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The only place for a coil spring is up Zebedee's arse
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Way back I fitted plain LED bulbs (from Halfords of all places as suddenly a selection of sizes appeared on the racks) into the reversing lights and had to add resistors to keep the BECM happy. Seem to recall writing up how to calculate the resistor sizes needed either here or in the other place.

These days CANBUS friendly LED bulbs are easily found.

No issues with the little bulbs for interior lights or the multi-LED panel I found for the cargo bay light. Vastly brighter interior was well worth the modest cost. Reversing lights are better, up to not quite crap from really crap!

Clive

Clive

All sorted now. Fitted and tested this afternoon. Naturally dinkle brain left the steering straight ahead rather than near full lock so visibility and working room was more restricted than it needed to be.

Well done LR Direct who got the sensor to me, along with a new serpentine belt, at around 11 am this morning after I ordered Sunday night.

With the sensor on the bench and the DVM hooked up manipulation of the wire gave a range of incorrect impedance readings from 20 KΩ to 800 MΩ suggesting a wiring or connector issue. Frustratingly cutting the wire a couple of inches from the connector gives a sensible resistance on the sensor side of 1.3 KΩ and proper 0 Ω between the naked wire and the connector sockets.

Maybe I'll splice some wire in to replace what I cut out and keep it as an emergency spare. But best guess as to fault is a slightly iffy crimp between one of the connector sockets and its wire so how much trust can be placed in such a repair is anyones guess. I've had a couple of intermittent ABS faults self correcting mid flight in the past which couls support the crimp issue diagnosis.

Clive

On further investigation there appear to be two types of sensor from Britpart.

Island list a plain Britpart branded sensor without the perforated metal sleeve for about £90. Appears to be the same as the ones I got last time.

Brtitcar and LRDirect show one branded Britpart OEM that appears to be identical to the official Land Rover part as it comes complete with metal sleeve and fitting grease at £150 / £134 respectively. Says 3 year warranty. Britcar will do the official Land Rover one for £198, erm no thanks.

Given these sensors age out rather than wear out I'm distrustful of used parts so I've ordered from LRDirect. Be interesting to see what actually turns up.

(Day 15 of the 'flu is no time to contemplate how some suppliers can do an uber cheap version when the ex factory cost is basically defined by a mechanical production process.)

Clive

ABS and traction control lights are on with the associated messages coming up on the dash.

Nanocom says 0 volts on the right hand front sensor, 5 volts on the other three. As I recall it the Nanocom correctly identifies the right hand front sensor but mixes up some of the others.

Multimeter says 0.640 Meg Ohms impedance for right hand front sensor which is way too high.
Left hand front reads 1.125 K Ohms which is near enough book value so looks like my meter and technique are honest.

Obviously the sensor is toast but does the 0 volt reading from the Nanocom imply other faults?

The Britpart replacement, made by OEM, is around £120 from the usual suppliers. Some offer an Allmakes version for under £30. Given that its pretty easy to change a sensor is the cheapy worth the risk. The dead one was a Britpart installed maybe 5 years ago.

Looking round for prices the Island 4x4 site seems to be down at the moment.

Clive

Dave posted the picture whilst I was typing.

If its simply the tips needing reworking to make proper line contact with the O-rings its almost trivially easy to re-cut them in a lathe to restore the angle and clean the surface. maybe 10 - 15 thou off the length which will make no difference to how it works.

Probably the right way would be by hand in a watchmakers lathe. But that needs serious skills and practice. Hand work can follow the cone so accurate set-up isn't needed. Watchmaking machines are crude!

In a conventional workshop machine you'd need an accurate carrier so its all a bit more tedious. But not intrinsically difficult. Setting up to get the cone dead parallel to the spigot is the hard bit. If its off angle it will jam up just enough to leak due to the O ring below the cone.

Or just reverse engineer the whole thing to a functional equivalent rather than dead copy so it's easier to handle. As ever its more about having a big enough market at a sensible price to be worth doing a batch. Thinking time, drawing time, tooling time and set up time is the killer. Probably take as long to get ready as to make 100 on a manual lathe.

Not volunteering. Re-making the float needle and seat more or less from scratch on an obscure French Zenit carb off a pre-war Delage so the damn thing worked with absolutely no data cured me of that sort of thing for ever.

Clive

I believe it is possible to invisibly repair cracked ABS bumpers using the hot staple technique and a suitable filler. If the repaired bumper is to be painted I see no reason why a proper repair couldn't be made. You may need to talk to the folk who repair motorcycle fairings rather than car people tho'.
Certainly the staple repair a friend did on the cracked rear hugger on my Yamaha GTS1000 is unobtrusive even without final filling and refinishing.

