Thread: Expedition Home-build - AU to IE

Mike,

As everyone said fabulous.

I originally approached a professional roof console maker in Sydney about making the type of console you’ve done.

Their advice was that a console across the front window of a defender would not pass RTA inspection did you make any enquiries in this regard?

Also on the security screens. Do you find they limit vision particularly while driving if trying to check to see if the lane nest to you is clear.

Originally Posted by agrojnr

Your attention to detail is awesome Mike

I will also be doing similer in the future so I may need to pick your brains

Adam

Absolutely - if I can help at all, I will. Wouldn't I love to be in your shoes though - kitting out a Defender, and having a lasercutting plant in my back garden Indeed, if I'm in the area, you can go over her yourself, get some ideas, and hopefully pass on a few ideas to me too. That goes for anyone here.

Originally Posted by scott oz

I originally approached a professional roof console maker in Sydney about making the type of console you’ve done.

Their advice was that a console across the front window of a defender would not pass RTA inspection did you make any enquiries in this regard?

Hey mate,

I can't say that I did make any enquiries regarding an RTA inspection, however I did take measurements from some of the commercially available Defender roof consoles, and my console is actually less restrictive in terms of view, and doesn't hang as low as some of the ones that I have seen. I figured that if they could make them and sell them, then mine would be okay Also, considering that my Defender will be predominantly in other countries, I (fingers crossed) don't foresee a problem

Also on the security screens. Do you find they limit vision particularly while driving if trying to check to see if the lane nest to you is clear.

Well considering that side and rear vision in the Defender is terrible at best, I think that short of boarding up the windows, you couldn't make it any worse Seriously though, I did do quite a bit of research on the grilles, investigating different aperture sizes on the grilles trying to find one that was small enough to maintain security, but big enough so as not to impede vision, and cut out a couple of rough sample panels first, to get a real world idea of how they would work. I find that the end result is that the grilles are far enough back from the driver that, much like the pixels on a TV screen, your eyes tend to ignore the "mesh", and focuses instead on the big picture. [/quote]

Help me build a winch cradle....

INSTALLING A VDO FUEL SENDER

With the nre auxiliary tank in, it was now time to turn attention to the original main tank. As I was changing my fuel gauge to a VDO equivalent, I needed to figure out how to make it talk to the fuel tank. This presents two options:

1. "Translate" the stock sender so that the VDO gauge can read it.
2. Change out the sender for a matching VDO sender.

Because VDO don't make a sender that can directly replace the stock Defender sender, I first looked into making the stock sender "tank" to the VDO gauge.

For those who don't know, the fuel sender works on the same principle as a variable resistor, that sits between the gauge, and ground. When the tank is empty, the sender measures X ohms, and when the tank is full, the sender measures Y ohms, every other level giving a resistance falling somewhere between X and Y.

The stock Defender sender in my tank measured about 360 ohms empty, and 16 ohms full, and unfortunately VDO only produce gauges ranging 10-180, 240-33 and 0-90 empty to full. It would be relatively easy to electrically invert the resistance range and half it, i.e. the (inverted) 10-360 ohm sender could have its resistance halved, changing the range to 5-180 ohms, which would work with the 10-180 ohm gauge. A 360 ohm resistor in parallel with the sensor will give the correct reading at the end points. In the middle the linearity might be unacceptable, therefore I plotted the data, to find an obvious problem.



As predicted, the readings were accurate as the tank approached full or empty, but a difference of over 30 ohms exists when the tank is half full. On top of that, the error is biased towards the positive, meaning that the new VDO gauge would slowly decrease from empty, but at around the (according to the gauge) 1/4 tank level, the gauge would plummet towards empty - not the most comfortable of scenarios. To get the 10-360 sender to act like a 10-180 sender, a more complex active circuit would be required, and wouldn't be worthe the time and effort, so the option of using the stock sender was out.

VDO do make a range of universal senders to match their gauges, which lock into a hole cut in the top of the tank, and seeing as it was the only viable option, it was time to go cutting holes in a perfectly good fuel tank.

The tank, with fuel pickup (top) and sender (side) removed.



The stock Defender sender/fuel pickup. I happened to have a Range Rover pickup sitting in the shed - same size, but with the sender float arm removed, so I decided to use this in its place.



New VDO sender, to be mounted in the top of the tank.



