Land Rover accelerator fix

So last week I was driving home over a hill, in front of me was a Prius going under the speed limit and I decided to pass. I gave it some Wellie and it charged up the hill but the Prius went faster too....I passed just at the crest of the hill and all of a sudden my accelerator pedal dropped to the floor!!! Lucky for me I had enough momentum over the top as there were around 5 cars behind me passing the Prius too.
    Coasting down the other side I had time to think, all I knew was I was in gear, the motor running, but no control of the engine speed. I decided to pull over on the first side street towards the base of the hill and not chance that I could make the left turn into the store parking lot.
   After pulling over and shutting down the motor I climbed out and looked at the pedal,,,,,it just lay there forlorn and disconnected from the cable. The piece of all thread I used to attach the clevis to the pedal had snapped above the locknut. It was only 10-32 and using the pedal flexed it too much.
   Out came the tools and the broken bit removed from the pedal, here is where I got lucky, I had left enough of the all thread in the clevis to effect a repair. Still I gingerly drove home.
   Usually I feel like I overbuild things but I had to go with the 10-32 due to the clevis threads.

   I slept on it that night and devised a fix. Using 1/2" steel rod that I had, I fashioned a replacement. Into one end I made a clevis using my angle grinder and a 1/8" cutoff wheel, thru that end I drilled a 3/16" hole for the clevis bolt.

On the other end I drilled and tapped it for a 1/4-28 thread. I had to also enlarge the hole in the pedal itself. Once all done and bolted in when I drove it the pedal was WAY too high even though I used the same measurement as the clevis. I drove it this way for a couple of days trying to figure out what to do.
    Again I do my best thinking prior to falling asleep, I needed to put a bend in the top of the rod to allow it to sit lower at rest.
    So I made another one slightly longer so I could cut it to final length, cut the clevis, drilled for the clevis bolt then heated it up to bend and the clevis bits folded up.......sigh.......
    Cut another piece of rod off and this time I heated it and bent it first! Then cut and drilled to make the end a clevis and the other end drilled and tapped for the 1/4-28 bolt.
    Turns out I didn't have to cut it shorter, fit great!

There was an unexpected plus from this, the throttle response is quicker as there is a more solid connection between the pedal and the pump.

Land Rover fan shroud gets made

   I decided that while I was sourcing a Defender intake/exhaust/turbo for my Disco motor that I would make a fan shroud for the 19J motor. Thanks to Brett G. I realized that I could do it as I thought that the radiator had no mounting holes predrilled in it. My old eyes just couldn't see em...........but Brett could.
    Starting with some aluminum sheet I had I made measurements and laid out the size and put some bends in the body of the shroud. Next the body was temp mounted by the 2 top screws and a circle was drawn using the fan blade for the centering device. Then the circle cut out.

You can see that I couldn't just mount a stock shroud as my engine is offset for some reason.

    It took quite a bit of mounting, checking for fit, dismounting and pounding with a hammer to get the bend on the bottom to fit the bottom hose. Once the body was set with the hole I measured the side holes and drilled them for the mounting on 4" centers as indicated by the exhaust side of the radiator. This also fit with the drill pattern of the old radiator in my shed.
   A cowl was made to enclose the fan itself and clamped in place and marker holes drilled and then I put in 1/4-20 rivenuts to hold the cowl. again the body was temp fitted and the cowl fit checked, bummer, I had made it too long and had to trim the ends shorter to clear the alternator and the bottom hose.

 

How it looked on the body;

Once the cowl fit and the body ready the fun really started..............the holes on the battery side were not on 4' centers and due to my hammering on the bottom hose area the body had spread and the sides did not line up any longer. It took many fittings to square everything up and then find the holes were not correct.  *^$#@$#@!
    Those holes were measured and redrilled and in some cases Dremeled out oval. Now those screws are damn small, #6's, and my hands and forearms fat and if you have ever worked in there it is not condusive to tools either. But I got it on! Only to have to take it off again to make a top cover piece. The top cover has to have a relief in it to allow for the top hose. You can see it in the last pics. So it was cut and the top made and fitted and then reinstalled and the holes for the rivenuts predrilled then removed and the rivenuts installed and all was put back together and the fit checked for interferance.
    Once it was all OK I put on the top hose and fired it up. No weird noises and no leaks!!!

   All this work took me 2 days, about 5 hours just to make the body, I have no metal brake so I clamp everything to my welding table and bend it with a deadblow hammer, Using a jigsaw the shapes are cut out. It took about 6 hours to fettle the cowl and top piece and get the darn screw holes right, lots of bending over with my head under the bonnet.
    By now you might be asking yourself if it was worth it, I was, but I was too tired to take it for a drive. So what else could I do......I had a late lunch and took a nap! :^)

    Later I did take it for a quick drive, One of the roads around here climbs 2000ft in 3 miles, on the drive over to it the temp guage seemed a little cooler. I couldn't tell for sure as it's one of those numberless guages. The last time I test drove this hill it was 20F hotter outside, the temp guage seemed to get up to the red later but by the time I reached the top the needle was over halfway into the red.
    I have a small infrared thermometer, I don't know how accurate it is but it should be relative to itself, using it the head by the temp sender was 258F the top hose was 195 and the bottom hose 165, the oil cooler hoses showed a delta T of 45F.  Once home the head showed a 180F and the top hose @150 and the bottom 125. I don't remember the oil cooler temps. I have a 180F thermostat.

