The ironing is delicious

Yup, gotta love irony.

For some time I've had a voltmeter saved in my eBay watchlist, and a couple weeks ago I decided it was time to finally order it. Handy to keep an eye on my battery state, especially with winter approaching.

So what do I find when I drive to work on the very same day the voltmeter arrives?

Oh joy, the charge light of doom. A quick check with my multimeter confirmed no charge, so I scrambled the garage and arranged for a new alternator to be fitted. About a week later and the car was back to strength with its new 150A alternator, so I got busy fitting the voltmeter.

Offered up in place of the ashtray (which I only ever use for used parking permits) it fits well and is clearly visible from the driving position. The feed was connected to the ignition live and ground terminal strips I had installed earlier, and the illumination feed was spliced into the rear window switch.

With the green filter added to the bulb it matches the original instrumentation pretty well (although it looks white in the pic because it's a bit brighter than the switches).

Charging like a good 'un, and no red light of terror either.

Take that Alanis!

I've got the power!

Ok, so the groundwork was in place for my accessories, all I needed to do was hook up the auxilliary fuseboard to the battery.

First off I fitted a couple of terminal block links behind the fuse board.

The one on the left is for ignition live and the one on the right is a convenient ground. For reference the ground is connected to the chassis via one of the cabin fuseboard (the original LR one) mounting bolts, and the ignition feed is taken from here:

(The big old yellow wire). I could have taken the ground from here too but for me nothing beats the chassis for a strong connection.

The fuseboard back in place, with the toys hooked up (although I have labelled the fuses now and applied heatshrink to the power connection).

That's right, 2 ancillaries. One is the boot socket as shown already but the other...

Is a flexible neck maplight. The 3 door Freelander isn't well equipped when it comes to cabin lighting, it's just a basic courtesy light behind the sunroofs. This maplight will come in handy if the passenger (the wife) needs to find anything in the dark (handbag). It fit's perfectly in the blank that would have been for the electric mirros switch on LHD models.

Duck mascot courtesy of "What the duck?".

Whilst I was taming electrons, I decided to finally fit my driving lights to the front of the car. The brackets were the first thing I bought (again PowefulUK) but after reading nightmares of seized bolts and much awkwardness I put it off.

In truth, it was a bloody nightmare. The bumper - wing "nuts" had seized onto the bolt and when I tried to unbolt them they just tore themselves apart making it impossible to grip and undo. In the end (after 2 hours of trying to do it "elegantly" I remembered my cordless dremel, and managed to grind the bolts enough to break them clear, although this was still awkward and I had to do it blind.

But off they came and I just had to drill the bumper bar, fit some M8 nutserts and refit the bumper. Typically after taking 2 hours to remove the bumper, the rest of the job was achieved in about 30 minutes...

One thing I'll say, it's worth having the right tools. Years ago when working on my van I needed to install some M8 nutserts, and as my standard kit only went to M6 I bought a tool sold by, you guessed it, PowerfulUK (how prophetic). Turned out I didn't need it for the van but it was a godsend for this job.

Yeah, they're a bit tatty but they've been in a dusty shed for 6 months...

The guards match the headlight guards too!

The bumper bolts were replaced with regular allen bolts and nuts with repair washers top and bottom, all in stainless...

Onto the wiring side, I got creative with some aluminium plate (the same as used for the fuseboard) and made a bracket that is held in place in front of the battery, secured by the battery clamp bolt.

What we have here is the main fuse for the auxiliary fuseboard, and 2 relay bases (one for the lights and one for future expansion). There's also a load of spare room if I need to add more...

It was only after making and fitting this that I discovered Land Rover have a similar solution which slots in place next to the battery tray. I was tempted to get one of these but they only seem to be part of a kit, and they don't have provision for the large fuseholder.

Yeah I'm not proud of the scotchlock, but at least it's just the signal for the relay...

Oh and one more thing, when LR showed the convenient grommet in the bulkhead to thread the wiring through, they neglected to show how awkward it was when you have aircon pipework in the way...

Much scraping of fingers and a bit of bleeding (and a lot of swearing) later and the power feed was through...

Mr Charles

A risky gambit, letting the dreamer know they are in a dream.

I recently received my reward from a Kickstarter project I pledged towards earlier this year, and it was certainly worth the wait.

These spinning tops from Canadian startup Forever Spin are simply gorgeous. I've wanted to get an "Inception" top ever since I saw the movie, but only pushed when I saw these.

