt with their courier (think it was DHL) three times now, and it's been the best service i've had from a courier, when the laptop was delivered they rang and asked when it would be convenient to deliver, we agreed a date, and 'during the morning', online tracking came up with an estimate of 1130, it was delivered at 1131. Then, two years later, i spilt a pint of coke into it, caused an awful smell and the laptop was truly dead, the laptop went back to dell, again the courier worked to a time and provided good packaging. they returned the laptop and again rang and got delivery bang-on. I'd buy another Dell, I've had mine for over 3 years, it's been thrown down a bus, used in the Landrover, dropped a couple of times, and survived the (expensive) coke incident. Luke

Si, thanks, Chuckling at both of them, bent tube is quite a good valve That's got to be one of the most inventive uses for a microswitch!! I'm chuffed with the 200tdi's ability to prime itself, it ran out of fuel a couple of times, and started again after a few seconds cranking, the boat's engine sometimes needs bleeding right through to the injectors The 90 is still sat in the polytunnel, can't get a lift pump and bits 'till wedneday ish, stupid easter weekend. It's not really a problem, i've been getting on with melting sierra fan shrouds and other bits and bobs, once i've fitted the X-switch i'll almost be up and running, so it'll be time to fill the cereal box again for testing. Luke

Can i add a Landrover bodge?.... Early this evening, on the way back home from about 20 miles away, the 90 started to splutter and die on a roundabout. it was struggling to keep running, and wouldnt run above about 2000 rpm. We managed to pull over on the side of the road, and after a bit of a rummage, decided on the lift pump. luckily, we'd stopped about 200m from a tesco, so armed with garden hose pipe, a plastic cereal tub, a pair of scissors and an extra 10 litres of diesel we bodged..... , we already had 5 litres of fuel, electrical tape and bungee cords. The union from the lift pump fitted quite nicely into the hose pipe, and the sparky tape kept it there The cereal box was strapped to the mirror and bulkhead. we reckon it holds about 2L, it gave a couple a mile or two before needing refilling and the hose pipe had a spare wheel nut screwed on the bottom to keep it down on the bottom of the 'tank' After about 12L worth of fuel the main tank had been topped up enough by the return line for us to syphon off more fuel from the filler tube. All-in, 20L or so went into the 2L cereal box. the 90 stinks of diesel, as do I, and now i've got to find a lift pump over easter weekend! yey! Don't ya just love landrovers!! Luke

If you shop around you can get low profile speakers, they do cost a bit more though. Luke