Its impossible to remove the ABS from the metal support frame. If you do resort to another bumper or even if you just pull yours off for repair its advisable to seriously de-rest and proof the metalwork. Mine was OK but not pristine when I pulled it off to fit parking sensors shortly after buying the car. 11 years on when I pulled it off again to replace the parking kit due to a failed sensor I discovered the mounting lugs had disappeared and the rest of the support was in a bad way. It was basically just sitting there. No way could it be refitted as was and, being unwilling to trust pictures to be sure of getting a good one mail order, I resorted to creative welding and re-engineering of brackets to span the missing parts of the metalwork. Had to make a couple of special alignment tools to get the new brackets in the right place. Took 4 days of on and off work due to the essential breaks to bring my temper back into acceptable human range. Welding to (mostly) rust is not my favourite pastime. Considerable verbal encouragement was involved!

Having put it back on it looks pretty decent actually and lines up perfectly.

Seriously annoyed with myself for not taking the time to treat it properly when it first became apparent that my car suffers from rust overt the alst couple of ft of chassis et al. As it was once a seaside care I suspect it may have put boats in the water a few times.

Clive

On further investigation it looks like twin packs of Loctite superglue for plastics with the activator thingy are readily available at £5 or £6 (ish). Something to have in stock before working on the known to be fragile plastics bits methinks.

Pity they don't use the plastic squeeze bottle device that the Pattex ones frequently come in. Just a standard tube inside but much easier to handle, stands up when you put down so glue don't run everywhere and far less prone to bunging up the spout with half the glue left inside. I actually managed to use all the glue the last couple or three times. Having to open up a new pack halfway through the the third or fifth job is, um, unnatural.

Clive

If you are unfortunate enough to break plastic parts I've been impressed with the ability of Pattex superglue to rejoin things when used with the plastic primer pen thingy. Comes up it LiDL occasionally at sensible prices and, like all superglue related stuff, keeps well in the fridge. I'm told Pattex is a Loctite brand so it ought to be the real deal.

Won't do miracles but if you can avoid bending things when putting them back together it will hold the plastic projections on the back of trim panels well enough to get the clips home. Pretty good going in my book as there is next door to nowt to glue. Unfortunately around 50% failure rate on removal so be prepared for re-gluing.

Clive

I guess the root cause is umpteen heating and cooling cycles over the years cause the plastic to distort slightly altering the grip of the threads.

Looks like the threads contract a touch so the cap gets relatively tighter and the tube looser hence the not unknown tube comes out instead of the cap coming off scenario. Certainly my cap feels a bit odd when screwing on, rather akin the the tri-lobular and similar out of round distorted thread locking systems. Especially as it comes up to the end. Genuine caps can currently be gotten on E-Bay for £7 ish so maybe worth a punt to see if mine actually has changed so a new one would screw on more easily.

Impressed that Harv was able to lap his with grinding paste. Lapping and grinding plastic surfaces risks the hard abrasive being embedded in the plastic creating surface something like sandpaper. Which is probably not ideal. Back in the day the optical shop at RARDE was experimenting with finish grinding plastic lenses with less than stellar results. Muggins did the testing! They didn't look good and performed worse.

Not brave enough to consider sticking a pair of pliers down the tube to turn the lugs. Although obviously the shorter tube on a GEMS makes it easier to keep under control. The prospect of having to pull the engine and strip it to recover a piece of errant plastic if a lug breaks being less than enticing. Still need to fork out £70 for a new one. OK it should end up safely in the rocker box but ....

Clive

Finally got my oil filler tube screwed back into the rocker box after the darn thing unscrewed and refused to screw back in on Friday when I topped up the oil .

Had to make a special tool for the job to engage in the two lugs at the bottom to get it in.

Usually simple hand turn'n tighten job when its happened before but this time it decided to go in a bit under a turn before jamming. Even under hand tightening pressure it needed a strap wrench to release it. Not good. At £70 a pop I wasn't going to risk breaking the tube by forcing plastic inevitably embrittled by years and heat.

After scraping the thread in the rocker box made made no difference I measured the thread on the tube so I could make a chaser. Thread is 1.640" diameter, 11 tpi with a 60° thread angle. 1 - 1/4 BSP except for the wrong angle. Actually got as far as setting up to make a 60° chaser before realising that a 60° male thread going into a 55° female would usefully tighten the grip on the plastic. So I modded a brass plumbing fitting to make a chaser and screwed that in. Didn't go as free as I'd like so clearly something in the thread. In and out a few times got it clear with some crud collected by the chaser. Felt right for a 55° thread in the box matching the chaser.

Tube still wouldn't co-operate so I set to and made the tool.

