'SWAMPY' MY 02 LWB 3.0 D4D GX Colorado

[clivehorridge]

'Rise and Fall of an 80' by Jon Wildsmith http://www.landcruiserclub.net/foru...nd-fall-of-an-80?highlight=kitchen+shelf+drop

No apologies for repeating this, I read Jon's post a long time ago, it's excellent and well worth a read, very inspiring and I enjoyed every word of it

 

[Doodle]

I was surprised how much came off my Sirio 3000 when my local retailer was setting it up for me.

 

[sae70]

It did surprise me how much had to come off to get the SWR to a good value and with what I removed last time it's a good foot shorter than it was at purchase, 1400mm down to 1100mm! No idea if this is OK, bad or very bad?! I have been considering the purchase of a twig in the Sirio Performer range. Either the 1600+mm or the 1900+mm one, but discounted them as being to long for my needs. I'm now thinking that maybe the 1600+mm one with a foot trimmed from off of it may look OK Or does it not work like that?

 

[Doodle]

I lost about 3-4" off the Megawatt 3000 in tuning. How much you need to lose will change with the new setup, so it might not be the same as your current aerial.

Given that mine is sat on the roof of the Amazon, the tip is about 3.5m in the air.

 

[sae70]

Finally my replacement crystal clear side repeaters turned up from China/Thailand today Feels like it's been a eternity since I ordered them after loosing one the last time I was in Wales













I'm also know pretty much there with how my 4x4 kitchen area is going to be

 

[sae70]

Started working on getting a pair of front mudflaps fitted onto Swampy with those huge 285 meats on her. It's not been so easy tracking down a pair of descent mudflaps, but I did manage to get a good passenger side one a couple of weeks ago and the chap threw in the shagged drivers side one. So starting with the drivers side one on the basis that it was already shagged and I couldn't make it any worse I started trimming it about and so far I'm very pleased with the results. I think that when I trim up the passenger side one I'll leave it 20mm or so wider and give it a bit of shape on the bottom inside corner, but I think they are going to work.

Just need to find a good drivers side front mud flap now, WHY?

 

[sae70]

I've finished modifying the front mud flaps I decided to make the passenger side one 20mm wider than the drivers side one as I felt it would be more aesthetically pleasing. When I manage to get hold of a good condition drivers side one I'll cut it to the same width.



When I bought the new interior illumination lamps I also bought all new fixings for the front mudflaps











I decided to have a play at repairing the busted freebie drivers side mudflap by plastic welding in a bit removed from the discarded inside edge of the passenger side mudflap.


















I'm quite pleased with how it turned out I reckon with a little more time spent on it I could have had it looking almost invisible as a repair

 

[Scott]

 

[sae70]

Cheers Scott

 

[sae70]

Illuminating

 

[sae70]

Following on from the very sad recent demise of Fiery's engine due to what appears to be overheating I bought one of those less than a tenner digital temperature gauges that a number of people on here already have. Firstly 'How are they doing these things for less than a TENNER?!' I can't fathom it!



Secondly, not all of these style of gauges are equal, some come with a ring type connector and others with a built in buzzer and some don't. The one I have has neither and as I would like both I've had to improvise a little. I've used a heavy duty electrical crimp lug to fix the NTC sensor bulb by drilling a hole in the end to allow the sensor bulb to poke through and then fixing it in place with some metal putty. I've bought a piezo buzzer from Maplin for £1.99 that I'll wire into the alarm contact.







Stuck it under a bolt on top of the engine next to the cooling circuit.





Then started the tiresome task of neatly running the wire back to the passenger compartment.







A bit of heavy sleaving that I had in the shed to make the jump across from the engine to the body.



At this point I needed to extend the NTC sensors wiring and used some slightly heavier flat twin power cable that I had in the shed.



Some soldering and heat shrinking required at this point.











Battery back in and all finished under the bonnet.









Now out with most of the dash!







I'm not keen on having the thing in the truck and find it a bit intrusive looking, so have decided to mount it in a way that it can be easily removed without trace. As I don't smoke and don't use the ash tray I decided to remove it and mount the temperature gauge in its place on some strips of Velcro.







I picked up a switched feed from my Volt meter installation and all appears to be working well I tested the accuracy of it by placing the prob in a glass of iced water and a mug of boiled water and each time got a temperature around what I would have expected. Just for good measure though I popped it in my mouth and took my own temperature (35.8) that's close enough for me



Having been out in the truck this morning to various football games and fun runs I've decided I'm really not happy with the meters location and shall probably move it onto the panel below the steering column above my left leg just below the ARB compressor & locker switches

 

[Chas]

Thanks Steven, I've been wondering how I'm going to attach my probe and to where when I eventually install it
One thing puzzles me though, how on earth did you get the engine and probe into your mouth when you took your temperature.

 

[sae70]

Thanks Steven, I've been wondering how I'm going to attach my probe and to where when I eventually install it

You're very welcome

One thing puzzles me though, how on earth did you get the engine and probe into your mouth when you took your temperature.

That's easy Chas, as a woman said to me at football this morning 'Cricky! You've got a big gob!'

 

[sae70]

I had Swampy's Air-Con re-charged today

It's not worked since I've owned her and formed part of the negotiation in the price that I paid for her

All seems fine so far, so fingers crossed she just needed a re-charge

 

[jbecks]

Mine never worked either and when I installed my atf cooler I had a good look at my aircon rad and found 4mm hole in the bottom left corner!

i stall have not got round to replacing it!

