nwoods
Expedition Leader
Interesting. Where are you sourcing a rear swing away bumper from?
NAS LR3 build with an overseas twist
- Thread starter Ray_G
- Start date
Jwestpro
Explorer
Ray_G
Explorer
The place I got my front bumper done in Dubai & I have chatted, they will likely fab up either a carrier or a bumper & carrier at a pretty good cost. I'm kinda waiting for their next frontrunner shipment though as I wanted to have them also install the aux fuel tank in the place of the spare tire at the same time.
I'm torn b/c I may go with a simple setup akin to the frontrunner swing away (http://www.frontrunneroutfitters.co...3-4-spare-wheel-carrier-mk3.html#.VcMsqvled5c) but have also contemplated putting a couple rotopax on the carrier tucked behind the tire but am not sure the spacing will work without throwing the tire way too far off the back of the truck-basic sketch would have it look something like this:
Ray_G
Explorer
Do you still have the Coyote ? I love the red canoe photo
I doubt I'll ever get rid of Coyote, she lives on at a much slower pace since I had to leave her with a friend who garages her in VA. Anytime I'm back in the U.S. thats what I drive, so as recently as a few weeks ago I fell in love with the simple robustness of the D1 all over again.
When I rotate off this tour that build will pick up again although most things are done with that truck to be honest.
Jwestpro
Explorer
1- I love having the 2nd fuel tank.
2-this did not render my left jerry can swing out useless as it happens to fit 2 of the 4 gallon rotopax perfectly sandwiched together. I have the Kaymar with dual swing so the left is jerry can. I thought it looked like 2 of the right rotopax could work so I measured and then picked them up locally at AltRider http://www.altrider.com/about.
There are different models so this 4 gallon size is what specifically works in terms of the depth and width but my other reason for the size was to be no taller than a standard jerry can which still allows the upper hatch to open without opening the jerry can swing carrier first. I only have to open the tire carrier to open the upper hatch and the ladder is of course also clear above the hatch release.
I use the carrier with either 2 Rotopax for water or a jerry can of fuel.
Ray_G
Explorer
That's good info about the size being equivalent to jerry can's. As I dwell on the rear swing away, I may go with just the tire and keep it simple. I've still got some time before anything shows up from SA so its no real rush. My thoughts moving forward:
-onboard water tank fab (3rd row seat floorboard) will take care of bulk water.
-the 2nd fuel tank will deal with any realistic fuel issues.
-I may end up putting some rotopax mounts on the back of the roof rack, 2gal rotopax will fit 3 abreast up there which would give space for fuel/oil mix for the chainsaw as well as potentially for one of their storage packs setup with a tree saver, shackles, etc. We'll see.
Ray_G
Explorer
Details & circle backs
Been on the road a fair amount over the past few weeks including a little vacation in Sri Lanka which was great but had me dropping out of my own thread pretty much right after posting about the receiver hitch for the most part but Unseenone is really the expert with it so his input was most welcome.
Sri Lanka, if anyone is wondering, is a fantastic place to go play. They also have the strong British heritage so there are a fair amount of Defenders on the roads as well as newer Rovers; i.e. D3 & D4s (all RHD, and mostly diesel).
The Islamic New Year gave me the opportunity to catch up on a few odds & ends and I figure I may as well post some reflections as things stand now for the sake of posterity.
-Coil Conversion : Remains solid and I am very happy with the end state as it relates to the truck's handling. I'd tried to wire the black (orange) box via the instructions that AB provided but it caused massive transmission ECU issues so I buttoned it all back up and started a dialogue with their tech. They sent me a new box, I re-attacked and still had issues. That said I did re-flash the ECU the normal way & at the same time pulled the air suspension fuses (F3E, F26E, & F35P) and what I'm left with is the red suspension light on the dash but no scrolling messages (what had annoyed me the most) nor even 'suspension fault' warnings. The absence of warnings and dinging/donging warnings is good enough for now-I'll try again in the U.S. perhaps. (no pics, though I have plenty from the dialogue with AB if anyone is interested about snipping wires on your suspension ECU and such).
