Racked up, stacked up

So the last pieces of the puzzle.

After fitting the light bar I later discovered the wind noise was actually from the bar itself, rather than the holes for the lights. It does sit a lot closer to the roof than the genuine one so the potential for noise is much greater. 

Years ago I rescued some tinted plexiglass from a skip at work, and I finally had a use for it. A few passes with jigsaw and sander and using some rubber sleeved cable clamps, I had a working wind deflector. Works brilliantly, keeping noise under control at suitable motorway speeds. 

I was tempted to get some white letters and brand it "PHOOL" (as homage to Thule) but decided against it.

The last thing to make was a roof rack extension, which links the rear rack to the light bar. 

Whilst not too bad to make (I must be getting better at this welding lark), I'm slightly disappointed as to how it connects to the rear rack. I was hoping for it to meet the crossbar on the front face, but I made an error with the cut and welded angled join at the front, making the bars run lower than planned. They still allow the sunroofs to open so it's not all bad.

It does look a bit "LETS OFF-ROAD!", but it's a belt and braces method of keeping the light bar in one place, and it also provides a route for the light wiring when I start on that.

If I need to remove the sunroof panels (I've not needed to so far) it's just a couple of bolts to undo / slacken.

The dreaded MOT

It's that time of year again, where I lose even more sleep than usual.

But she went straight through the MOT, well only just on the handbrake and a couple of advisories.

So dropped it off again today to have the handbrake sorted and a pair of new track rod ends. On collection the steering seems a lot nicer, and the handbrake also holds better than before. 

It's nice having a car that needs so little work that I can keep on top of it...

Sup G?

Well quite.

As previously written, G4 accessories are ridiculously expensive and ludicrously rare, such is the case of the 3DR roof light bar. 

Apparently only made for 9 event vehicles, for one stage of the G4 challenge (Brazil 2006), these bars are rarer than rocking unicorn shit.

A few owners have made their own versions, so I thought I'd make mine.

But first some groundwork.

I will use thin rubber to protect my paintwork, but I wanted a bit more protection. So I ordered some 3M DiNoc carbon fibre film and applied it to the roof between the rail finishers.

Although I am worried it looks a bit "Ricer", it does look ok and should do well against the odd scratch. I'll get some more at a later date and cover the paint between the sunroofs and the hardback too.

Under the rail finishers lie some folded seams, left over from when the sides were welded to the roof. Here is where we will attach the light bar.

Sure, a bit rough and will be painted before I finish.

I like the idea of removing the bar when not in use so I came up with a clamp that fits under the fold, with a finisher screwed on top.

As shown, the slot is manoeuvred under the fold and the cover screws on top. The cover is made to resemble the original rail finisher.

It evolved a little... And after a little thought I was worried about clearance to get a bolt and a screw into the front nut, so I welded a short length of stud to the nut (it's easier to get a nut on and lower the bar into position as its done up).

Now it was time to make the bar itself.

I bought a length of box section, and cut out a pair of U shaped feet from it. Shaping to make it look better and drilling it to match the clamp nuts.

Next up was a length of 27mm steel tube, to act as the light bar. This was bent slightly to follow the roofline. I made up some small brackets for the lights (I added a 5th one to the centre to mimick the antenna bracket found on the genuine item).

The centre one was welded to the centre part of the bar and all offered up to place. Once cut to length and the brackets modified to allow the bar to partially recess I tried it in place again and was pleased with the results.

The bar sits nice and low, lower than the original, so when the lights are fitted I should still have no worries with low barriers.

And it's fairly discreet. The carbon film helps this, but with lights attached it's obviously going to stand out some more.

Now to weld the bar together, at the correct angle for both curves of the roof. This was slightly problematic as I don't want to do any welding actually on the car, rather measure, mark and weld in the safe confines of my back garden.

This was achieved albeit with a small angle error on one of the feet, but prepared for this I glued some neoprene foam to the bottom to hide this sin (and protect the paintwork).

A few coats of lidl "hammer blow" paint and here we have it!

Painted, welded and lamp mounts welded too. I just need to get another pair of lamps and I'll make a start wiring it all together.

The clamps work well, the bar doesn't seem to be going anywhere when I pull it, and it's stayed on for a few journeys too. As it stands there is a bit of a low howl coming from the roof at approx 60mph. Although I expect some noise I'm hoping this is down to the empty mounting holes acting like pan pipes. Once the lamps are fitted the noise will hopefully disappear (and more hooefully not be replaced by more, different noise).

