Thread: Time for a Re-fit

Doesn't the "new" home-made fuel gauge look purty?

it looks like it is saying e for enough, so you don't need to fill that tank....
looks good

A bit of progress after a number of weeks with no chance to get anything done on the Landy:

In the last two weeks I decided that I really had to lose that white-faced temp gauge, so I bought another which matched the rest of the instruments. This afternoon I decided to fit it, as well as the Engine Watchdog.

I was going to fit the Watchdog up in a console at eye level (as it has a little less chance of getting wet there), but changed my mind today for several reasons:

• I was unsure if the light in its display would be annoying at eye level whilst night driving.
• The vehicle doesn't actually have a roof yet.

Reason number two was a real clincher.


Anyway, I forged ahead and, without going into the details of the annoying delay removing the 4WD selector rod temporarily (now, that would have been a little easier before I put the floor back in), by around teatime I had the whole instrument panel complete. Finally.


The Watchdog is a version with a sensor for both engine and transmission. When fitting it, I realised that there was nothing to discriminate the engine sensor and lead from those of the transmission. Identical.



As in all situations when thought is required, I made a pot of tea. It helped in more ways than one, as I rigged up some power to the Watchdog and then while the tea brewed I stuck one of the sensors underneath the teapot. That pretty quickly sorted out the which-was-which question. Note sensor under teapot in attached photo.


Back to work. I found what should be a good spot for the engine sensor at the front of the head (the mechanical gauge reads from the rear) and then opted to put the transmission sensor on one of the mounting studs for the overdrive (the overdrive always used to run extremely hot, and with its now vastly-increased oil capacity, it will be interesting to see the sort of temperature it generates).



It was a bit of a fiddle getting the final layout of wiring and capillary tubes (especially the excess stuff from the watchdog and the temp and oil pressure gauges) sorted behind the extra instrument panel, but it has all nestled in pretty well and is pretty tidy now. Sorry, no photo of that...


Anyway, here are a few photos of the day's work and the instrument panels. After running the vehicle for a while, it would seem that the Watchdog and the mechanical gauge give pretty close readings so far on the engine temperature.


Cheers,


John

Here's the instrument layout and the Watchdog in its home in the dash (hopefully out of most of the weather).

One last thing for this evening.

Here's a video of the Landy's first steps just before Christmas, after years of, well, not going anywhere. The diesel makes a horrible rattle in the video. Since then, a little running and a few tweaks have got it running very smoothly and as quietly as a 2.25D can.

My brother and my sister in law turned up just as I was about to hit the starter button; hence the home movie. My brother was on hand to congratulate me at the end of the voyage and offer technical advice like "That's your Land Rover, isn't it?" and "It's green".

QUIET 2.25 Diesel?, Bahahahahahaha
Good to see it under it's own steam though, Congrats Johnno

Thanks Ian. Yeah, good to see her trundling about - even if it is just around the yard.

I did say "as quietly as it can". It's all relative....

Mind you, it never used to intrude over the overdrive noise. If the overdrive rebuild has been in any way successful I may be able to hear other noises now (engine, tyres, wind, aeroplanes crashing nearby).

Here's an interesting thing. I thought I'd pull out the roof panel and the tropical panel just now and have a bit of a play. I lay the tropical panel down in situ on the roof and - blow me down, but I noticed that the old roof panel had a few rather well-placed bogged-up holes in it. Upon closer inspection, I realised that all the holes are already there for mounting the tropical panel and that somewhere along the line somebody has filled them in. This roof was not on the vehicle when I bought it in 1991, so I can only assume that wherever it came from somebody once decided to ditch their tropical roof.

It certainly will make the tropical panel easier to fit it, that's for sure. It just needs a bit of fixing up here and there and for the rear portion (it came from a 109) to be carefully removed.

John


P.S. Though one thing intrigues me.... did - or did not - all tropical roof models also have Alpine Lights??