slihp Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 I have never really liked the Defender instruments. how difficult would it be to fir non-defender instruments (speedo,oil,water)? either after market or taken from existing cars (obviously there would be the mileage problem with the speedo). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CwazyWabbit Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 I think the issue comes from matching sensors to the instruments, there have been a number of threads on here with regards to getting the water temperature guage to read correctly after changing engine types. Also the topic of getting standard speedos to read correctly when tyre changes have been made is quite popular. What I'm getting at is that it is possible but I would think you may have a lot of fiddling and experimentation to get it all working right. I'd be quite interested in pics and a write up if you do get it done as I'm quite geeky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doda456 Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Some are easier to fit than others, In my discoveryI have fitted an after market temp gauge and voltmeter, They are just standard 52mm gauges and fit in a special pod on the dash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retroanaconda Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Just buy matched gauges and senders of the correct thread and you're away. VDO do a nice range of gauges and senders, as do many other manufacturers. Fuel, temp, oil etc. are easy. Speedo will need a pickup installed, but aftermarket speedos like the VDO ones have kits specifically for doing this. Places like Car Builder Solutions, Merlin Motorsport etc. will have all these. Custom car, motorsport and/or kitcar suppliers basically Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slihp Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 by pickup you mean a sender unit? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retroanaconda Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Yeah, a lot of aftermarket speedos use a hall effect sensor or magnetic pickup mounted on a shaft or a hub or somethat that rotates in a fixed ratio with the road wheels. The speedo can then be programmed to give the correct reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slihp Posted June 15, 2011 Author Share Posted June 15, 2011 would you have to program the speedo to shoe the current mileage at change over, if not can this be accommodated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crclifford Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 would you have to program the speedo to shoe the current mileage ;at change over, if not can this be accommodated. As far as i am aware, you don't have to have the speedo showing the correct mileage when you change the instrument over...just that the correct mileage needs to be recorded somewhere in the vehicle dosumentation. You also need to make any future buyers aware that the instrument has been changed. HTH Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FridgeFreezer Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Have a look at the Acewell digital dashes, they do some decent stuff for very good prices. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanuki Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 As far as i am aware, you don't have to have the speedo showing the correct mileage when you change the instrument over...just that the correct mileage needs to be recorded somewhere in the vehicle dosumentation. You also need to make any future buyers aware that the instrument has been changed. HTH There's actually no requirement whatsoever for a vehicle to have a working odometer. One of my cars has shown the same recorded mileage for the last ten years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
western Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 there are lots of place who can set a new speedo to read the same as the old unit, if they operate legally they will not set a speedo to read lower than the existing mileage. VDO speedo's for example read a electronic signal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanuki Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Yeah, a lot of aftermarket speedos use a hall effect sensor or magnetic pickup mounted on a shaft or a hub or somethat that rotates in a fixed ratio with the road wheels. The speedo can then be programmed to give the correct reading. Most of the speedos you get for kit-cars etc. these days are entirely electronic: a transducer fits to the gearbox in the hole where the cable would usually go [the Ford type of transducers are popular retro-fits] then there is just a 3-core cable to the instrument itself. A quick fly-by from the rolling-radius-and-diff-ratio-calculation fairy will get you the magic setting of the switches on the back of the instrument, then as if by magic everything just works! Well, it did on a friend's Ford GT40-replica: we were able to set it up to better-than-1% accuracy (using both GPS and the kilometre-markers on motorways as reference) --Tanuki. "Consider a spherical Jesus, of point-mass" -Theological Physics 101. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderzander Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 I'm looking at replacing the temp gauge in my td5 - as its fed through the ECU and doesn't give a genuine linear reading. So thanks for the seller suggestions retro - plenty for me to look at for a temp gauge and inline sender. Though I am also considering using an earlier Defender unit to try and keep the look consistent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retroanaconda Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 The earlier Defender gauges are not known for their accuracy either, they will just tell you that the engine is either ok, too cold or too hot, rather than a real temperature. Same as the Td5 one. All car makers install gauges like this these days, I never ever saw my Focus gauge move off dead vertical once warmed up! I guess they think it will worry people to see the engine's temperature rise and fall with workload/thermostat variations. If I were looking for an accurate temperature gauge that would actually give me a reading in degrees centigrade or Fahrenheit then I'd be looking at a VDO unit with their sender of the correct thread. They do a Vision range which are damn nice and don't look too out of place next to the standard Td5 Defender gauges (which are also made by VDO...). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anderzander Posted June 15, 2011 Share Posted June 15, 2011 Thanks James. A friend of mine came out laning with me in his td5 with his nanocom plugged in giving real time readings ..... neither of our temp gauges moved at all - the whole trip. But at the top of a hard climb in low box his nanocom said his temperature was 107 degrees. So I'll leave the factory sender talking to the ECU - but fit an inline gauge to give me a genuine temp reading. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwi_110 Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 I have a full house of VDO Vision gauges for the 110, that I got from egauges.com. Volts, Air PSI (Compressor tank), Boost, RPM, Fuel, Temp, Oil Press. The first 4 are in a Raptor console, the others in the normal places. I have the VDO Vision 0-200 kph programmable speedo coming this week and will drive it with a disco induction drive, YBE100540. The small gauges ranged from US$25 to US$70 (with senders), the speedo was US$295. Now is a good time to buy from the US for Kiwi's, strongest we've been against the Greenback for ages. Ray. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slihp Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 iv been looking at the Smiths Telemetrix range Speedo think i will have to get senders for the coolant temp as the current sensor routes to the ECU. but will the current speedo transducer on the gear box do for the new speedo and also is there any chance the current fuel sender will match? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiwi_110 Posted June 17, 2011 Share Posted June 17, 2011 The blurb on the telemetrix speedo says it can be used with existing sensors. I think on the Smiths you set dip-switches as per this table Smiths for pulses per mile. Not sure about later model defender fuel senders. Older ones like mine are empty = 170 ohms, full = 0 ohms. There are no resistance figures quoted for the Smiths gauges... Ray. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slihp Posted June 17, 2011 Author Share Posted June 17, 2011 ye i was reading that last night about the Smiths speedo, just wondering if anyone had done this, ill give it a try anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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