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Post by valhalla on Jan 15, 2020 23:07:12 GMT 1
Can you see light at the end of the tunnel yet then? I think so......but the hope that the vehicle would be ready for an MoT booking by this weekend (there's a fair lead-time on MoT's here, around 2-3weeks, but I need to be absolutely sure that the vehicle is ready to roll) is looking a bit forelorn.
I have been concentrating on the things that need fabrication and restoration, rather than just bolting back on to the body, as my priority today. A fair bit of tidying-up is needed on most of the bodywork, but some bits are structurally important. One such item is the rear bumper beam; this bolts on with a single fixing (M12 screw) either side on the D2, so it's really important to get this 100%, otherwise the rear bumper deflects every time you kneel on it when accessing through the tailgate. This is why a completely-shot D2 gives itself away, as the bumper/armature is all plastic, but the bit it bolts-to is the back of the chassis;
Landrover could have made a better job of this area, as the fixing secures/sandwiches the bumper armature to the chassis bracket either side with a large rectangular plate. Most sensible designers would have looked at the application, and specified the plate with a heavy zinc finish (at-least), but because the EU-lobby decried that anything zinc is bad in the 1990's (it suited their industries very well.......) something better would have been needed. Think : Stainless Steel solid plate. Except that LR was not into making vehicles last at that stage, so they used a mild-steel rectangular washer with a splash of paint, and hoped that it would last in its position on the rear bumper without any other protection......
So I spent a wee whiley today re-fabricating these two brackets in heavy stainless strip, given that the originals were either missing (N/S) or thinned to cigarette-paper proportions (OS);
You can see the witness on the bumper above where it abuts the chassis; not exactly a huge register, so it has to be good, and indeed now it is far better than when it left the factory. Sadly, this all takes time, but the end-result will be worth the delay in time, as the vehicle will feel solid and sell itself when the time is right. Too many D2 "resto's" out there are a bit slapdash, and the vehicles don't inspire confidence for the future.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 15, 2020 23:18:45 GMT 1
I chickened-out and adjusted the transmission control cable this morning; it just didn't feel right through the detents on the shift-lever, so I have pitched the gear detents to coincide with the centre of the lever detents. This is logical, but it doesn't always work with these D2's, and sometimes you have to further adjust the lever to bias slightly to one side of the "gates" in order to get a reliable operation, but I'll wait and see what the recomissioning of the electronics brings.
The new clips for the headlamps turned-up tonight (they seem to have made a reappearance with some of the indi's) so they need to be attached to the back of the headlamp shells tomorrow morning - my mods with tie-wraps are not 100%, and I have dislodged one headlamp already whilst leaning on it to access the engine bay;
I'm working on the trailer harness and tidying-up the "little modifications" that gremlins have made to the main body lamp harness on the O/S - the usual Scotchblok c**p that you find whenever someone has "fitted" reversing cameras and sensors in the past.........
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Post by valhalla on Jan 15, 2020 23:23:09 GMT 1
Can you see light at the end of the tunnel yet then? Not if there's a power cut! Yes......I just got home last night, from closing the shop down, when I saw a huge "lightning strike" from the other side of the glen. We don't get much lightning here, and what this usually signifies is someone's transformer going up in flames after the driving rain and wind have put paid to any IP rating it might have had! More significantly, you always hope that the transformer that goes up in flames is not on your local 1.1kV circuit, as that means a wait of several hours to have the power restored!!!
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Post by valhalla on Jan 17, 2020 0:47:19 GMT 1
Well, we have more "pet problems" at the ranch today, so a truncated day of work.
However, the end is nigh...... All the back end work is now completed (I had to work furiously this morning on the trailer harness mods, as the water was being driven under the adjacent workshop doors into a river running under the back of the Disco) and there is just a bit of consmetic cleaning to finish-off there.
I've been working on the front end, and doing myself no favours for blood-pressure by trying to find all my TD5 service-stock on the shelves - that has gone missing.....
Hence I've ordered another load of service stock (AFM's, filters, etc. etc.) this afternoon, and promised myself that I will do a proper stock-take before the end of this month.
The front bumper is all fitted and square, and the bulk of the work is yet to make some repairs to the front wing fixtures, plus invent some new fixings for all the wheelarch liners and splash-guards - which is what is taking most of my time right now......