It's not your standard flashlight

This post is kinda EDC, kinda Freelander because I made it to go in the car.

After adding all those sockets to the car, what was I going to do with them? Well I had the parts to make a 12v maglite sitting around, so I put them to good use.

Years ago I installed a Terralux TLE-300 led assembly to my trusty maglite, along with a 3D cell to 9AA cell adaptor. This was a really nice bright light, but was massive to carry. 

Eventually smaller lights eclipsed the maglite in terms of brightness, so it was placed in the spares drawer but was always at the back of my mind.

So earlier this week I decided to shorten it, barely big enough to hold the switch which makes for an interesting stubby flashlight.

Or paperweight as there was no room for batteries. So I drilled the end cap and installed a DC connector, matched with an aux socket lead.

The result is a stubby 12v searchlight which outputs approx 600lumens at 12v. There are lower output levels too so as to add to its flexibility.

To put things in perspective, my favourite flashlight, and Eagletac D25C Ti (shown here next to the maglite) runs on 1 3.7v RCR123 and outputs approx 400lumens on turbo. And it's still smaller than the modded maglite.

But I'm not leaving that one in the car...

So how well does it work?

Pretty well I'd say, this is full power and I forgot just how bright this thing was. Because it's so small it's also manoeuvrable, so perfect for use in the car. 

Blackout

I can't claim any credit for this mod, it was mentioned on a Land Rover forum and I thought it was a good idea so I ran with it.

My cars dash is a kind of beige (I think LR call it grey but to my eyes it looks beige), and I the summer sun the instrument cowl reflects back onto the windscreen just enough to be noticeable. 

So forum users "dave21478" and "krisboats" posted about painting the cowl top black, and as it happens I have some Lidl Matt black in stock and I had to remove the cowl to fault find some wiring anyway.

Looks good and doesn't look out of place combined with the black tray tops. 

Ironic rain negating the need to mod...

And the fault finding? Turned out I had used some cheap fuses in my new fuse box that weren't quite making enough contact. Much swearing at such a silly fault but added some good fuses and all was well again...

Refused

So I was getting fed up with the auxiliary fuse box I'd fitted earlier. It just wasn't working out for a number of reasons. 

Firstly, if I needed to work on it I had to kneel down half in, half out of the drivers footwell and fiddle around with wiring at arms length. 

Secondly, the 6 circuits available were only permanent live, which meant if I had ancillaries that I wanted to be powered only when the ignition was on (the auxiliary sockets for example), I had to use inline fuse holders which went against the neatness of the fuse board.

I remembered my box of tricks that I removed from the campervan and dug out my trusty "Ripca" 12 way fuse board.

In the van I had all 12 circuits linked, so again they were all live regardless of the ignition, but is time I used a high current relay, triggered by the ignition live feed to switch one bank of fuses, giving me 6 permanent lives and 6 ignition lives. 

Perfect.

It all fits inside an adaptable box, with another van refugee, the isolator switch, and a load of multi connectors. 

The box is mounted inside one of the rear pockets, but I'm wondering if I could mount it direct to the side of the inner wing, and cut a Suitable hole in the side panel. That way may look neater and I might be able to still use the pocket for small items. 

Although I would still want the isolator easily accessible, so that would need to be moved. Something to consider. 

Now I can add circuits in a much easier fashion than before. 

Enjoy the silence part 1

The Hippo is a completely different animal to my old van, already much quieter. 

But I want more. 

After using silent coat deadening sheets in my van I ordered some isolating foam sheets to boost the factory sound proofing in the boot floor.

In truth the standard stuff isn't bad, but it can always be improved on, especially in areas like the rear suspension turrets which are bare metal, and the interior trim panels are all plastic which does nothing for absorbing noises.

(The drain plug was found to be loose too, and was refitted before I fitted the foam). 

The sheets are 6mm thick closed cell foam. I could have (and probably should have) laid some deadening sheets first, but I'm trying to reduce exhaust and road noise, so I thought I could accept the factory fitted deadening. 

Being self adhesive the panels lay up quite easily, very sticky and forms to the body profiles well. Easy to cut with a Stanley knife too. I bought a pack of 12 sheets which is just enough to do all of the load area up to the carpet join under the rear seat, with 2 sheets left to cover some of the suspension turret.

I also completely covered inside the lock box, as this is next to the exhaust and had no sound proofing in it at all. This made the carpet a little harder to refit as it was now 6mm smaller all round...