If anyone else has to make one the included angle on the lugs is 32°, slots need to be more than 9 mm wide at the outside end, mine are 12 mm, and tool OD no more than 33 mm so it drops down the hole. Other details to taste. I made my slots the full 10 mm depth of the lugs and relieved the centre. My body is 40 mm long, plenty to keep it stable in the tube, with a 65 mm long 12 mm Ø shaft to reach up the tube having a 13 mm hex (Screwfix M8 joining nut) on the top end for a spanner.

When fitting the tube needed what felt like maybe 4 or 5 ft/lb torque to pass the tight spot then screwed in stiffly but freely with maybe 2 and bit ft/lb force. More than easily done by hand for sure. Frankly it was right on the top end of the torque I felt safe when it jumped the tight spot.

If it comes out again I can see a spiffy custom billet alloy replacement happening.

Clive

I also got a UT210E clamp meter ages back for "that one job" (which never happened) for silly low money. Maybe £10 sitting in the drawer so I'm not too worried if it never gets used.

Reviewer here https://www.markhennessy.co.uk/budget_multimeters/unit_ut210e.htm isn't super impressed but it does appear to work well enough with a claimed 1 mA dc resolution that I'd take with a huge pinch of salt. Reliable some or none below 10 mA is doing well for at that price.

Pushing £50 on E-Bay from UK stock. Most of the suppliers are out of China with the usual delay at 2/3 rds the price.

DC current measurement using a clamp is relatively difficult. Most of the other cheap ones can't handle DC current.
Multicomp Pro MP760862 from Farnell for £60 odd appears to do so. As does the DiaLog from TLC at nearly £100. Farnell are suppliers to the professional market so their offerings may be a bit better.

Screwfix will sting you £150 for Fluke that allegedly does DC current but a quick look at the picture shows its AC only.

Very much buyer beware market. If getting a UT210 be very careful with the letter at the end. So far as I can make out the E is the only one that does DC current. Some suppliers have discrepancies between picture and number.

Clive

When it comes to clamps I'm a fan of the Mikalor type. In stainless steel naturally.

For exhausts and solid pipes they seem to generate similar grip pressures to the U bolt "benelli" type without distorting the pipe so things come apart if need be (providing you have remembered to coppaslip the pipe overlap area).

On hoses they seem to generate a closer to full circle hold than the worm drive jubilee type with modest tightening torque. Easier to keep a socket spanner on too and they don't seize up in the driver or strip the worm pattern off the band like aged jubilee clips are prone to do. Many of the modern affordable jubilee style seem to lack quality and are best considered one time use. If I'm only gonna use it once might as well go for an Ottiker stepless or double ear crimp type as I have the tools. Undoing either can be a pain tho' so I'd rather not. The stainless Mikalor may be 3 or 4 times the price of a jubilee off Mr Halfords shelf but the saving in frustration a year or three later is worth the extra cost to me.

Clive

Good price on your exhausts Richard.

I forked out £600 odd for a Double S stainless system with centre box some time ago and expect to hit break even late next year going by the 3 years or so a Klarius system from my local tyre and exhaust place lasted before the back boxes started blowing glass fibre out. My Double S has turned down ends to the pipes too. Thought it a bit stingy when the box just had the exhaust in it with no clamps or support rubbers. Naturally the tyre shop didn't have the big clamp for the centre so I had to leave the car there and walk home whilst one was ferried out from the next town. Shoulda reminded them to check before cutting the blown Klarius one off.

Clive

60D is indeed 4.6 litre 1998 to 2003 Thor block with 9.35:1 static CR.

Casting number HRC2411 is the final version of the Rover made block so it matches the engine number.

Correct exhaust manifold bolt thread on all P38 versions is indeed 8 mm.

3/8 unc is earlier, RR Classic et al. If they are all 3/8 UN its got the wrong heads. If only one someone has re-tapped a stripped thread 3/8 UN rather than helicoiled. Bodger central!

Whatever its a FrankenEngine, Bitsa, bodged up. No tellings what else is wrong or how and why it got the wrong heads. Throw it back!

Clive

Well that was a battle.

Changing the sensor went easily enough apart from it being at exactly the wrong height for my arms whilst lying underneath and the fixings being largely invisible.

Its unhooking the connector that needs a health warning. Experience with setting the points and ignition timing on Reliant and Jensen Healy is desirable. Impossible to see and attempts to feel what is going on risks cutting your wrists on the corroded edges of the exhaust pipe shielding. Significant scrapes but not too much blood drawn. Ended up pulling the nearside front wheel off and removing the arch liner. With a deal of contorting and careful shining of my favourite baby LED torch I was eventually able to glimpse enough to work out how the "detach from bracket" bit worked so a bit of careful poking prodding and levering with a screwdriver, mostly blind, got it off. By then we were cooking with gas. Fortunately re-assembly went just like it should.

