Comet hunting 2024

 14 Oct 2024

I went out to see if I could see C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan–ATLAS) .

My plan was to leave my house around 6pm and pick up dinner from Foster's Freeze, yum crinkle cut fries! Then drive up behind Big Basin State Park, California's first State Park! Where there is one of the few places in the Santa Cruz Mountains to see Westward unless you go to the coast.

Upon arriving I set up my camera, a point and shoot Fuji, and a chair then I dug into my tucker as the sun set.

Yesterday some pics were taken around 7:10-7:20 so I was up there and ready by 7pm. By this time the moon was also rising.

Venus was the first "star" to come out by the time I just finished eating.

Here I have to say my Fuji was worthless and all these pics are from my phone an i7. With it I tried to get artsy-fartsy.

It wasn't until around 7:25pm that the sun dipped enough for me to see the comet tail in the darkened Western sky. I'm afraid the almost full moon was so bright it really faded the comet out.

I tried eventually it became futile to even see it so I packed up and came home.

I only saw 2 cars the hour and a half I was there.

Land Rover side steps, non-factory

 20 Sept 2024

     Over the years some of my passengers and in some instances myself, have struggled to get in my 109. Mainly due to the 24in tall first step.

  To assist my passengers I usually carry a portable folding step. This shortens the distance.

    While I would really like to install a rock slider/step, the cost and weight keeps me from doing so. The weight would be around 200# for the pair of sliders with tree slider/step. That is 200#'s taken away from my GVW.

     Now I look at YouTube. I watch Trail Mater go on recoveries in the Moab area.

 https://www.youtube.com/@trailmater

Rory has some chain hung steps on Trail Mater and I decided to see if I could make some for my 109.

22 Sept 2024

Starting out looking and measuring things in a feasibility study.

 It was determined that it would be relatively simple. Next was a trip to the local ACE hardware and I picked up 4' of  1" x 1/8" angle iron and 4' of 3/4" square tubing and 24" of chain. Cutting off enough to go an inch past my existing bolts on each end I found the centers and punched them for the drill.

1/4" holes were drilled in both brackets to be.

I cleaned them up and then cut the "step" out of the square tubing the same length.

My feasibility study determined that an 8" drop would be the best option. Including a test fitting of the bracket and measuring the distance to the fuel tank. I didn't want the steps to hang too low.

The step was laid out on my welding table, I needed 10 links per side or 20 per step.

It took a lot of clamps to hold everything in place as I welded the chain to the bracket. Then the bottom chain link was cut and I marked out on 1 of the tube sides a slot for the end chain to sit and get welded in. I welded the top side to the chain on the outside and the inner chain to the bottom inside the tube.

Keep moving, These are not the wonderful welds you want to see.......

I got the first passenger step done when I realized I needed more chain, 10 more links to be exact. I soldiered on! The luxury black paint out of a can, was applied after wire brushing and final grinding to make things look more nice, nice. After drying I cut out a bit of a self stick sanding disc and applied that. Then I hung the bloody step up!

 I didn't test it, it was hot out! A couple hours later I asked a local dogwalker to try it for me and give me some feed back.

She thought is was fine and maybe needed some orange paint on the step and grab handle. I tested it after her, I'm 5'10" she is 5'4". I had no problem getting a foot in and boosting myself up, I did find it awkward to get my second leg in and hips turned to the seat.

The following pics show how it relates to my portable step and how it looks hanging there.

23 Sept 2024

I waited until this morning to go buy the missing links. (see what I did there?) Then I finished making the drivers side step.

On the way home one of my neighbors was out walking her cat, in a stroller actually(the cat not my neighbor). I asked her to try out my passenger step and give feed back. She put one foot on it and said No, no, it's too loose! She wouldn't go any farther. So 50-50 at this point.

Here is when I noticed that the driver side bolts are 1/4" while the passengers are 5/16" WTH?

Just as well, I grabbed another 1/4-20 bolt and nut and washers to replace the missing one. It all bolted up fine and looks the part hanging there.

Of course I had to try it out. It does swing inboard when you step on it, making it a bit awkward. Methinks it will be more useful on uneven ground when the floor is a meter up. Now I have to see if my neighbor with the stroke can get in, or will he still need the portable step. He rides the most with me.

It's pretty useless for getting out.

Calibrating the tachometer for my Land Rover 200TDI

 18 Sept 2024

     As you may have read in the previous post I installed a tach for a diesel in my 109, sourced from Speed Hut. Then it needed to be calibrated.

So after a search online I settled on a laser driven tach to calibrate my meter. This was sourced from Jegs though there are many places selling the same device. I chose Jegs because it came with a 9v battery and it is a reputable company.

https://www.jegs.com/i/JEGS/555/W89719/10002/-1

I started by cleaning off the crank pulley face with acetone and applying a 3/4" of the supplied reflective tape. Then I started the engine did a quick peek at what the rpms were (720) and went about my business doing other stuff until the engine warmed up. I took around 15 min just to be sure.

However I failed at getting a stationary photo of the applied tape......my bad! I did get a pic of the tape being reflected by the laser.

The laser worked from almost any angle, I found it easiest to shoot through the PTO hole in the crossmember.

This way I could read it at the same time. That turned into a good thing as the memory on my device didn't work. I'm not sure if it's a factory thing or user error at this point.

Anywho it was reading around 744-743 rpms, my tach was pretty close!

As per the instructions I had to restart the engine whilst holding down the calibration reset button. Once the needle had swept to 6000, back to 0 and up to 1000 I could release the button. Holding down the button again allowed the needle to drop and I let go around 750rpms.

I killed the engine and restarted it and the tach went to 750! Success! It was calibrated. I have to remember to shut off tach power at every shut down and re-energize once the engine is running due to some issue with my car and the tach software.

Then I revved it to 3000 just to see what it sounded like, I could tell there was more in it, not ready to go there yet!

After shutdown I did one last thing. I upgraded the switch. I wanted just and on-off switch instead of an on-off-on switch, the new switch uses spade connectors vs tightening screws and having exposed power behind the dash.

It all works and looks good to me! I am shifting from 1-2 at around 1300  and the other shifts at around 1000rpms. When doing 35mph and going from 4th to 4th OD(Roamerdrive) I drop around 400rpms.

Land Rover Series 2 gets a tachometer

 11 Sept 2024

    When I thought my alternator needed to be replaced a few weeks back I also decided to fulfill my desire for a tachometer. Being that my 109 has a diesel in it (200tdi) I started an online search. I found what I wanted at Speed Hut; https://speedhut.com/gauge-applications/legacy-classic-street-rod/led-lighting/classic-led-tachometers/classic-led-diesel-tachometers/2-1-16-classic-diesel-tachometer-6k-rpm/?dd-link=0ldtcryzj5b

I placed my order and there is a long predicted lead time. My first update was order received then a few days later, order has gone to Art Dept. maybe 15-20 days........so I waited for a week and sent them an email complaining about the long time delay. Next day my update was it shipped!

In the mean time I put in the alternator. After that the next day I ran a wire from the W terminal to inside my dash.

To do this required me to drill another access hole through the bulkhead and clean it up then install a rubber grommet with a hole in it.

Next I routed a blue wire to up behind the tach new location from the alt. I did this out of ignorance. All I knew about tach's were they ran off the W terminal, I figured I would get a gauge with no wiring like when I got ammeters or oil pressure gauges. If it needed power or ground wires that would be simples(or so I thought).

Because the bulkhead is double walled I pushed an old bicycle spoke through from the dash to the engine bay.

Then taped the end of the blue wire to it and pulled it through.

There was already a factory hole to above the dash, I installed a grommet in it and fed the wire up.

I ran the wire in the engine bay along the top of the frame and put the eye connector on the W. I zip tied it in place and taped over the bight end so no sparks would happen if I drove it before the tacho arrived.

Oh Happy Day, on Monday the 9th the tach arrived. Sorry I had already opened the box.

But I was having bigger problems; My hose repair on the power steering had gone astray! After the initial repair I had run the engine and all was good or so I thought. 

I started the 109 the next morning intending to go to the grocery store (a can of beans, while filling, is not a good dinner) and the alternator seemed to be making a horrendous growling noise. I eventually figured out it wasn't the alt but the power steering system. I figured I had air in the PS relay. So I did what I thought was needed I bled it. That was an epic story trying to find the right fitting to turn the damn bleed screw, 8mm socket worked best. I couldn't see it so I didn't know if air was coming out.

I bled it 3 times and the noise continued. Something else was wrong. Letting it growl I started checking it out. When I climbed underneath I could see the bottom 4" of the new hose where it bent over the frame had collapsed from the suction of the pump. Yay! I had the cause, what I needed was a cure.

You can see the hose clamped to the U.

I needed a re-enforced hose or what I wanted a piece of stainless tubing to reroute the hose and eliminate the bend.

I had neither after searching my crap for what seemed like hours. I even cut up a pressure washer wand and tried to make a Z type bend unsuccessfully in it.

  Finally, I made a bracket out of 2" flat stock and bolted it to the inner wing and made a clamp to hold the new hose away from everything. All this took me 6 hours, some of it in 98F heat. It seems to work!

But you came here to read about the alternator. I tried it in the mounting bracket.

That's when I saw all the wires.

I was still thinking only 3 wires and it had 3, a White, Red, Black. preinstalled. What else did I need? Hook the black to ground, red to fuse, white to W. Start it up!

All it did was go to 6k and sit there. Something else was needed. Maybe I should read the instructions........

OH crap! The white wire was supposed to go to the panel light circuit, not the W! So disconnect that and connect to the panel lights.

Hey, that bag of wires in the box, they plug in the back and the black goes to ground near the alt and the white goes to the W. All that work with the blue wire a couple days ago needs to come out and the new wires ran in its place. I wound up drilling a hole in the frame for the black ground held with a self tapper sheet metal screw.

There was yet ANOTHER wire in the box, this one had a button for setting the calibration (hey, that's why I wanted a tach!). Lucky for me this just plugged into the back of the tach. I did decide to mount it in the mounting plate near the tach. Took 2 attempts.......

By now I had read and reread the instructions and felt confident I had all the wiring correct! Holding the button down, I started the engine, as soon as I energized the tractor switch the needle jumped to 6k and stayed there. No matter what I tried.

Tuesday I called Speedhut, talked to Aiden, told him I'm an idiot and what I did, thinking I had fried the gauge. He got me to go out to the 109 and run some tests. Eventually he suggested that I put in a switch between the fuse and the gauge. I went through all my crap again and finally found a on-off-on switch.

I had no where to put it except in my above the dash aux panel. This panel was looking kinda ragged since I deleted the gps mount and there were extra holes in it, So I decided to make another. I took out the old one and used it as a template marking holes and scratching the outline on a bit of old Rover. It was a matter of cut, drill and sand and test fit, and test fit and test fit and paint. 

I installed my spare safety switch for if I ever get a front locker as well as the new, to the 109, tach switch.

The time came to try the tacho. I held the button down with the new switch off and started the engine. The tach jumped to life going to 6k and back to 0 and up to 1k, just like it should ! I threw the switch and nothing changed. I let go of the button and it stayed steady at 1k.

Pressing the button again and the needle began to drop, I let go somewhere around 700 since I have no idea what my real rpms are. I revved the engine and the needle went up, then returned to 700. YAY! Oh the aroma of success is a heady one!

Today I called Speed Hut and let Aiden know it worked! I've also ordered a digital laser tachometer from Jegs . This will let me know my idle speed.