Printable View
Car has been dropped off for the final modifications to the exhaust to comply with noise (I hope!!)
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/03/112.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/03/113.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/03/114.jpg
Looking good mate [thumbsupbig]
I doubt you will want to do he read screen a third time but I always thought the locking strip go on the inside of the car......only going off how it’s done on defenders.
Oh....the car is looking sweet.
A lot of cars run the strips on the out side [wink11]Quote:
Originally Posted by weeds
Maybe just a Landy thing .
Probably is a Land thing.......I’ve never had a close look at other cars.Quote:
Originally Posted by rangieman
Hello everyone,
It's only been 3 months since the last update. A few things happening, one of which being the garage which I was using the store the car in was no longer available so the car got relocated to the inlaws. We are soon going to be moving to a new place in Oatley, and the property has a double bay garage :cool: so I'll be sorted on that front.
Anyway, after dropping the car off to have the exhaust extended to the back with a resonator, I took the car to the engineer for the final inspection. And... it failed:
- Too much body roll
- Too much offset on rims
- Concerns on the rear license plate holder
- Exhaust too loud!!!
I couldn't believe that there was still a problem with the exhaust noise level. What may not have helped is that the exhaust system was 2 x 2.5" to just before the rear diff. The modification collected these into a single 3" which being larger diameter probably didn't help the noise situation. A 2" insert should do the trick though.
For the wheel offset, I got a set of standard discovery rims, but being 16" I was strugging to find some tyres that were equivalent to 33". I ended up getting two 285/75/R16 tyres, but I now need two more!!
For the body roll, I have a couple of extra heavy duty sway bars on the way, they are being made and won't be ready until the end of the month.
Finally, the engineer did turn to me and say that certifying the tow bar was not in scope, I kicked up a fuss about this but then after he showed me the standard, I agreed I would test it and send the photos. Roughly speaking, for the older cars you load the tow bar in tension and compression with 1.5x the rated towing capacity, then left to right is done at 0.5x towing capacity and finally up and down at 0.5x towing capacity.
I decided to rate the tow bar to 2,000kg, given the car itself weighed about that much. So I hired a load cell and tried to do this using a 10t chain block. For the tension test (where I needed to put 3,000kg). I chocked up the car with some wooden blocks and anchored it to a 200 series Land Cruiser. I started pulling on the chain block and got to about 1,800kg before it was nearly impossible to pull any more, and then I also realised that I was starting to drag the car over the wooden blocks on the concrete...
So getting 3,000kg of load on the tow bar was becoming tricky. I even tried low ratio with the centre difflock engaged and on bitumen, there I only got to 2,000kg before tyres started to slip on the bitumen!
So in the end I called in a friend with an escavator and we got the job done. Some photos below:
The car between a power pole and an escavator. What could go wrong right?
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/240.jpg
Setup for the 3,000kg tension test
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/241.jpg
Setup for the 3,000kg compression test
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/242.jpg
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/243.jpg
Setup for the 1,000kg vertical up load test. Had to put about 500kg on the back.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/244.jpg
Axles weren't on the bump stops with 500kg on the back, springs are possibly too stiff.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/245.jpg
Setup for the 1,000kg vertical down load test.
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/246.jpg
The photo below is some other work i've done. I've fitted some anchor rails onto the tray to give me some achoring points. The tyre is standing vertically because I was about to put the car cover on, my first attempt and water pooling on the cover in lots of places and starting to seep through the fabric!
https://www.aulro.com/afvb/images/im...018/06/247.jpg
That's it! next update will hopefully be from Oatley when I fit the new swaybars on. If anyone has a couple of spare 285/75R16 tyres, please get in touch!
Alright, the move to Oatley is 99.9% done. Not something I would like to do again any time soon. I think in the end we had enough stuff to fill 2 Trailers, 1 Large truck and about 7 car loads...
The Discovery is now in it's new home, however all the tools and camping gear is just sitting on the floor...
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...714_160144.jpg
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...714_160156.jpg
Also, the swaybars have finally arrived, and they are absolutely enormous. Especially when you compare it against the skinny stock rear sway bar. I'll have a better photo when I am in the process of fitting it.
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...718_000711.jpg
That's it for now, progress is real slow because the move has been such a mammoth task!! Hopefully some more updates soon.
At last some progress!
Sway bars are in. I did a bit of a comparison side by side before they went in.
The rear sway bars were significantly thicker than original!
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...722_113559.jpg
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...722_113616.jpg
The front bars were about 3mm or so thicker.
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...722_122233.jpg
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...722_122248.jpg
One of the other requirements from the engineer was that the exhaust was too loud, despite taking the car to an exhaust shop a second time to have the exhaust extended all the way to the back and a resonator fitted. So to deal with it, I made a 2" reducing insert, which seemed to cut down the noise by a reasonable amount.
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...722_165548.jpg
Progress on clearing up the garage, it's pretty much a usable space now :)
http://www.stirlsilver.com.au/images...722_180426.jpg
As always great job!!
How are you going to deal with the rear sway bar inverting with long travel shocks?? Hugh issue on the D1's / RRCs
I guess I'll cross that bridge when I get there. I.e. get the car registered. Not sure at this stage how I will tackle the problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by disco_ute
So as an update.
It's been a long slow journey with the engineer. Because of the extent of the modifications I have done he has blown the budget so he is only working on the car in his free time. Which slows things down.
The saga started with me fitting 285/75R16 tyres to the car. Which were simply too wide for 7" rims. So a brand new set of 255/85R16s had to be purchased. Which wasn't a cheap exercise. Then, I had recently fitted a brand new brake master cylinder which intermittently would bypass a circuit causing the braking of the car to be unpredictable!! Finally, there were problems with the handling when the car had 350kg of weight on the tray. When doing a swerve it felt like the rear end wanted to overtake the front.
So on Friday I journeyed up to the engineer with a brand new master cylinder to change it out there because he wouldn't let me drive it away without fixing that. With the new master brakes were finally behaving!
We both spent some time on the handling problem. I definitely could see what the engineer was taking about with the handling. I suspected it was because the 255/85's have such a tall wall, so they probably need more pressure. So inflated the tears to 55psi and off we went. The handling was much better basically to the point where the engineer was happy with it.
One of the biggest problems that was discovered however is that it looks like the rear axle I used for the car was bent. Wheel alignment tests showed the rear right was 1deg toe in!!! So I need to now buy a new rear axle housing.... Argh!
While I'm at it, I need to change the brake pads because the engineer was sceptical about the car passing brake fade tests. Also with the fitment of the 255/85s the Speedo is waaay out, so I will need to fit my Dakota Digital Speedo driver, which is a dash out job. While I'm at it I'll address the leaking heater core.
Below is the photo of the car back home with the 350kg of dirt on the back.
http://stirlsilver.com.au/images/Dis...-1612x1209.jpg
I'll get this thing finished!!!