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Post by valhalla on Jan 17, 2020 23:47:30 GMT 1
The end is well and truly nigh, but the b***h will not start!!
In fairness, I have only just got to the point of turning the key at 7:00pm this evening, so not a fair trial of the ability (or otherwise) for the engine to start. I'm not going into panic-mode yet, but this could be a sign of trouble ahead.
All the front trim items went back on cleanly today - cleanly as in "they needed a good clean-up before I could put them on". Because the car had been stood-around for a wee whiley, something like 14months, there was fair bit of green algae growing on most panels and their joints, and the best way to wash these is individually in a bucket of water & shampoo. I had to reinvent many of the fixings that needed shearing/cutting along the way to removal, but it is all fairly standard now, and much better screwed together than before.
The passenger seat needed to go in (at long last) as I couldn't afford the pain of reconnecting the battery on SRS pre-tensioners that weren't plugged-in, so I made the best job I could of clipping all the harnesses underneath, but it was a total faff that took far too much time today.
The preliminary fills of all the fluids went fine - even the brake circuit seems to have some "feel" on just a single pressure-bleed per corner. This is amazing, as these D2's and P38 RR's never like having the circuit dry without also having the brakes "power-bled" over the ABS modulator. I will see how it turns-out, as I guess the pedal will go soft as putty as soon as the servo and modulator kicks-in. I'm planning on a full power-bleed all the same.... The main thing is that the coolant circuit held a 10psi air-test for 1.5hours (decaying to 5psi at the end, which is fine, well within my specifications for this sort of job), but due to the atrocious service-regime on this car in the past, I have elected to vacuum-fill the circuit with a water & coolant-flush mix as a starting-point. So-far I have been able to wash each hose and joint as I reassemble the car, but the amount of rust in the circuit is going to require a proper flush, so I hope to warm the engine until the 'stat is open, check it is all circularting, then shut the lot down, let it cool, then use the power-flush tool through all the accessible hoses to clear any residual rust that might be floating around. As an example, it took me several attempts today to get the coolant reservoir clean of rust/silt sufficient to fit it, so there's plenty of debris to shift.....
All the electrical circuits checked-out fine, but (no surprise) the things that needed attending-to on my preliminary inspection report, prior to this rebuild, still need repairing! The odd little electrical jobs on a couple of lamps at the back of the car (numberplate lamp and nearside tail-lamp bulb/reflector) are the main issue, as everything else has been sorted during the rebuild (towing harness and socket, for example).
But......during the testing, I forgot one important thing: Put some fuel in to the tank before switching the ignition on........So I'm hoping I haven't damaged the in-tank pump by running it twice in a dry condition - it times-out after 30secs, but a dry-run is not good for these 2stage pumps.
She cranked fine once the key was finally turned properly, and she tried to idle for a few seconds on a few cylinders (lumpy as porridge) before giving-up any hope. The battery was not 100% (surprisingly, as it has been conditioned during the rebuild at-least once) so I put the jump-pack across the terminals to give it some help, but in the end, it just sounded like a fuel supply problem - insufficient "clean" fuel at a proper pressure at the back of the cylinder head, no doubt. I'm hoping that this is just "one of those TD5's" that seems edgey after a rebuild, but for me this is a first for a TD5 to not go after priming the fuel system beforehand, so it's a bit of a worry. It's no surprise on any TD5 if it plays-up after having the whole fuel circuit apart, but they usually respond to the "fuel prime routine" over the ECU software - a full deflection of the throttle before and during a crank, in order for the software to open fully all the injectors to clear any entrained air in the head.
I'm on another job for a while tomorrow afternoon (weather permitting) so I've left the battery to full recharge overnight, and hopefully a better cranking speed will aid getting the fuel supply sorted-out.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 18, 2020 23:00:56 GMT 1
Well, the in-tank pump appears to be cream-crackered. I put the car through several "priming routines" this evening, whilst the Bosch battery support unit was on the car and keeping the voltage under control during all the diagnostic scans and fuel system checks. What struck me straightaway was that the BSU was showing a net 8Amps or thereabouts when the fuel pump was switched on by the ECU each time. I would normally be expecting to see around 12Amps for one of these.....