-Hitch setup: Decided I wanted to see what it would look like as a rear recovery point so I grabbed a 2" receiver shackle bracket, drilled a hole to get it flusher to the hitch itself, and upon being satisfied with the end result threw the setup into the recovery pelican case. I also grabbed some bicycle tire patches and placed those over the inboard parking sensors since they were losing their mind. All is well now-both aspects can be seen here:
-Headlight/foglight switch debacle cleanup : Sometimes I wonder if I don't do things the hard way if I do them at all. In wiring an aux switch in the panel of the headlight switch to control the 4k's on the bumper I manage to hit something in the switch itself and thus I lost my instrument cluster lights...figuring this was my penance for being dumb, I ordered a new switch from eBay. I didn't look close enough and ended up with an LR3/RRS switch that didn't have all the functionality my previous switch did (i.e. foglights & such). Ok, it got the interior lights back on. Today I went by my favorite local Range Rover salvage yard and bought yet another switch, which I promptly mangled too b/c I am dumb.
That said, learning occurred. What I found was that the aforementioned different switch part #'s share the same control board-thus my one working switch could be combined with my other switch components and ultimately by the end of the day I had my original switch functionality back...like I said, I is dumb. This board is the one that can easily be damaged if you leave the switch assembled while modifying, if you look carefully the small circuit on the upper right has one electrical prong snapped from careless application of a drill bit through the plastic housing.
The lesson I learned in retrospect would be to take apart the switch in full (the face comes off, then the area behind the face can further unclip from the electrical portion behind it.) It is this middle area where plastic must be trimmed away to make room for an aux switch's wiring as well as to give a path out of the switch body to connect to the wiring running to the relay and such. The one on the left illustrates what I ended up with, the one on the right is my clumsy disastrous first effort. Let others not follow suit unwarned!
This is the end result, if but for no other reason than to provide closure to my own private debacle.
Been on the road a fair amount over the past few weeks including a little vacation in Sri Lanka which was great but had me dropping out of my own thread pretty much right after posting about the receiver hitch for the most part but Unseenone is really the expert with it so his input was most welcome.
Sri Lanka, if anyone is wondering, is a fantastic place to go play. They also have the strong British heritage so there are a fair amount of Defenders on the roads as well as newer Rovers; i.e. D3 & D4s (all RHD, and mostly diesel).
The Islamic New Year gave me the opportunity to catch up on a few odds & ends and I figure I may as well post some reflections as things stand now for the sake of posterity.
-Coil Conversion : Remains solid and I am very happy with the end state as it relates to the truck's handling. I'd tried to wire the black (orange) box via the instructions that AB provided but it caused massive transmission ECU issues so I buttoned it all back up and started a dialogue with their tech. They sent me a new box, I re-attacked and still had issues. That said I did re-flash the ECU the normal way & at the same time pulled the air suspension fuses (F3E, F26E, & F35P) and what I'm left with is the red suspension light on the dash but no scrolling messages (what had annoyed me the most) nor even 'suspension fault' warnings. The absence of warnings and dinging/donging warnings is good enough for now-I'll try again in the U.S. perhaps. (no pics, though I have plenty from the dialogue with AB if anyone is interested about snipping wires on your suspension ECU and such).
-Hitch setup: Decided I wanted to see what it would look like as a rear recovery point so I grabbed a 2" receiver shackle bracket, drilled a hole to get it flusher to the hitch itself, and upon being satisfied with the end result threw the setup into the recovery pelican case. I also grabbed some bicycle tire patches and placed those over the inboard parking sensors since they were losing their mind. All is well now-both aspects can be seen here:
-Headlight/foglight switch debacle cleanup : Sometimes I wonder if I don't do things the hard way if I do them at all. In wiring an aux switch in the panel of the headlight switch to control the 4k's on the bumper I manage to hit something in the switch itself and thus I lost my instrument cluster lights...figuring this was my penance for being dumb, I ordered a new switch from eBay. I didn't look close enough and ended up with an LR3/RRS switch that didn't have all the functionality my previous switch did (i.e. foglights & such). Ok, it got the interior lights back on. Today I went by my favorite local Range Rover salvage yard and bought yet another switch, which I promptly mangled too b/c I am dumb.
That said, learning occurred. What I found was that the aforementioned different switch part #'s share the same control board-thus my one working switch could be combined with my other switch components and ultimately by the end of the day I had my original switch functionality back...like I said, I is dumb. This board is the one that can easily be damaged if you leave the switch assembled while modifying, if you look carefully the small circuit on the upper right has one electrical prong snapped from careless application of a drill bit through the plastic housing.
The lesson I learned in retrospect would be to take apart the switch in full (the face comes off, then the area behind the face can further unclip from the electrical portion behind it.) It is this middle area where plastic must be trimmed away to make room for an aux switch's wiring as well as to give a path out of the switch body to connect to the wiring running to the relay and such. The one on the left illustrates what I ended up with, the one on the right is my clumsy disastrous first effort. Let others not follow suit unwarned!
This is the end result, if but for no other reason than to provide closure to my own private debacle.
Ray_G
Explorer
More details and follow ups
With all the pics in the previous update I needed a continuation:
-LED interior lighting Discussed a little while ago, I replaced all the interior lighting with LEDs to cut back on current draw and there was some question if the light was too harsh/bright. What I would say is absolutely not, the 6000k is def 'white' but isn't unduly harsh in this application. In fact I've found that if I really need a lot of light I end up hitting the map lights in concert with the dome lights to flood the area. As-is the parts I really like are the floorboard and puddle lighting for the light they cast...
...& as alluded to earlier, the primary judge/jury/executioner on the matter, the spouse, hasn't even noticed nor commented. So I'll call that a win.
-Fridge Anderson Plug Preliminary wiring for the fridge had it running to a 12v outlet routed over from the fuse panel but I wanted to change that out for an anderson plug, finally got around to doing that.
When connected it tucks nicely under the trim panel.
-Hawse fairlead The super winch came with its own fairlead which was installed when the bumper was fabricated but my partner in crime ended up sourcing a couple of fairleads from Series-Defender Outfitters (Series-Defender Outfitters), in full transparency the owner of SDO is also a friend and fellow Rover owner from my NoVA days so there a great deal of familiarity involved here. That said when my buddy handed off the hawse I was keen on throwing it on as it was black compared to the existing chrome/silver setup.
Overall it goes with the blacking out of the truck.
I may have failed to mention the best part of the hawse is that it has a built in bottle opener...
With all the pics in the previous update I needed a continuation:
-LED interior lighting Discussed a little while ago, I replaced all the interior lighting with LEDs to cut back on current draw and there was some question if the light was too harsh/bright. What I would say is absolutely not, the 6000k is def 'white' but isn't unduly harsh in this application. In fact I've found that if I really need a lot of light I end up hitting the map lights in concert with the dome lights to flood the area. As-is the parts I really like are the floorboard and puddle lighting for the light they cast...
...& as alluded to earlier, the primary judge/jury/executioner on the matter, the spouse, hasn't even noticed nor commented. So I'll call that a win.
-Fridge Anderson Plug Preliminary wiring for the fridge had it running to a 12v outlet routed over from the fuse panel but I wanted to change that out for an anderson plug, finally got around to doing that.
When connected it tucks nicely under the trim panel.
-Hawse fairlead The super winch came with its own fairlead which was installed when the bumper was fabricated but my partner in crime ended up sourcing a couple of fairleads from Series-Defender Outfitters (Series-Defender Outfitters), in full transparency the owner of SDO is also a friend and fellow Rover owner from my NoVA days so there a great deal of familiarity involved here. That said when my buddy handed off the hawse I was keen on throwing it on as it was black compared to the existing chrome/silver setup.
Overall it goes with the blacking out of the truck.
I may have failed to mention the best part of the hawse is that it has a built in bottle opener...
Ray_G
Explorer
That was a bring back from the Embassy in Sri Lanka; here you can't get it b/c of the expiration date which turns into a hang up while importing. Locally I tend to have Guinness, Kilkenny...and that's about it. We do see some IPAs & then a full range of European stuff too.
Man, I'd love to see the dialogue on the coil conversion. I have my box wired in no lights or chimes, but I do get the scrolling message every 30 seconds or so.
That was a bring back from the Embassy in Sri Lanka; here you can't get it b/c of the expiration date which turns into a hang up while importing. Locally I tend to have Guinness, Kilkenny...and that's about it. We do see some IPAs & then a full range of European stuff too.
As long as you can get proper German beer, all is well.
Ray_G
Explorer
I'll hit you on pm, I was going to ask how your install went since I saw over on Dweb that you'd run the box and gotten the lights off. On the balance I'll take the red light if nothing is chiming nor scrolling. Did you pull the fuses for the air suspension too? I did that mainly b/c when I first started it after the conversion (pre-flash) the air compressor was still running-but had replaced them when I went to hardwire in round II and after that didn't work pulled them again just on principle-may stop the scrolling, who knows.
What I really want to do is find a tech at the service center here who can just tell the truck it's coil sprung but given what this locale focuses on I'm guessing modified D3's are not high on their list of concerns!
ColoDisco
Explorer
Thank you for sharing all of your ideas! I am a Land Rover tech at a independent shop and just sold my D1's for my LR3 and am friends with Jerry here in Colorado. I have been searching for info and ideas much like your rig. I will keep checking and and am planning my own build thread.