Once everything was replaced I had a few hours left before I had to go to work, and I found it made a huge difference to the noises from the rear. The exhaust noise is all but completely gone with a bit of an improvement on road / tyre noise. I'm never going to remove that completely whilst I have low profile tyres and the condition of the Tarmac on the roads I drive is pretty bad. 

I notice the engine noise more though, so some under bonnet deadening might be on the cards. I plan to get some deadening sheets and more foam for the doors / side panels as funds allow. 

I know it'll never be limo quiet, but a little more refined and doors which clunk shut without rattles would be good. 

Top that!

Yeah I'm back on kickstarter getting more tops. This time it's a "Janus" top.

Why Janus?

Because just like the 2 faced Roman god, this also spins on its top as well as its bottom (or something like that, history was never my strong point). 

It's quite a nice design, 2 metals - steel spindle and brass ring in my case. I chose this combination because steel should be les susceptible to damage than aluminium, and brass was one of the heavier rings on offer (and the combination looks good).

I also chose to stay with the ceramic ball option rather than the ruby upgrade, mostly because I'm cheap...

But thankfully it spins wonderfully, on my work desk which is a piece of kitchen worktop with a scratched and worn melamine cover, I've easily gotten spins of 4mins duration. It was getting hung up in scratches and the joint seam so that would have sapped some of its energy. 

I really need to get a spin surface.

And I'm pleased to report that it does indeed spin on its top (or spindle).

And it span for quite some time too, but I was too transfixed to set a timer (only just remembered to take a picture...).

And I'm pledging against another "specialist" top, this time "The turbo top" which has turbine vanes milled into the spindle which apparently work.

 

More on that when it arrives. 

Sockets, sockets everywhere!

Last year I added a dual USB charging socket to the centre console. All was fine and dandy until I realised it was a bit inconvenient to access, and also potentially awkward for a passenger to avoid digging their leg on a USB plug.

So I decided to move it to the instrument binnacle. This is a major improvement because it makes it easy to reach for both driver and passenger, and anything that is charging could lay in the dash tray. 

Also the upper binnacle is easy to find second hand if I want to change again...

While I had it apart I also fitted a standard AUX socket to the other side, handy if anything needs to be used out of the window.

Nice rack

I'm back with the welder.

I honestly didn't think I'd use it on the Freelander but it turns out I just can't leave well alone.

This last week has seen the culmination of weeks (maybe months) of deliberation and indecision. 

A while,ago I bought some thule roof bars so that I could carry things on my roof rails, but after fitting them I was disappointed with the increased height and the wind noise. One solution was obvious, take them off until I needed them, but then they are either at home (what if I need them when I'm already out) or rattling around in the back of the car (no wind noise but loose bars bouncing around make enough noise on their own).

The 5 door Freelander has the very expensive (and rare) option of  a Safety Devices rack, as seen on the G4 Freelanders, but the 3 door just had the simple bars. 

Looking at other options I came across Rocky Road Outfitters, who make a full heavy duty rack which fits between the bars on U bolts. I like the look but they are US based which means expensive shipping and customs charges, and they are modular, using end brackets which the bars slip into and are bolted. Bolts can come loose and can also create wind noise of their own.

So I dusted off the welder (literally after a shed wall was cut away) and ordered up some steel.

Using the original rack as a jig, I came up with this:

What we have here are 3 cross bars with angled feet (the Rocky Road version has flat feet), with one of the longitudinal bars tacked in place. There will be 3 more welded in where you can see the coating sanded off.

There is also a bracket at the rear for the worklight and I've since welded a couple more brackets at the front if I should want to fit some roof lights one day. 

I don't have any pictures of the rest of the build as I work faster than a camera can capture (I forgot), but here we have the finished item in all its glory.

I still need to sort the light wiring out again...

The middle bar is slightly lower than the end ones, because the roof rails have an arc to them. Having this bar lower actually lets it sit level, which means I can easily fit sheet materials flat in place. And if I fit some boards to the rack (to comlensate for the bracket height) I can lay flexible materials dead flat when bringing them home.

The bars also sit level with the existing rails, only the brackets area little higher. 

Which means I can leave them on permanently without worrying about car park restrictions. Also during the test drive they were nice and quiet.

They weigh about 10Kg, which is more than I would ideally like but seeing as they are made from decent strong steel, it's understandable. Also, the safety devices rack must weight much more than this, which limits its use (75Kg roof limit in the UK). 

I'm happy with them,cthe you look exactly as planned, and I'm now musing about extending some front supports to the top of the windscreen, with a lightbar inbetween. Long loads and additional lights? Gotta be a winner.

Frustration free packaging?