....so I put the current clamp across the fuel pump power-feed wire near the fusebox (White/Purple, for reference) and measured the current-draw on the PicoScope. It didn't look good (I'll try and see if I can snapshot the relevant trace) at a 50ms/div sampling, and no doubt in my mind that the pump is weak, and the high-pressure stage is doing very little. One commutator segment on each revolution is drawing circa 6A, and the best segment is drawing 9A, so basically the pump is not efficient anymore.
A new pump and seal are about to go on order tonight, and fortunately the price of these as genuine VDO parts has come down last year to a slightly less-eye-watering level!! It's easy to fit (on a Disco) and the only problem is that I will have to access under the loadspace carpet, which can give issues with tucking it all back in again at the sides and tailgate trim-strip afterwards.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 18, 2020 23:28:22 GMT 1
This is what a failing TD5 in-tank pump looks like on a current-trace;
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Post by rhyds on Jan 19, 2020 8:28:37 GMT 1
ar*e biscuits, I was hoping you'd got away with it
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Post by valhalla on Jan 19, 2020 17:57:04 GMT 1
ar*e biscuits, I was hoping you'd got away with it I was hoping myself... but then again, there's no smoke without fire, and this pump was likely the original unit - it seemed that way when I removed it to drain the tank before Xmas. Given that the car has 151k miles on it, there's a fair chance that the pump has seen a good lifetime. Also.....given that this car has come from the Yorkshire area, it has probably been made to run on fumes for most of that mileage, and that is never a good plan for an in-tank pump that works hard for every second the key is turned.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 20, 2020 22:14:59 GMT 1
Another "little problem" that has re-reared its head is the transmission position sensor error code (most tools report this in hex : 0E , but LR quote this in decimal : 15 and/or 23) which I had hoped would have gone away when the wiring was fixed. No such luck.....
I took a bit of time this afternoon to have a closer look at this problem, and the diagnosis is that the settings are correct (sensor to detents on gearbox, and tranmission shift cable to selector detents) but the internal switch contacts are a bit "lazy" with their switching as the tracks sweep under them from one position to the next. I had thought that this would improve with a bit of use, but it appears that most operations of the selector through to "D" will trigger a DTC, so fairly consistent. This is fairly normal for these switches, and they cost a small fortune - don't ask me why, as they are all hoarded in Australia. The units can cost anywhere around £400+ for new parts, which is ridiculous for something that just has 6 tracks and corresponding contact blades!!! Hence I can always justify the labour to remove, strip and clean these sensors out, as that will invariably fix all the issues for 2years minimum.
So that is what I'm going to do tomorrow afternoon, once I have got the vehicle out of the workshop, turned-round, and then pushed back in as far as the 4-poster; it's a lot easier to access these sensor units on a ramp, and quite often the improved access means you don't have to disturb the front exhaust section - which would be a shame after I spent so long aligning it before the body went down....
What I did achieve this afternoon was a successful brake power-bleed to all four wheels, after having done a modulator bleed cycle several times in a row. This is the value of having all-new brake hydraulics, as it makes bleeding so easy compared to an old wreck.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 23, 2020 21:02:26 GMT 1
Well, the MoT is booked now, so there must be a fair chance of it going in my mind!
I spent yesterday dealing with the erratic WXYZ transmission selector position switch/sensor mechanism. I had already taken it off the side of the 'box the previous evening, and as soon as I saw it, I thought, "Hmmm, that looks like a posh repair, very professional, I'd better check my records". As sure as anything, it was one of "mine", and it was one of a batch I did in the Summer of 2015, so I was a bit surprised that it had failed again.
When I opened the mechanism yesterday, there wasn't really much to get excited about - it was all clean and in good order. I washed it all down and checked the wiper contacts on the sector arm, and I was fairly happy that the only thing wrong with it was a drying-out of the grease on the contacts and respective wipers;
So I ran the sector arm back and forth for a few dozen operations with switch-cleaner filling the void, rinsed and washed it all down again, dried it, then painted a thin film of petroleum jelly across the contacts again. After reassembling the unit, it all worked fine, and the drying-out of grease must have been the only thing wrong. As is usual, I had to fine-tune the exact sensor location of the side of the 'box to get a good, plausible set of logic outputs. I always mark the relative position of the sensor and 'box, but in this case I needed a few degrees correction to get some good signals. This always works best over the BCU live-data for the transmission, rather than trying to use any clever setting tools. Fortunately it worked, and no further faults occurred during several tests of the full range of the selector lever.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 23, 2020 21:16:52 GMT 1
Today was a bit more eventful. The new in-tank fuel-pump arrived last night, so having got it all checked over this morning, it was a fairly fast job to swap the pumps over through the boot floor. I did take a bit more care than I might usually do-so, as I needed to ensure that the fuel connections were 100% clean this time; I didn't want to have to purge the lines again.
It would be a total exageration to say that the old girl went 1st time. In fact, I did have a moment of panic, as you do when you're familiar with these cars. It's all a bit on a knife-edge with some of the engineering!! Because of the cranking-over with the old & dead pump, the cylinder head was totally air-locked around the injectors, and that was despite me having put the fuel system through a series of priming routines again. In the end, I chose to do the "air-clear" routine with the throttle pedal at 100% on key-on, and that was enough to get some reaction from one or two cylinders. As soon as I went for a second crank after that, she leapt into life and settled straight down to a happy purr, and that is the end of that.
The coolant system is now flushed, drained, and refilled/bled with proper antifreeze mix, the transmission is now filled, primed, and levelled to the correct oil temperature (between 20c and 40c for a 4HP24 ZF unit), and the PAS circuit is bled-through properly.
I did do a few little jobs around the car, a few minor electrical repairs at the rear lamps (blown bulbs in each case, but also all a bit dry of protective grease, so all fixed now), and having run the engine up to temperature three times today, I'm happy enough to say the the bonnet can go on again - after one last job.....fixing the stiff and/or loose wiper mechanism under the windscreen plenum panel.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 27, 2020 0:11:25 GMT 1
I looked at the wiper mechanism later today, and yet another bit of expense has now come to pass....
The mechanism itself was easy to loosen at the wiper spindles, I just worked some spray grease down the spindles with the drive mechanism detached from each, and by spinning the spindles whilst spraying.
The excess looseness was from the motor fixing screws becoming loose from the mechanism mounting plate that bolts into the plenum over the driver's footwell, so it was all looking good until the screw that had been hammered the worst decided to shear-off through the plate. That left two "good" screws, which I quickly established is not enough in this applcation.
So....I unbolted the whole assembly from the car, and realised that the captive fixing in one location had failed, and also the whole mounting plate and spindle mounting arms was as rusty as could be, hence all the fixings had been pulling-out or loosening over time. Having got it all out on the floor this evening, and separated the motor from the rest of the mechanism, I came to the conclusion that the best policy was to;
a) ignore the spare mechanism on the spares Disco2 parked outside the workshop, as it is also known-bad and the weather has brought snow to us this evening
b) reach into my depleted bank-balance and buy a new mechanism via Amazon (and save £100 over and above my usual sources) as this mounting plate is really very important at keeping the weather out of the driver's footwell, and I do not want to return to that little job anytime soon.
It is galling, as the mechanism I currently have is basically working with a good motor and reasonable linkages, but the job of machining the motor alloy boss where the remains of the screw still sits is not going to be 5minutes, and once I factor-in the repairs to the missing/rusted steelwork, life is just too short. I really want to get this bonnet on, and get this car shaken-down before the end of the week.
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Post by rhyds on Jan 27, 2020 11:59:58 GMT 1
Look at it this way, you can restore/rebuild the one you're taking off at your leisure as a spare for next time.
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Post by valhalla on Jan 27, 2020 23:22:57 GMT 1
A further twist has been added as-of this evening; the new wiper assembly is not available from the supplier I used through Amazon. I take it, then, that they were hoping to buy this in and sell it on, rather than selling it from stock.
They have a secondhand "good" assembly, that I'm going to look-at when they send me the pictures tomorrow, but I'm glad I used the bit of dry weather we had this morning to start stripping-out the spare Disco wiper mech. This is all becoming a bit past a joke now; that's the second item I have bought in the last week where it transpires that what is on-sale is not actually in-stock and waiting to go......unlike the MoT that is looming.
I have started fitting-out all the front wheelarch liners and guards this evening, in preparation for a proper test-drive that may well become the death-march to the MoT station at this rate. Of course, nothing fits now, as all the fixings broke-off when I removed it all, and the metalwork has all changed since then...
However, I'll be livid if I get as far as a test-drive and find that something else is not MoT-compliant, as I cannot afford to re-book yet another test in the future.
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