wiki.http://nickt.com will become the place where I store all the information about my vehicles, for example I’ve added my 300 TDi D90s specifications to start the ball rolling. I’m keeping this closed to contributions as it’s just a convenient place to store my personal data. Anyone can read it though.

The codex exerro will contain more general overland vehicle information and as it’s not a personal thing, it’ll be open.

I’m running MediaWiki and hosting them at Media Temple.

Northwest Africa Trip, 2000 from Nick Taylor on Vimeo.

Anyway, it was cold, wet and overcast when we arrived in Leadville, much the same as it was in Denver. Still, we had bourbon, brats, sushi and Snow Peak Chopsticks, so we were happy.

After out sushi lunch and setting up camp, we drove further up the trail to Champion Mill where we took some photos of the mill in it’s decaying state. It’s a shame to see such a wonderful place making its last stand against the elements. 

 As the elements were making an appearance, we had a quick look inside (be careful – don’t fall through the floor), before heading back down to our 11,110 ft campsite. 

Back at camp, we had some brats and bourbon and given the sleet and cold we turned in early.

The next morning dawned crisp and blue, and made the drive back to Leadville wonderful. 

Next camping, err, June!

There’s a black plastic thing attached directly to the rocker cover.

It’s the Cyclonic Cleaner, part of the crankcase breather system, Land Rover part number ERR1471. It’s easy to remove, just a single bolt and two hose-clips. On the tube that connects with the engine, there’s a small o-ring. That was my culprit! It had split and was spraying oil down the side of the engine. Now there is an official Land Rover part (LLO100000) for this o-ring, but a quick trip to NAPA had a replacement installed within the hour. Problem solved!

The filter is supposed to be cleaned every 12k or so, but I know it’s not religiously carried out. I cleaned mine in Coleman Fuel (as I don’t have any kerosene handy), and that did the trick. I left it to dry overnight, and the next morning, with just a few seconds of white fumes, everything worked fine.

A couple of weeks ago, during a trip to the Maze, the plastic t-piece from the fuel tank to both the fuel lift pump and the heater snapped.

Here I am fixing it in the field (I discovered that the outer diameter of the raised breather tubes is the same as the interior diameter of the fuel line). Thanks to Steve for the photo.

So as I need to refit the t-piece (with a brass one this time), I stared investigating the rest of the problem. Once I’d freed up the harness, I discovered that it has shorted and melted some of the wires together – never good. It also seems that there’s a fuse missing, that would have been easier to replace than the harness.

In the diagram below, you can see the part that failed. I need to replace both the plug and socket – it’s a tight 8-way connector.

Once I discovered that Eberspächer is called Espar in North America, I contacted their technical support and got the following part number: 22 1000 30 10 21 – which has to be ordered from a local dealer. I contacted Thermo King of Denver who ordered the part from Espar in Canada. I’m hoping the thing will be fixed before it really gets cold!

Espar D5 manual here
Good install thread on D90.com here
A Defender installation here

After a friends recommendation and some trawling on the forums, I decided that Redline MTL was the way to go (Royal Purple Synchromax also seems worth a look).

Armed with my 32mm wrench (for the drain; sockets don’t fit), my T55 Torx bit and a fluid transfer pump (it’s tight near the filler), I drained and refilled the gearboxes on the ‘96 Tdi and the ‘95 V8.

I test drove both trucks. The difference is astounding. The troublesome 2-3 shift is smooth for the first time ever (without having to think about it), and the downshifts are a dream. It’s hard to believe that just a simple fluid change can make such a big difference, it really is incredible. I’m interested to see what it looks like when I change it out in October 2009.

Next time, I’ll but it by the gallon rather than the quart, as it’s a right faff to mess about with the quart size containers and the pump.

Redline MTL: Highly recommended for Land Rovers with the R380 manual transmission.

I was happy to find this old magazine on ebay. I’ve just picked up a Dormobile, so I’m happy to see it got a good review back in 1961!

It didn’t sell on ebay, so I contacted the guy and made an offer, which he accepted.

Happily, it’s the 2.6l inline 6 engine. It’s also right-hand drive, which is, of course, no problem for me – one of my US-based Defenders is right-hand drive too.