I'm glad I did.

They are machined from the solid material, originally started as variations of stainless steel, the pledging snowballed so magnificently and backers requested more different materials, the final line up on offer was:

Brushed Stainless
Mirror Polish Stainless
Gold Plated Stainless
Copper
Brass
Aluminium
Titanium
Bronze
Nickel
Tungsten

As well as a gold plated "Forever Dock" to display them.

I pledged for the ones shown above, brushed stainless, and added brass and copper after - I received the green"kickstarter" top as a bonus for doing so...

In the hand they are so beautiful and tactile. When I'm not spinning them I often have one in my hand just rolling it between my fingers.

But of course, spinning is what they do...

There have been a few remarks on kickstarter that they don't spin well compared with a certain other spinning top project, "The Lambda Top". But I think these dissenters miss the point. The Forever Spin top isn't about breaking records for longest spin times, it's about having a classicly shaped top that looks beautiful and spins well and is made in one piece out of solid material.

The Lambda top is an exercise in engineering.

It's like saying a Ferrari is rubbish because it isn't as fast as a top fuel dragster. Sure the dragster is fast, but is it beautiful? Certainly not beautiful like a Ferrari.

And without a proper spin surface, on a good day I can get about 2 minutes spin time from the brass or copper tops. Top be honest, that's probably long enough. Spend 10 minutes and thats about 5 / 6 spins, or 1 with the Lambda... May as well go and do some work while that's spinning, nothing more to do.

Not to mention they match my other Kickstarter rewards nicely (Kara's Kustoms pens).

(I also have the aluminium and brass pens, but not on me right now...)

It's not just the tops that are pleasing to the eye, the packaging has been well thought out too, with little muslin bags to keep the tops protected (certainly helps as mine shares pocket room with my pocket knife and flashlight). The outer box is really nice too, simple, modest and dare I say it, classy.

The only item offered that I wasn't enamoured with, would be the "ForeverDock". It's a purely subjective opinion but I would have liked a circular base, with spaces for the tops evenly arranged around the rim. And maybe made from a nice wood - to act as a foil to the metalfest of the tops themselves. But that's just my take on it.

All in all, I'm very impressed with both the product and the presentation and I hope to add more tops to my collection over the following months.

I have just backed another spinning top project, the Janus Top. Like the Lambda, this is another engineered top, but I think it looks nicer than the Lambda.

VCU (Conclusion)

Well what can I say? Stirling work by my local garage had my shiny new VCU and bearings installed and boy do they make a difference! It's like driving a new car, no tightness in steering, its a bit quicker and it's not making any nasty noises.

Which made me think about the flak the Freelander gets for VCU failures. Yes there may be better ways to achieve AWD, and a failing VCU damaging other components is in no way good. But let's face it, this is not a Nissan Micra, it's more complicated than that and the owner of such a vehicle should be aware of the related service costs.

I'll generalise here, but the Freelander is possibly a victim of its own marketing - "Soccer moms" buying them to take little Johnny to school because they are "safe", but having no interest in the upkeep.

And the upkeep isn't really that bad (w.r.t. the VCU). Take the clutch, about £400 to replace and it lasts about 30,000 miles. That's accepted, but a VCU costs about £300 to replace and should last twice as long. Why is that regarded as bad? It's an added expense of owning an AWD vehicle.

But hey ho, I'm riding high right now - my Freebie is running sweet and my little tweaks are just falling into place.

VCU (Part the first)

It's come to the point where I can afford to replace the Freelanders ailing VCU. It's not entirely failed, but I can tell it's started getting stiffer, so time to change.

I ordered a new GKN one from Island4x4, which was only £90 more than getting a reconditioned one.

Look at it's loveliness!

And I also ordered some "OEM" propshaft support bearings to be replaced at the same time (mine are getting quite noisy now).

And finally, back when I had the clutch replaced the garage commented that I was missing some marbles, sorry, missing a propshaft - IRD bolt. A quick order to Brit-car had these on my doorstep a couple days later.

It's booked in for repairs next week, and I can't wait. This is the last major part that absolutely needs to be replaced, there may be other repairs that need to be done as a result of the VCU failing, but this is the core item.

Socket to me

Had a bit of energy so I thought I'd make a start on wiring in the extra socket in the boot.

I loosely followed the way Land Rover suggest with their kit, but made a small difference as to where the power came from. More on that further down. 