Lots of oil underneath in that area and the sensor itself was well oiled so I guess I'm in for a rear crankshaft oil seal fix soon.

The airbag didn't look good either so I guess that after 10 years its just aged out. Supplies seem to be a bit limited right now. Island only have rears and there seem to be two breeds of Dunlop on the other supplier listings plain Dunlop and PRDunlop.

Clive

That settles it.

Mine is getting changed as soon as the new Bosch one arrives from Island 4x4. Sent off Thursday so won't be long.

When you have age and heat related failures it can be hard to tell if its the number of cold - hot - cold cycles or heat soak time that does the damage. I'm guessing its cycles rather than soak or Richard would be on a regular change regime.

Clive

Agreed symptoms are pretty much what you'd expect from a failing CPS but in this case the engine never really got hot and never really got cold. Good blast of compressed air or splash of water to cool things down was going to be the next test if the pull and clean contacts hadn't worked.

I guess £80 odd to put a new genuine Bosch one into stock so I can change it when convenient is wise.

Clive

The big red beast stopped running early this afternoon on the way up to the supermarket. Drifting downhill towards the carpark I got a "boing" and he came to a halt. Nothing on the display, all the usual warning lights associated with ignition on but he wouldn't restart. Turning over on the starter over was a bit lumpy as if he might have been getting the odd almost fire. Would have expected it to spin a bit faster given the battery was fully up to charge. Temperature gauge about half way towards normal running. I'd been out earlier and he hadn't fully cooled down before going off again. Petrol tank almost full.

As it seemed almost certain to be electrical I spent five minutes wobbling fuses, pulling out and reseating appropriate relays et al before trying to start up again. Fired up just fine in the usual almost instant manner.

Started fine three more times.

Once to come home and twice whilst doing the Nanocom tests. No fault codes on the Nanocom and outputs seemed reasonable. After reminding myself where Encoder Tooth counts lived on the Nanocom menus I tried one more start.

No go.

Did the pull relays and fuses thing again squirting with contact cleaner before re-installation. Verified that the fuel pump relay was working fine and had low resistance on the contacts when made. Also did the female contact wobble with a screwdriver test for the relay female contacts to, hopefully, verify there was no circuit board problem. All seemed solid. The only issue I found was worn plating on some of the relay male prongs. Shouldn't make any difference but I polished things up.

After retrieving the fuse puller from under the battery where it had hidden after "someone" dropped it I tried starting again. Instant fire up. Temperature still a little shy of normal running level.

So have I fixed it or is there something lurking waiting to be activated by Lawyer Murphy and the Gremlin Squad at a seriously inconvenient time.

Tempted to just replace the fuel pump relay on principle and put a genuine crank position sensor into stock. But he has only done 96,000 miles so it seems a bit early for CPS problems.

Any ideas as to what's really going on.

Clive

Garvin

Is that less than £60 fan OEM as in Original Equipment Manufacturer Land Rover part or OEM as in the brand of aftermarket parts specially chosen to confuse the unwary.

Best I could see for official Land Rover product, which may or may not be actual original spec or just this weeks flavour of aftermarket in box with a green oval sticker, was a bit over £85.

Hafta say I'm surprised at the number of suppliers and different prices for what must be a part with a fairly small market. Although failure is catastrophic it doesn't appear to be all that common. Especially given the age of our vehicles and the known propensity of plastics to get brittle with age and heating / cooling cycles.

I'd be little bit worried about one from a "we put our badge on a Chinese fan" supplier being made from a less than good formulation of plastic and / or suffering from poor process control when moulding. Getting the right injection temperature into a mould at the right temperatures and cooling down at the right rate makes an immense difference to strength. Early die cast motorcycle wheels got an unenviable reputation for spokes cracking away from the hub due to the effect of thermally induced stress locked in by poor cooling control. Seeing a couple with only 3 out of 10 spokes still attached was somewhat sobering. For all practical purposes our fan blades are pretty much mechanically equivalent from the stress point of view with the added bending load imposed by the air being blown through it. Whether the out of balance effects from uneven blade spacing make any difference is beyond me.

Clive

I regard dropping the sump and lifting the rocker boxes as no-brainer inspection jobs on a new-to-you used engine. State of the sludge, crud or oil stains are an excellent clue as to how well the beast has been looked after and whether its been on light duties / short run work (bad for a motor) or had a decent chance to stretch its legs. Arguably inspecting the camshaft makes sense given that they are known to wear.

But my view is that any used engine automatically gets a proper rebuild before swapping in. To me its worth getting another motor to sort in reasonably slow time whilst the one fitted still works rather to be forced into a fast fix. If I'm going to the effort of swopping motors I want my "150,000 miles with only routine servicing" in exchange.

Clive