 

[sae70]

Had my first real play with the new digital engine temperature gauge today

From start up it read 15°C, so I pressed the fast warm up button to get things moving along. Fast warm up cut out when the new gauge was reading about 67°C. I left her ticking over for a good 45 minuets or more and when I returned the new gauge had settled around 80/82°C. I then went for a good 30 mile run to Chelmsford and back with varied types of driving. The indicated running temperature at normal dual carriageway speeds was between 70 & 76°C. Around town this rose to between 80 & 83°C. I popped into Maplins for 5 minutes after a swift 15 mile journey. When I got back into the truck and started her up the temp gauge had risen to 88°C! This soon dropped back down once I was on the move again

This all being very new to me I'm now wondering at what temperature to set the alarm set point? Is 90°C to low? Is 100°C to high? I wonder at what temperature damage would start to occur to the engine?!

It seems to be very responsive considering that it's just bolted to the side of the cylinder head! For example, the indicated temperature started to come down very soon after I put the interior heater on full heat full speed to see what effect this would have.

 

[froggy Steve]

Thats similar to the temps that my gauge reads in the same sort of position - no alarm on mine though . I have ordered a new 76 degree thermostat to help things along in the high summer, well its going to be late 30's, early 40's.....yeah right!

 

[Chris]

You mention putting the heater on Stephen. This new heat exchanger water heater of mine has a dramatic effect on the engine temp too. When parked with it running, there is plenty of heat available for warming the water but it does cool the engine for sure. Well it's basic physics of course. But my system has an in line pump to push the water around without the engine actually running. It might be an interesting gadget to fit to mine. Hmm.

 

[sae70]

Mine never worked either and when I installed my atf cooler I had a good look at my air-con rad and found 4mm hole in the bottom left corner! I stall have not got round to replacing it!

You want to be getting that sorted soon! The weathers warming up and that's not a Land Rover your driving any longer, so no excuse for being uncomfortable

That's similar to the temps that my gauge reads in the same sort of position - no alarm on mine though . I have ordered a new 76 degree thermostat to help things along in the high summer, well its going to be late 30's, early 40's.....yeah right!

It's nice to have a comparison that correlates with my own readings, thank you. Even though the accuracy of these things may be a little off they appear to be good enough for monitoring whats the norm and not. I have considered fitting a lower temp thermostat myself, but wonder if it will allow the engine to get up to efficient operating temperature on days that are not so warm?!

You mention putting the heater on Steven. This new heat ex-changer water heater of mine has a dramatic effect on the engine temp too. When parked with it running, there is plenty of heat available for warming the water but it does cool the engine for sure. Well it's basic physics of course. But my system has an in line pump to push the water around without the engine actually running. It might be an interesting gadget to fit to mine. Hmm.

I've been thinking about how responsive the probe is to temperature change and think that if it were directly in the flow of coolant it would be far slower to react to temperature change than where it is, essentially in free air. Before fitting this simple to install, cheap little thing I was as you Chris and thought it to be a bit of a gadget, but now and considering it's cost less than £15 to install and took only a couple of hours I can't believe that I've not done it before. One of these should be a no brainer for all of us to provide an early warning of higher than normal engine operating temperatures. Imagine if Fiery had had one fitted it may have been a very different story for Trevor and his sister for the sake of a few quid and a couple of hours in time. Fiery's demise is the trigger that has me going all out to fit one and I hope that if required one day it will save me the pain of a catastrophic engine overheating event!!!

Here's another thought, you can buy the sensors in packs of five & ten from off of eBay also for next to no money. So, why not fit one to the rear axle & one to the transfer box & another to the gearbox & one to the front axle and two to the inter-cooler, one on the I/P and the other to the O/P and one to the...............well I'm sure your getting the idea. Run them all back to a rotary switch next to the gauge and spend all day clipping kerbs whilst you fiddle around managing the paranoia that is all of your running temperatures

I popped into Maplins yesterday to pick up a 12v buzzer to wire into the control relay on the controller to give me an audible warning at the temperature I set as the alarm point. I took this photo this morning following the school run, a round trip of nine miles with mixed driving, country lanes and dual carriageway. The LED next to the word 'Cool' is on as the control relay has switched as I have the high temperature set point set at 82°C and the gauge is requesting cooling.

Still not happy with where it's fitted and how it looks though, but at least it's in and working

 

[Ben]

Before fitting this simple to install, cheap little thing I was as you Chris and thought it to be a bit of a gadget, but now and considering it's cost less than £15 to install and took only a couple of hours I can't believe that I've not done it before. One of these should be a no brainer for all of us to provide an early warning of higher than normal engine operating temperatures. Imagine if Fiery had had one fitted it may have been a very different story for Trevor and his sister for the sake of a few quid and a couple of hours in time. Fiery's demise is the trigger that has me going all out to fit one and I hope that if required one day it will save me the pain of a catastrophic engine overheating event!!!

Thats what I've been saying for the past 2-3 years!

Those operating temps seem about right Steven.

My normal running temps are 70-85 and occasionally as high as 92.

I've had it go over 100 a couple of times before but I've always put the heating on full and pulled over and stopped the engine to let it cool down, but that was before I put the viscous fan back on and so had a lot of overheating issues.

Nice model.