First off I removed all of the passenger side interior panels. A reassuringly simple affair only requiring a torx bit and some gentle persuasion to pull panel clips free.

Once cleared I fed 2 wires, one red for power (2.5mm) and one yellow (1.5mm) for the relay signal from the boot to the passenger footwell. Here I had to swear a little as there is so little space behind the dash to route wires, between the console and the heater / air con there is literally no room to see through to the drivers side glovebox (where the wires will terminate). So out came my stereo which let me feed the wires up from the passenger footwell, across but behind the stereo wiring and down into the drivers footwell. 

I had to do this twice, once to get the length of wire required and then again after I wrapped them in cloth tape...

All wrapped and fed along the sill and into the boot... More wrapping than I do at Christmas!

So now to the meat of the beast, wiring up the relay and fitting. As is my way with these things I rushed ahead and got it wired without taking pictures, but it is simply a 30A relay and it's wired the same as if it was powering spotlights.

The relay is secured to the body by the silver screw near the top of the picture, and the ground cables are secured to the same point as the tail lights (near the bottom).

And finally the power wires are attached to the back of the socket. Yup, more wrapping here too!

All of the trims refitted, one more job for the day which is finding a home for the power and signal wires.

The master plan is to install a secondary fuse box in the cabin, with it's own battery feed. This will make adding additional circuits easier, and keeps my wiring away the cars factory kit.

The little glovebox under the steering wheel is a bit useless for me, and as it's right next to the main cabin fusebox it seems the most logical home for the new one. This will be a job for another day, I need to buy some battery cable and an main fuse holder to protect the feed, then I can finally get it fitted. But for now...

Scratch my back...

And I'll scratch yours.

The car was good to me for the MOT, apart from the exhaust back box the advisories were sligth wear on track rod ends. Not expensive and something I'll get sorted later in the year (after I get a new VCU).

The garage was good to me too, I was going to drop it back on the monday to have the exhaust fixed but they got the parts in before the end of the work day Friday and got it fixed the same day...Result!

So that was cheaper than I expected, so I managed to buy a few extras I've been wanting to get the Hippo back to being complete.

When I bought it there were a few pieces of trim missing, silly things like seat belt covers and the pieces of plastic that cover the seat locking mechanism. Small things but once I noticed them they annoyed me for being missing. Once bought and installed the interior looks a whole lot better, I also bought the fixings to secure the targa roof bag to the rear seat (I won the bag on eBay a while ago but missed out on some fixings). Ironically, it's rapidly become Autumn in the UK so I don't imagine I'll be removing the roof until next year, but when I do, I'm all set.

Speaking of Autumn, it's at that awkward stage where it can be warm during the day but feels chilly at night. So, always being prepared (I never was a scout though) I ordered a luggage net from eBay and secured it to the roof of the hardback. This way I can stow a fleece out of the way in case I need it, and still carry the dogs without getting hair on my coat.

I also bought and fitted a small framed net to the rear door.

Still in the boot, after stripping the old van of the extras I had a covered 12V aux socket (a CBE item), and remembering the neat aux socket installs that LR offered as an extra, I set about the nearside rear trim panel with measuring stick and hole saw. I had to measure carefully to avoid the suspension turret and the support rod, but it's in now and looking good.

It's only mechanically fitted for now, I still need to wire it up but for that I'm thinking of adding a secondary fuse board (for some expansion options later).

Moving to the front, while I was digging around finding my CBE parts I uncovered one of my MUD curry hooks. I definately needed this as I nearly spilt my crispy chilli beef and chips driving home from the takeaway a couple days before. This was swiftly screwed to the side of the centre console.

And another van refugee, my trusty fire extinguisher. I followed the LR suggestion of where to install it, on the passenger side as it seemed the most logical compromise. Yes, having it on the drivers side would be more convenient but in this position it would limit access to the pedals, and if it came loose it might block them entirely. I may revisit this later, maybe fit another closer to me, but for now at least I have something...

First MOT

Well I'm pickled tink.

The Freelander has failed its MOT test but only on the rear silencer. As its the first test I've put it through I was quite nervous because you never know what bodges the previous owner did to make it pass (like mullerring the warning lights...).

But just fail on the exhaust (which is basically a consumable) and a couple of advisories so I'm happy. I've yet to collect it as they can't fix it today and I'll have to wait until Monday, so more details on the advisories then.

The run up to the test was a lot different to when I had the van. With the van it was a case of "it's going to fail, but by how much?"  With the Freelander it was more like "Will it fail?", a totally different feeling.

Pocket Dump 27-07-14

Yeah I'm one of those guys.

What we have here is:

MostRad minimalist wallet from Kickstarter. It's a really nice faux leather wallet that hold 4 credit cards (plus a few more if you use the elastic that was designed for bank notes) in a really small profile. Mine is still going strong but I've heard of others showing signs of wear (but that's part of the charm isn't it?). I don't usually carry banknotes but some have reported their currency doesn't fit properly. But everything said, I like mine, it's great as a card wallet.

Victorinox Alox Cadet. A few years ago I started regularly carrying a pocket knife, and I don't know how I coped before. Too damn useful. Of course, being in the UK I have limitations on what I can carry in public, but a good old Swiss Army Knife can't be beaten on function or non-aggressive looks. I don't usually carry the Cadet, mostly I go with an Alox Farmer or Pioneer (or Wenger Soldier), but when going minimal, the Cadet is great. Especially when combined with the:

Lumi Wee SS. Another item I don't usually carry. I could put it on my keys but I'd be worried too much about losing it. I took a chance buying this, the maker has something of a chequered past when it comes to fulfilling orders. But I live fairly local so I took the chance on one of these and a stainless bead (which lives on my Farmer). The Wee is a nice little backup flashlight, mine is the Stainless Steel (SS) model with a 100 lumen LED. I chose this option over the brighter one to increase battery life. It uses a tiny 10180 rechargeable battery so I can't expect this to light up all night long. But when I work days and walk through darker corners of the building I work in, it's just right to see me to the end. It's a no nonsense on-off twisty operation which I prefer over the variable Quantum DD (a similar micro flashlight which I also own). I've often come back to the QDD and found the battery dead, thinking I've switched it all the way off only to find it must have been very slightly but imperceptibly on. No such worries with the WEE.
A spare battery lives in the container (A QDD item I believe).

Bolt Action Pen. Gotta write reports, yeah? This was made by a maker on EDCS "Revs". It's excellently made and the finish is superb. I asked for Red Mallee wood to match a knife I was modding, and I also had a fountain pen made at the same time. This bolt action pen fits great in the hand and it has a more classy appearance to the other bolt actions pen kits I've seen (with a rifle for a pocket clip? No thanks). Takes a Fisher space pen refill too.

Begstarter

I've come relatively late to the kickstarter party. Not fashionably late but late enough that the good nibbles have already gone and all that's left is the plates of rapidly hardening cheese and pineapple on a stick.

I've backed a few good projects, some which have been run really well by self confessed "amateurs". But I've pretty much had it with KS now. The bubbles burst, when something appears on the pages of The Daily Mail you know its time to move on. It happened with eBay, after the DM made a feature of it it exploded and came into the public eye. Good for eBay, but it brought scammers too.

Now its a trend that's repeating with Kickstarter.

Recently there's been an explosion on begging projects, it started with multiple projects about making potato salad but diverged to other foods. These projects are only asking for a small amount, usually less than $10 but there are so many. It makes finding worthwhile projects a chore and these people are just "in it for the money" or just "in it for self promotion".

I'm not saying all KS projects have to be about the backers receiving a physical item at the end of it. I've been altruistic with a few of my backed projects because I thought the cause was worthy.

Even before Kickstarter existed I backed this guy - 50pence in da pod, you can see me at number 65. I backed it because he made his case in an entertaining way, and was insisting on only being given 50p. Any excess was returned.

But asking people for money to buy yourself a meal, and promising "photos of the event". No, screw that. Buy your own meal or donate the money raised to charity.

The writing of some of these projects pages is so poor too, basically reading "I want food, give me money". What you need is an education in manners, go away.

But it gets worse,there's been a few projects recently with even larger begging bowls. "I like to take photos so buy me a camera". "I want to play games so buy me a Playstation". Well I do too, I also work to buy things. And if I can't afford them, I go without (or get finance but that's another sorry tale).

The world doesn't owe you a shiny toy.

What this all shows is that the Kickstarter system is open to abuse. KS themselves state they have no control to make sure creators fulfil their promises, which I can understand but they obviously don't vet projects very well before they go live. 

Or simply don't care. KS get a cut of funds received if the project succeeds so is there any such thing as a bad project from their point of view?

It brings to mind Lionel Hutz on selling houses "The right house is the house that's for sale, the right person is anyone". 

As I said above, I've backed some cracking projects both with and without receiving a physical reward. I'll start reviewing a few soon. But for now I think I'll call it quits with backing anything else, unless something really cool comes along. 

Hmmmm

Well, well, well.

Not much going on here. I guess it was inevitable, my old van was a complete labour of love with much to do. And being a van it had so many choices of how to do it.

Not so much with the Freelander. Well, there are some major things I could do, but won't as I want a daily driver that is cheap to run and insure. Once you start on big modifications the insurance cost becomes crippling.

Case point, my insurance is up for renewal, and the existing companies (who are supposed to be specialists for modified cars) "offer" is £380 fully comp with limited mileage. Best quote I've gotten for similar cover but without the voluntary excess or limited mileage is £150. And that is with a reputable company I've used before.

It's a no brainer really.

But I'm not stopping tweaking my Hippo. It's still going to be "enhanced" but in subtle ways to make life easier. It's not that I don't want a 2" lift roll cage and winch bumper, I do, but don't need it so it's not happening.

But with less work going on this blog will quickly gather dust, so it's not going to be just about the Freelander anymore. Yeah its time to open up my noggin with a large blunt saw and see what falls out.

You never know, someone other than my wife might start reading this!

Rack it up

One thing I know I'll miss from the van is the load space. The van swallowed everything but the Freelander is a lot smaller and I don't really want to throw stinky rubbish in it.

Almost as soon as I bought it I needed to take an old table and chairs and a mattress to the tip (sorry, "Recycling centre") and the lack of space was immediately apparent.

I set about the table and chairs with screwdriver and spanners (and later hammer...) and shrunk them to fit inside the back, but no way with the mattress so that had to go on the roof.

Luckily it came with the load bars but with no cross bars the mattress had to lay on the roof. Not an issue for this but for future needs I set about getting a proper roof rack.

In my shed I already had a set of Thule feet (757) from when I was going to fit a set of Jeep rails to my van, a quick Google and these were confirmed as suitable for Freelanders too. Just needed to get the bars, so onto eBay and a pair of used Aero Bars (860) were soon making their way to me.

Combined and fitted to the rails - they are just right, not too much overhang and they felt pretty solid during the fitting test.

Now I just need some proper strops, and maybe a small roof box for trips away...

Hola amigos, amigos?

To paraphrase an old saying, buy in haste, research at leisure.

I bought the Freelander in a bit of a rush, and by my own admission I didn't do a great job of inspecting it. Sure, it had an engine so that's good...

One thing I missed, was the absence of some warning lights on the dashboard. My previous van was so basic it pretty much just had the minimum, but the FL has traction control, abs and hill descent control which all should have lit up as part of the ignition test.

Researching I found that these are known as "The three amigos!", because they all show up at once (usually due to an abs fault which the other systems use).  I didn't have these on mine but I didn't get the check sequence either...

A little digging around and I discovered a small fault with the HDC (hill descent control) switch on the gearstick - the wires had snapped off the switch which meant I couldn't enable the system. Common enough, I grabbed my tools and set to work.

Luckily, mine had become disconnected at the switch, so the rest of the wiring was still plugged in. So I unplugged that and removed the switch so I could work in comfort at my bench.

I found some decent cable and soldered this between the switch and plug. Its easy to remove the pins from the plug, just flip up the rear section of the plug and pull them out. They aren't polarised so the pins (and wires) can go back either way around.

Back in place, beefier cable and properly soldered.

Refitting and trying it out I found I had a flashing green HDC light on the dash which changed to a solid light when first or reverse was selected. Perfect.

But those amigos were still hiding.

So I took the instruments out. This is an easy task only requiring removal of the black instrument surround and the upper instrument cowl.

Once removed I popped the Perspex and black guage surround off the instrument pack, and lifted the icon mask expecting to see some black insulation tape covering the lights.

No such luck.

Some Neanderthal had taken a screwdriver to the LEDs, levering each one off the PCB like a thug. I also noticed the same had been done to the handbrake led.

It's been said that if you give a camera to a chimpanzee, they will take photos of their asses.
Give a camera to a Gorilla, and he will carefully unscrew the camera but won't break it.
Give the camera to an Orang-utan and he would delicately take it apart and put it back together.

I like Orangs...

But anyway, give a Freelander to and idiot and they'll lever parts off instead of fixing them.