Now if I can only find those Defender bits........cheap.

Hey, Paul does this help with your fix? ;^)

Off Road lites and simple roof rack

Well a while ago in 2010 I bought some used off road lites, namely some Hella 2000's. When I ordered my wiring harness I ordered a circuit with a fused relay for roof top lites. I finally got around to deciding that I could put them on since I have the RTT.
    To do this I just moved one of the unused roof racks forward and after some experimentation I found a place and decided on a type of mount that I will see if I like enough to paint and keep. It all vibrates a bit when jiggled so I don't know....I've just used some superstrut and bolted it all together. I might weld it all up if I like it. I used the Gamiviti rack clamps; http://gamiviti.com/html/products_roofracks.html
  So on to the pics( I know you are dying to see..............)

So after driving with the lites so fitted it was found that they are too loose and the housing vibrated back and onto the roof. As I thought this was going to happen I was ready with a plan!

I made a roof rack to help with the vibration and although not quite finished (still to add plywood) it really stiffened up the front crossbar. It was made again with Superstrut cut and welded to make the roughly square 4x5 shape.

I then reengineered the lite mounts by using some 1/4 x 2" aluminum bar stock I had and made some flat, less tall mounts. The allen bolts I originally used for theft prevention were already rusting so I went with 3/8-24 2" stainless bolts and grade 5 nylock nuts. Whilst this quieted the vibration a lot I still had enough to worry about the light beam getting out of alignment. The Hellas came with some braces but I didn't get them from the PO, so I made my own. There is a local guy who buys and sell machine shop tools and he has scrap metal, from him I bought a piece of 13ga SS 5x12". I cut out 2-5"strips.

center punched them

drilled pilot holes

and the final 1/4" holes

at the same time bending and fitting as I went. These were bolted into the lite housing using the supplied holes;

The lites were re-installed and using a thick washer on the back side of the brace clamped to the rain gutter. I also added a roof rack mount to the center of the roof and the rack, I can walk on the rack with confidence that I won't bend anything on the lites.

With that the vibration ended and now it is solid!

You can see from the pics I need to get some flood lites next time, these spots allegedly reach out 750meters.

Headlights only;

Spots before all brackets were on.

So I have been asked for more detail.
Here is a picture of the top mount and how the lite bracket is bolted to it and it to the roof rack, you can see I've run the wiring inside the SuperStrut.

I split the wire in the strut for both lites and only ran a single wire from the relay.

I brought this wire back through the bulkhead and along the parcel tray where I tapped in for the idiot light. Here is the panel with the light switch on the left and the yellow idiot LED on.

The back of the panel looks like this( I like my wiring long so I can get in and do work):

From the relay the wire comes out the side of the parcel tray where it runs up next to the windscreen.

From there I ran it under the door seal and in the junction of the roof windscreen. Here you see it as the dark red wire.

On the outside I just ran it on the roof rack mount and tried to keep it from possibly getting snagged on branches with wire ties.

Then just along the inside of the rack where it splits for the 2 lites.

Ground is through the light case and the mounts.

Land Rover, roof top tent

   I have been thinking about sleeping on my roof for a bit as I think that I won't want to unload a ton of gear to sleep in the cot inside which I made. To that end I started on a design for a rtt using my spare 88 roof and making it into some sort of pop-up. In the end it was harder and more time consuming and costly than I thought it would be. Not as costly as a rtt but still unfinished I don't know the final cost.
    I made the rack it sits on out of Super strut and clamps of the old Con-Ferr design from Gamiviti; http://gamiviti.com/html/products_roofracks.html
    There is a local rtt supplier(Tepui tents) that I had been to visit before the Overland Expo in Arizona and I saw them again there. I just missed one of thier tents on Craiglist for $350USD used twice. But I kept scouring Craiglist and ebay for a deal. I even contacted manufactures in China thru Alibaba, a 3-4 person for $650USD+ shipping, they wouldn't tell me shipping costs unless I ordered one....Finally I stumbled on an ad by Tepui saying they were having a sale on thier demo models. I called em up and went down to see what I could find and decide if I wanted to spend that kind of money.
    Griffin the sales guy showed me around and answered all my questions and made his recommendation. Biting the bullet an Autana model was purchased and put on the 109.   www.Tepuitents.com
    It looks like a comfortable fit for 2 and you could squeeze 4 in if you were all close good friends or quite short. I went home and opened it up and checked it out, haven't yet used it. I did discover it is alot more work to open and close than one would expect. My option was for it to open over my rear door and give shade over the cooking area. With the addition of an annex in the future there will be a contained space for upstairs and downstairs.

Crap, I deleted the pics and can't find them;

Land Rover 200tdi for the 109

   I gave up on the 19j motor overheating issues and found a used 200tdi out of a Discovery, the guy brought it over from the UK in 09 thinking he would put it in his 109 pu but went instead with a 2.25P that came his way.

   It looks good on the outside and came with a timing belt kit which I will do so I can start from zero when I get it going. The next few weeks will be busy.