I don't order from Amazon a lot, although when I do I'm pretty much enamoured with their service for a few months until I've bought all the things I want from them.

But one thing really gets my goat, and it's the packaging...

They say it's frustration free, and easy to open, but I disagree on the first claim.

Last week I ordered an item for my car, and a few days later my postman shoved a "While you were out" card through the letterbox.

On reaching the post office I was presented with this:

Wow, must have bought something big.

Opening it up...

What is inside that needs so much protection?

Is that it? Another thin cardboard box?

Yup, and what is inside that requires such protection? A Cartier rear view mirror? A gear knob crafted by the very best at Faberge?

No, it's just a couple of meters of silicone hose to replace the worn vacuum lines on my engine.

Seriously it could have been shipped coiled up in a Jiffy bag and it would have been adequately protected.

But now I have a load of brown wrapping paper and a cardboard box to dispose of - yes I recycle but that's not really the point. The energy used to make the paper and the box, and to transport it from amazons warehouse to mine must be disproportionate to any "green" credentials. 

Like someone harping on about "green electric vehicles". Yeah only as green and the fossil fuel or nuclear powered power station that provided electricity to charge your car.

It's unusual for me to consider the environment, I'd love a big classic American V8 (Pontic GTO my personal favourite), but you have to admit, this packaging is ridiculous. 

Burn, baby burn

http://youtu.be/t5ZtotlZ0ug

Boobs, baby boobs?

Ahem, the BMW M47 engine fitted to the Freelander TD4 is a lovely piece of kit, decent power and economy and quite refined for an oil burner. Unfortunately it's also fairly cold blooded, and can take a while for the coolant to warm up and supply heat to the cabin. 

This is why a fuel burning heater (FBH) or a ceramic heater is fitted to many models (depending on year and spec) to assist in getting the coolant to temperature when (baby) it's cold outside.

Sadly an older Webasto FBH can be a little fickle these days, often ignored in terms of servicing and because it's hidden away behind the front bumper, some less enthusiastic owners are probably oblivious to its existence. 

My Freeby does have a FBH installed, easily identified by the exhaust pipe poking out of the front near side (UK) bumper, but through the winter it didn't work. I didn't feel like laying in a cold wet gutter trying to fix it so now we are moving to spring and warmer temperature I decided to get busy.

Firstly, a brief explanation on how the FBH should work.

There is a temperature switch mounted behind the lower front grille, normally open at temperatures above 5 centigrade and closed below that. One side of this switch has 12v supplied to it when the engine is running (from the Freelanders instrument wiring), and when closed this 12v represents a "go" command to the FBH.

Once the go command is received, the FBH starts its ignition checks and if all is well starts pulsing the fuel dosing pump which is located in the rear offside (UK) wheel arch. To clear some confusion, this pump doesn't run continually, rather it pulses every second or so providing a small squirt of fuel. Easily checked if working as it will make a clicking sound. 

With regard to the ignition checks, as it runs on diesel there is a glow pin within the FBH, apparently a good one should read 0.4 ohms when cold, and when the FBH is lit and running the same glow pin is then used for flame detection, when it should read around 0.8 ohms. Not a lot of difference but it makes a world of difference to the operation.

The FBH also checks operation of the water pump, but I haven't had to check that yet so haven't got the info.

On my particular FBH, I removed the temperature switch to check and found it to work when placed in the freezer, but mine has a black plastic body. There is a revised one with a green plastic body that works over a wider temperature range, so that will be what I put back in. I checked I was getting 12v to the switch so I know the car is sending the go command. 

Shorting across the connectors made the FBH spin up its combustion fan, and then it ran for just over 4 minutes before stopping. This means there is something wrong with fuel or ignition. 

So a quick look under the rear wheel arch and I found a lump of rust that was supposed to be the dosing pump. 

At the same time there was a used one for sale on eBay so I sniped that at the last minute. Once arrived I checked its operation with a cordless drill battery and it did indeed work, so I applied a coat of hammerrite to help protect it from the tin work. Yellow paint because it looks jaunty (ok, it was all I had).

 

Testing on the car and the FBH still didn't work, according to some research if it fails to fire after 4 minutes 5 seconds (as mine), it indicates a glow pin fault. 

So bumper off again and checking the glow pin resistance I found I had 0.6 - 0.7 ohms when cold. This is out of spec so it won't start the ignition process. 

There was a "fix" posted online where a 5w lamp was wired in parrallel with the glow pin. Apparently this helps bring the resistances back in spec and also provides a visual indication that the glow pin is working. 