So faced with this I thought I'd rather see fault lights and know there's work to be done, than have it come to an MOT and fail without warning.

I ordered up some 12v LEDs, (standard ones as I couldn't find surface mount ones) yellow for the amigos and red for the handbrake.

Once they arrived I stripped the instruments out of the car again and started to dismantle the assembly. Unfortunately this is where I got stuck as I couldn't desolder the connectors on the back of the gauges. Faced with this my options was to buy a new set of instruments or soldier on.

I chose the latter, stripping the needles and dials off the front before carefully levering the PCB away from the white enclosure. The soldering was very difficult like this but after some swearing I had all the LEDs back in.

 Top tip, a bit of blu-tack helps to hold the LEDs in place...

Reassembling and fitting back into the car, on power on I was greeted by three Amber lights on the left hand side and a red light for the handbrake.

But then the TC and HDC LEDs went off leaving the abs. This is normal as apparently the car needs to go over 7km/h before it senses all of the speed sensors and knows its ok.

So a quick drive later and everything seems as it should.

Boxed everything up and a week on all is still correct. I not sure why the thug levered the LEDs off, I was expecting the abs to play up but it's been fine, even had the TC come on one morning leaving work going over a wet manhole cover.

And the HDC works too, there's no shortage of hills where I live so I gave it a go one morning. HDC on, first gear and feet off doing 5 mph or so downhill with no fuss.

Perfect.

Feels wheely good

When I got the car, the first few drives were a little scary due to the seller spraying back to black everywhere including the steering wheel, making it dangerously slippery.

Once worn off it was better but I ordered a steering wheel cover just to be sure. I've fitted these to 2 of my previous cars and they really do help with grip but also look pretty nice. I would even consider fitting one to a new car (should I ever be in a position to buy one).

Being my third cover installation, this one went pretty well. I did get a rogue knot when stitching the longest section because of the length of thread involved, but I've since gone back and restitched that section and it looks better.

It really does make a huge difference to driving and now there's a slight leather smell to the interior.

Protection

One thing I was always on the look out for with the van was a pair of headlight protectors. They are rarer than rocking horse shit and the people who own them add on the "Rare VW item" tax if they decide to honour you with a sale.

But not for the Freelander, I ordered these from PowewrfulUK (through eBay so I got the Nectar points...) and they were fitted in seconds. Literally seconds as they clip over the bottom of the headlights before a pair of clips secure the top.

Got some rear ones ordered now so they'll match all round. I don't know how effective they will be as they are plastic (the ones for the T4 were steel) but they look the part...

On guard (guard on)

So the dogs love the new car. In fact every time I walk them past it Benny wags his tail and sniffs around the doors.

One of the nice things about the Freelander is the tail glass, which can be fully lowered to get more air in the cabin. But not much good to stop dogs from leaping out.

Land Rover thought of this and made a guard which fits to the tail door. Only trouble is the cost - nearly £100 for some mesh!

I made up a template out of some cardboard, replicating the original.

Looking in my parts (scrap) pile I fount the framing from my parents old swing seat. All 90° bends but the right diameter.

Setting to the job with grinder and blow torch, I cut the frame into 4 smaller pieces, with the aim to save and reuse the bends.

Heating up the bends with the torch made it a bit easier to bend them to the correct angle, then it was on to the welder.

A confession, I'm not a great welder. I don't have a decent welder either, just a Lidl stick welder that is a little finicky to use and has lousy duty cycle.

But still, I can use it to stick metal together.

After some faffing, I got the 4 pieces back together, with only a few blow throughs...

Next its time for some mesh. I had this in my shed already from the load guards I fitted to the old van. Stocks as good as money...

A suitable size piece was cut to size and flattened to match the new guard before being welded in place. The whole thing was painted in black smooth Hammerite.

Next it was time to fit the mounting brackets. These came from eBay - not genuine but neither is my guard!
After much gnashing and wailing of teeth I was convinced I had marked the positions correctly so out came the drill. I own a nutsert tool so these were installed easily, after a little paint was added to the bare metal.

The vapour barrier was already torn, I'm not that much of an animal. Just need to reseal shortly.

And fitted. Looks good, fits correctly, and as I made it to factory dimensions I could always swap out for a genuine one if I find one cheap enough, but as they usually go for £60+ I think I'll be content with my own handiwork for now...

What do you know? The damn thing fits!

An it proved useful later that day taking the dogs to meet my wife for a lunchtime walk.