For anyone reading this and thinking of doing something similar, there are a few considerations to take into account before merrily drilling into the top of the fuel tank. The first is clearance between the tank and the tank and the rest of the truck, as the new sender will protrude by about 15mm. The second may seem obvious, but not all tanks are flat bottomed, and putting the sender in the shallowest side of the tank gives false results. The biggest possibility of screwing up however, comes with whats inside the tank. Inside, there's a myriad of baffles and troughs for the senders, all of which can block movement of the new fuel sender arm, so choose your location carefully before drilling. To illustrate, here's a photo I never thought I'd be taking - a panoramic shot of the inside of a Defender fuel tank



The photo is taken through the hole for the stock sender, and you can see the baffles at the bottom of the tank. The best location (in my opinion) for a replacement sender is here:



This location is near the original sender so the reporting of fuel level should be consistent; there are no baffles across the tank at this point and there is plenty of room above between the tank and the floor of the rear tub.

VDO say to drill a 59mm hole for the sender, and the tolerances on this are quite tight. anything smaller than 57mm, and the inner flange can't fit into the tank, 62mm and the flange doesn't have enough material to bite down on.



Setting up the sender to match the tank is fairly straightforward. First, the distance from the flange to the pivot is set to half the depth of the tank, and a lookup table provided gives you the appropriate length for the sender arm.







According to VDO, once this is done you can bolt the sender into the tank and it's ready to go. realistically speaking however, the sender will take a lot of minor tweaking before it reports a true empty or full. I had the gauge sitting on the table, so I wired it up temporarily to make this process easier.

Empty:


Full:


When I bolted the sender into the tank, "empty" gave me a reading of slightly above E on the gauge, and "full a reading of well below F, despite VDO's measurements, and it took a good half hour of shortening, lengthening, and bending of the float arm before the readings on the gauge were accurate.

The sender, now in the tank. You can see that the float clears the baffles.



Tank, all reassembled and ready to go back in the vehicle.



New fuel lines, routed to the rear tank.



Fuel return hooked up:



The usual nuts, bolts and rubber dampers, and the tank is in.



Wiring up the sender is very straightforward - black to ground, green to sender. You can also see here that the gap above the sender at this point on the tank is more than adequate.



Tank is in! Just have to connect the filler neck to the tank with some 40mm hose (which I bought in the wrong size and will have to swap out tomorrow) and it's good!

Another contribution came wrapped in cardboard a while back - Philco sent me one of his steering guards and wished me a good trip. Very interesting guy to talk to, extremely helpful, and again, my thanks to him for being so generous.

Not many pics of these guards have been posted so far, and my photos don't really do it justice, but the steering guard is top notch quality, laser cut, solid welding, and powdercoated to protect against corrosion.

My steering guard, sitting in the shed - ignore the mess in the background





It's a pretty straightforward process of bolting it on and driving away, and the sides of the guard flex enough to accomodate any "tolerances" in the Defender's chassis. The guard bolts to the outside of the chassis rails, and the left hand side of the guard is offset to accomodate the panhard rod mounting arm.



Right hand side just bolts flush.



You;re going to need three high tensile bolts, at least 110mm long, bolts and washers to match. The right hand side uses two of the existing bolt holes on the chassis rails, and the steering guard has other holes drilled in it, presumably for different Defender models.



Right hand side uses one of the bolt holes on the chassis rail, and also uses the existing bolt for the panhard rod mounting arm.



First, unbolt the panhard rod mounting arm, and tap out the bolt.



With the steering guard in place, pass the bolt back through the guard, the panhard rod mounting arm and the chassis rail, and bolt it back up.

Bolt up the other three mounts through the chassis with high tensile bolts (I'll be replacing mine with HT bolts later).



That's pretty much it - takes 20-30 minutes from start to finish. By the looks of things, it offers a decent amount of protection - everything north of the front diff is enclosed. As for the steering damper, short of shearing off all four bolts, I'm not sure how you could damage it. Definitely worth it if you are going anywhere offroad.

Mike I got you the sedimenter can you pm me your address so I can send it

Adam

Originally Posted by agrojnr

Mike I got you the sedimenter can you pm me your address so I can send it

Adam

PM sent. I appreciate the effort you've gone to mate I owe you one, yet again.

Its on it way to ya

I just got all the wiring for mine so I may need ya help soon but I have to finish off my weling first

Adam