Now, any vehicle that’s almost my age will need some work, but this truck had the good fortune of being an export model, and left Blighty soon after manufacture for South Africa. I don’t yet know much of its history, but I know it spent some time on the East Coast (of the US) before ending up in Reno, NV, where I’ll be heading out in a week or so to pick it up. As the vehicle hasn’t spend time on UK roads, it hasn’t suffered from the corrosive sea-air or salted-roads. In fact, it seems there is just some superficial rust on the bulkhead and a bit more rust on the rear cross-member, which is easy and cheap to replace, should it need it.

The other good news is the Dormobile company in the UK has a lot of the spares I may be needing. I know the roof-vent is broken and the table is missing, and I’m glad these parts are available off the shelf. I spoke to Tim there, he’s a really helpful chap – and pleased to know that “another one had been rescued”!

I’m looking forward to picking it up, doing some maintenance and getting it out into the hills as quickly as possible for some RV’ing, ’70s style!

Now if only I can find a decent Carawagon…

—
Some links
Dormobile Owners Club
Land Rover FAQ – Dormobile
Teriann Wakemans Dormobile Page

Exhaust Manifolds Ceramic Coated
Cooling System Flushed
Radiator reconditioned and recored (with 5 cores)
Catalytic converter Mylar wrapped

A good drive to Colorado Springs to visit Rockware tomorrow should give it a good test.

The original plan was to simply send the trucks current coordinates as acquired by the GPS via a TNC to the radio and out, to be picked up by other stations and relayed to an igate and from there onto the internet where many various sites show your position in near real-time.

This would have been a very simple setup consisting of a Garmin GPS16HVS, an OEM unit that basically integrates the GPS and antenna into a single unit without a display, a Kantronics MT-1200 TNC and an Icom IC-2200 single band radio.

However, I ran out of time (I wanted it working for our Utah “Hole in the Rock” trip), and didn’t want to go back to Radio Shack for another 2.5mm 3 way jack so I dug out my “spare” Kenwood TM-D700A, which has a built it TNC and would save some time during the configuration.

With the Kenwood radio, the system simply consisted of the GPS16 connected to the D700A radio.

Installing the GPS16 was a small problem. It comes with a magnetic mount, which, of course, is no use in an aluminum-bodied Land Rover Defender (actually, it’s Birmabright). The green D90 is a bit old and beat up anyway, so I wasn’t too bothered about drilling the roof. I drilled 4 holes for the GPS16 and another 4 for the cable passthrough (a waterproof marine-grade “Cable Clam“, made by Blue Sea Systems and available from from West Marine), and simply fed the cable through.

The GPS16 ships with an RJ45 connector, and I can’t imagine what use it has except for factory testing. After cutting it off, there are basically 2 sets of data wiring and also power wires in a very compact space (as described in the manual – PDF link). It’s a simple job, but fiddly connecting the power to my usual 45A Anderson Powerpole connectors and a 3-way 2.5mm jack. Initially I forgot that the data ground has to be cross connected to the ground, so the GPS did not switch on.

I removed the 2.5mm jack and connected an DB9 socket so I could connect a terminal to the GPS16. It was about now I realized that it wasn’t powered on (there is no indicator light to show this), but I was amising myself watching the NMEA sentences appear on my terminal. I also downloaded the Garmin SNSRCFG software, which enabled me to play with a ton of settings in the GPS16. I just made sure the data it was acquiring was correct before disconnecting it and putting the 2.5mm jack back on.

Then, I connected the jack to the radio and to my delight I saw the GPS indicator flashing, meaning that the radio was receiving telemetry from the GPS. Fiddling with a few settings on the radio, to configure it to take position data from the GPS and override the manual co-ordinates I’d entered earlier, I saw the “MY POS” indicator flash up, showing that APRS data was being transmitted. A drive around the block and a quick visit to db0anf, and I could see my position being updated in near real time. Success!

You can see my position updates here.

Overall, the Garmin GPS16 and Kenwood TM-D700A radio is a great combination for hands off APRS work.

I do have a few more steps to finish this little project, including making a small breakout box for the GPS16, which will have switched power and a connection for both the radio (via a jack) and terminal (via a DB9). And then I’ll have to do it all again for the black D90!