Prepping a defender 130 for around the world..

[The Rover Shop]

So a major concern of mine on this truck is that the engine ECU is under the drivers seat..(rhd) and I couldn't find a relocation harness that allows the ecu to sit somewhere decent.....so if Mohammed won't go to the lake, we need to stop the lake coming to Mohammed..the compartment is a pretty well sealed unit but should water get in that also means that it can't get out.... So I did what any good sailor would do, installed a 500 GPH bilge pump..I will be installing one in the battery box as well as one in the rear floor compartment, hopefully this 1500 GPH should override any water levels rising too much in the event of a high water stranding..I went with the manual switched units and all 3 come on with one switch..
In the pic you can see the outlet dumps into the small cavity behind the seat box, this should reduce the amount of dirt and debris getting into the outlet pipe..

 

[The Rover Shop]

I think I'm done with the wiring additions into the overhead console..



Now that I'm done adding things I can go in and tidy everything up....but alas, it will never be as tidy as some people get it...I am truly envious of those people who make it look perfect...

 

[The Rover Shop]

Added another layer of anti-that today.. Took 3 core wire and ran it from the ignition switch down into the metal lockable tuffy box, wired it into a 3 pole switch..in one position ignition power is allowed to go to the ignition circuit...in the middle position ignition is off, in the third position it directs ignition power straight to the air horn....if you turn the ignition on with the key, or Hotwire it it sends power straight to the horn and makes a helluva racket...



I did this because of the new level thieves are going to where they just break into your house and steal your keys...now if they can get past the door locks, the immobilized alarm, the pedal lock box, the inertia switch mod, the ignition switch mods and still get away with the truck then they only have the 2 built in tracking units to worry about..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Had the front matting out to run some wiring so I decided to add in dynamatting..went all the way up on the passengers side but only the floor on the drivers..





Job done..

 

[pyrate]

Can you hear it if the bilge pumps run? One recommendation from my years of sailing is if an emergency bilge pump goes off, a light or some sort of audible sound alerts you.

 

[The Rover Shop]

Fairly safe to say that we will know if we need to be running a bilge pump...probably not going to need a warning light..lol... The switch I am using has a bright red light in it so we know it's switched on, I am using manually switched pumps as I was thinking with the constant dirt etc that automatic switched could fail and plan on turning them on BEFORE going into a river or deep water etc,,.. Yes you can hear them faintly but as part of my regular checks I run all items every now and then.. And when possible pump water into the bilge area just to make sure they are operational and flushed.. I hope to never need them but it is a cheap and quick thing to install and could save a lot of headaches if they get used..plus it's a fun thing to have a big red switch on your dash labeled "bilge pump".....

 

[pyrate]

Fairly safe to say that we will know if we need to be running a bilge pump...probably not going to need a warning light..lol... The switch I am using has a bright red light in it so we know it's switched on, I am using manually switched pumps as I was thinking with the constant dirt etc that automatic switched could fail and plan on turning them on BEFORE going into a river or deep water etc,,.. Yes you can hear them faintly but as part of my regular checks I run all items every now and then.. And when possible pump water into the bilge area just to make sure they are operational and flushed.. I hope to never need them but it is a cheap and quick thing to install and could save a lot of headaches if they get used..plus it's a fun thing to have a big red switch on your dash labeled "bilge pump".....

Yep, definitely a different application than usual but not a bad idea. We had a water tank burst once and flood a compartment that fried a ton of electrics once and I wished we would have thought to have a bilge pump on our land vehicle.

 

[madtom]

With the ECU there are two possibilities to upgrade the waterproofness. Using some conformal coating on the inside printed circuit board - add more than one layer. It has already some applied, but not enough. I have repaired successfully some drowned ECUs.
Or you can relocate it. No need for special add-on loom. Just careful soldering. In my Discovery2 I have moved the ECU from the engine compartment to inside of the car. Half of the wires I have just pulled back inside, other half I have added some wires. Careful soldering and using heatshrinking tubes is the key. All wires are normal, so using wires with the same thickness (gauge) is OK, only for crank position signal you need to use twisted and shielded pair. I made this by twisting 2 wires, adding shield from RG58 coaxial cable and covering by a heatshrinking tube. I have it for more than 4 years without any problems.

 

[The Rover Shop]

Another lesson we learnt from our last truck was that we often used the front hood mounted spare to place things in there to dry out...like shoes, wet clothes, our tent ladder base mat etc etc.. So I installed 4 stainless D rings on the hood at each corner of the checker plate..to stop them from rattling I cut a small length of plastic pipe and sliced it to fit over the ring where it is secured, this way when it's installed the plastic keeps a bit of tension on the ring and stops it from bouncing all over the place. This allows us to mount an elastic mesh bag to the d rings and then whatever you want to dry sits inside it while you drive. Mesh bag is only installed when you want to use it...I chose these low profile rings so they don't hurt your foot when you step on them barefoot..rings also come in handy for anything else you need to lash down on the hood, like dirty winch rope etc etc..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Wanted a source of ventilation in the rear box, found an appropriate sized stainless vent , drilled sufficient holes (on a slight downward angle so that water can't run into the truck), then I had this 12v brushless electronics cooling fan laying around and it was the perfect size so installed in for that extra bit of flow through ventilation...fan pulls less that .2 amps and provides a decent amount of flow for its size...should be enough to keep a little fresh air coming in as it sucks it out.. I did mark out a nice little grid pattern but the first hole I drilled I wiped the debris off and it wiped the whole markings off also... .. Besides, they're hidden by the grille...

 

[The Rover Shop]

Needed to add a few more switches for the auxiliary fuel tank transfer valve and pump as well as for the bilge pumps... I wanted switches that have the bright red light on them when switched on so that I didn't forget they were on. The factory switches don't have a bright enough light so I took an old switch housing I had laying around so I cut some square sections out (this way the material is the same..) and filed them to fit nicely in the old switch holes,that's 2 hours of my life I'll never get back..lol..





When I hit one of the red switches it energizes a solenoid valve and at the same time a small electric pump to pump the fuel into the main tank via its return line, the fuel goes through a water separator which will hopefully catch any water and larger junk In The fuel, this is easily drained off from the plastic sight bowl..the pump has a small filter on the intake side of it to make sure no stuff damages the pump.



Pump is a little on the slow side but fast enough that it pumps faster than you can use it, so I may have to switch it out for one of the later rotary pump items....
Was reading Graeme bells "we will be free" book and he mentions a scenario where they were in South America and fuel was being rationed to only being allowed to fill one fuel tank.....with this setup I could actually be filling the aux tank while the pump is pumping it into the main tank, this way I could actually fill both tanks with filling one tank..

 

[The Rover Shop]

Mounted a set of LED Amber fog lights, the factory rear fog light was only able to be operated with the headlights on, so I rewired the whole system so that it can be turned on at any time ignition is on, now when you hit the fog light switch the rear single red light comes on as well as the front Amber lights..

 

[The Rover Shop]

To be on the safe side I also installed an engine watchdog system, for those not familiar with this system it has a separate heat sensor that bolts to the block and detects the exact temp of the engine, it has a built in alarm that can be set to whatever temp you like, I have this one set at 100 deg Celsius, so in the event of the engine getting hot an audible alarm goes off giving you an early warning...it also does the same for low oil pressure. This unit also has the necessary wiring to switch a relay that can be used to turn a fan on at whatever temp you desire. When you first start the vehicle it shows the max temp that your engine has been at on previous drives. Definitely gives you a more accurate idea of where your engine temp is than the stock guages.



Tucks up nicely and out of the way but still easy to read.

 

[The Rover Shop]

Got around to wiring the side heated mirrors and turn signals, anything you can do so that people see you... Of a night time I don't think there will be any excuse for someone not seeing I have a turn signal on..the LED light upgrades are really freaking bright..

 

[SpudBoy]

Mounted a set of LED Amber fog lights, the factory rear fog light was only able to be operated with the headlights on, so I rewired the whole system so that it can be turned on at any time ignition is on, now when you hit the fog light switch the rear single red light comes on as well as the front Amber lights..

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Have you thought about the reduction in airflow across the radiator due to your spotlights? If you 're not going anywhere hot, it probably doesn't matter, but in Australia, in summer, we get overheating issues when you do this with spotlights...

You could probably lose the central spotlight, as you have lights for Africa on that thing!