I tried this but it did not help, still locking out after 4 minutes 5 seconds. 

So looks like I need a new combustion unit, these cost approx £160 so for now, because of the rising ambient temperatures, my FBH repairing is on the back burner (ho, ho). I'll still check over it now and then if I find new info, but I have better things to spend the money on for the summer (like getting the air con working). 

Come August I'll return with some aplomb. 

Hitting refresh

This was a long time coming, I've been meaning to do a "top end refresh" for a while now. The seller claimed the car was previously owned by a mechanic who did his own servicing "hence no history". Well we all know that's bollocks.

So I amassed a box of goodies to install, and today in a fit of pique I fitted them.

First in was a new air filter. Here's the old one...

Then I fitted a new BMW "cyclone" type crankcase breather. These replace the original design toilet roll with one that only needs a clean every 2 years. LR suggest the toilet roll is renewed every 12000miles, here's the old one...

I don't think it's ever been changed.

While I was at the back of the engine I renewed the leak off pipes, and replaced the brittle plastic connectors with brass ones.

How gorgeous do they look. This was a tip from forum member "Arctic2", who seems very knowledgable about the M47 engine (credit where credits due).

Here's a shot of the rear section with the loveliness fitted.

Next I moved to the front, I'd bought an EGR bypass and silicone hoses, and these were fitted easily enough. (Although I ordered the wrong hose set, I ordered one which included a sensor pipe but mine doesn't have the sensor. I'll probably get an aluminium joiner to make ends meet). 

Here is the inside of my EGR, not as bad as some I've seen so quite happy - the engine must be running correctly. 

The completed refresh

The car certainly feels a bit more willing now, but it's peace of mind that it's done. Due to lack of access underneath I still need to take it to a garage for a fluid change though. 

RIP Leonard Nimoy

I was never a massive Trekkie, but there is no denying the brilliance of Leonard Nimoy. Of course, the original series was better than the rehashes that followed (with the exception of the movie reboots), but it was wonderful how he reprised his iconic Spock for almost every series or movie (or indeed lend his voice for the Big Bang Theory).

My wife being a massive Columbo addict...yup he cropped up there too as a scheming surgeon. Always an air of gravitas to his performance, even when Vicky Petersen of the bangles gives him evils...

http://youtu.be/Zj7OJeyhq2Q

I can't even scratch the surface of his many cameos but that video makes me smile.

RIP Leonard Nimoy. 

Brighter than the sun

So I've a bit of a light fetish. It's led me to install an LED work light at the back of the Freelander, to help out if I'm working (duh) at the rear or as an additional reversing light for dark lanes. 

It is a fairly inexpensive LED light from China, and I mounted it using a short steel bracket bolted to the cross bar of the roof rack.

The wiring is fed down the rack and behind the tail door hinges, where there is a waterproof connector, then through a grommet to the inside of the car. The connector is there if I need to remove the rack, I can do it all easily and quickly. 

Inside the car there are 2 switches, one in the back next to the C pillar:

And one in the front to the right of the voltmeter:

I have wired these up as 2-way, so that I can switch the light on or off from either position, and can switch it on from the front and off at the back (or vice versa). 

The light is pretty good for this, it's a diffused type and gives a good spread of light. 

Light up my life

Did I mention I have a thing for lights?

Well I do, and since the dark evenings have rolled in I've found the luggage area light to be a little lacking, especially if there is anything in the boot to block the light. 

So onto everyone's favourite auction site I went and searched for some led marker lights (white). Promptly bought and very quickly shipped from the land of rising internet blocking. 

I made a small mistake when ordering, I was so blinded by the shear volume of lights on offer I accidentally ordered a pair of 24v ones when I need 12v ones, but tested on bench and they still work fine at the lower voltage. There are similar ones marked dual voltage but mine weren't, but perhaps they are?

The plan was to find a home for them up on the rear pillar, but this being a removable hardtop I had to factor in a way to easily disconnect if I should want to remove the roof. 

So, drill and tape in hand I fitted the little jewels in place:

They look quite dandy here. Next up was routing the wiring from near side to the offside (to be nearest the existing luggage light). This was simply tucked in behind the window seal.

And the connections, I have a few 2-way waterproof connectors lying around from when I had the van, so one of these was used. It doesn't really need to be waterproof, but as it's going in a Land Rover...

The connector can just about be seen behind the roof handle. The other side loops in behind the lower trim and is spliced into the luggage light feed.

They throw out just enough light and actually look quite classy on the pillars when they light up. Night shots: