Land Rover heater valve

So with my 19J motor there was not a heater control valve for the water flow. It is unbearably warm on hot days. I never needed to turn on the heater this last winter except to demist the windscreen. I drove 70 miles on the freeway and had 140F air blowing thru the heater.
   Searching the web was/is confusing for the correct valve for this engine. Mainly due to it being metric. I wanted to put a brass hose adapter in the rear of the head and put the valve in there. I did find that it is a weird 16x1 thread. But try to find one...............I think I have a lead on one but it will get here too late for my trip.
   My fix was to go for a generic valve from NAPA #660-1140, unfortunatelly made in China, for around $30USD(are they making a killing or what!). It fits 5/8" hose and installation was easy. Cut hose, remove section, install valve, put on clamps, refill coolant.

I've not been as sucessful with my wire control though, I rifled thru my stuff and don't have a hard wire to install so I put on a wire from an old bicycle shifter. The wire is too "soft" to push/pull the full distance but I really like the look and placement. At least it can be shut off by raising the bonnet.

Drove it the other day on the same freeway run and it was noticeably cooler. My shoe still showed 125F but the airflow thru the heater box was cooler.

Land Rover 109 roof rack

   I have decided that it would be easier to sleep on the roof if I can. So to do this I need a roof rack. The ones online are waaay too expensive for what you get! Heck, I'm a retiree not a dotcom-er.
  So questions on forums and searching the web found this website; http://www.gamiviti.com/ selling the old Con-Ferr gutter mount roof clamps. This is a strong and clean design, though not cheap! Biting the bullet 2 sets were purchased.

 I assembeled 1 to see how they went together and to get the height measurement.

Then taken out to the 109 and compared with the roof.

Next a set of measurements were needed to design and fabricate some riser extensions.

Measurements were made on both a tropical roof and a standard roof. I made my extensions long enough for the tropical roof variety. Using 3.5x6x3/16" flat steel, holes were drilled 1" from each end giving a 4" extension. At Home Depot I bought 2-10' lengths of Super Strut. This gives me 4 pieces of 60" for the crossbars. I chose the smaller cross section for aerodynamic reasons(I know, I know... it's a flying brick!).

After the first set was made up and tested I did the reamaining sets and all was put together and fitted then taken apart and cleaned and coated with spray on truckbed liner  from Duplicolor. Once dry reassembled and installed on the 109.

Now I have to figure out the rest of the platform.............

Land Rover interior light

   Well, I'm glad I found out that I needed a third light on the interior before I went off to who knows where. The problem occurs with entering the back door at night. I would have to crawl in to the middle to get to the light. So when at West Marine I picked up another of those swiveling LED lights that I had put in previously. It was just a matter of connecting into the power wire with a posi-tap connector and running a wire to the rear above the gutter. Then I marked and centerpunched for holes and drilled them out. I used the stainless screws provided with the light. The black ground wire I just tucked under one of the mounting screws. So now I can just open the door and reach up and switch on the light!

Light off

Light on

All 3 interior lights ^^^

UPDATE 4/24/2018;  I have decided to replace these lights with some LEDs like the fog and rear red lights from KC Highlites. There will be a forthcoming post on them as I have done the rear light yesterday.

Military Water Carrier, MWC, faucet

     I have been dragging 5gallon cans of water thru the deserts and forests and camping for YEARS!  Always having to put on some sort of spout and tip the thing over and pour out the contents. Well a couple of years ago I bought some MWC's. You know the plastic(?) brown kind.
    They have a nicer wide lid with a pour spout and a  sealable vent. But you STILL have to tilt em over and pour out the contents. Hmmm, if it was cold beer would I be so annoyed?

     Since I got these I've been looking for the rumored lid with builtin pump that fits. I have scoured the internet and prowled the hardware and garden stores. So last week I went in search of..... I went to Kayak store, West Marine, Home Depot, OSH, 2 auto parts stores. Nothing in stock but West Marine was willing to bring something in on Monday to see if I could make it work. http://westmarine.com I went down this morning a picked it up. Thanks Amy and Becka!

It is a Whale brand manual pump for fresh or salt water. Nomenclature is V-pump Mk6 with standard outlet, GP0650, or hand pump galley. A bit pricey at $63USD. 12mo warranty.

Here it is showing the basic components; pump, hold down, screws.

     Next up was to figure out how to put it in the lid. The pump body has a 1" OD, the pour spout on the lid has a 3/4" ID. My solution was to remove the pour spout entirely enabling me to mount the pump. This was done with an electric knife

Next it was out to the garage to make the opening for the pump the right size. My thinking was to drill it slightly smaller than the pump to get more of a press fit and maybe I would not need the supplied holddown. First a 7'8" hole saw was used and I tried to press, by hand, the pump into it. It would not fit.

    Then a 15/16" wood drill was tried and still the pump would not go in. I wound up with using a 1" wood drill, it made for a snug fit. In the last pic you can see that I flattened the area around the hole with a file to make a good base for the pump to sit on.

This is the basic pump in the lid and the next pics show the holddown in place.

To put the holddown on I used and awl to mark one hole and then drilled it and place a screw. Then with the holddown steady I marked the other side, then removed the pump and holddown and drilled out the last hole. With the holddown on the pump can be slid in and out of the lid.

    I had to go to the hardware store and get a piece of tubing. The inlet on the bottom of the pump is 5/8" and the same size tubing was loose so I bought 24" of 9/16" tubing and crammed it on! I just stuck the whole thing in the MWC and the tubing sits on the bottom. I used a piece of 5/8" stainless steel tubing to weight the tube and keep it at the bottom.

     Once the MWC was filled with water I pumped up a mug of water, to my surprise the pump is a dual pump working on both in and out strokes. It took 7 strokes to fill a standard mug. Then over the sink I turned it upside down to see how badly it leaks................to my surprise other than some residual in the pump nothing came out!

    You can see that the pump can rotate to any direction for use. I plan on having it up toward the handle for travel and down the side for use. I may try a piece of tubing on the nozzzle for a longer reach. I like that the pump head stays in one place while the pump handle moves.

OK last pic, you can see that the holddown has 3 screws, why? you might be asking yourself. Well the third screw, the one closest to the pump, is a set screw and when screwed in pushes a wedge against the side of the pump preventing rotation.