Anton's build

[Anton]

Whichwhatbit?

All of it, starting from two of your posts back

First of two posts back:

I done tested my LED's and they seem ok. I thought they were doing weird things, but it turns out my power supply was the one doing the weird things. I'd like to test more, but I'm lacking kit. Never mind, I knows they'll be ok.

Second of two posts back:

Don't use anything that looks like this in your vehicles. The live and neutral wires aren't properly secured or isolated, they slip out, touch the spring and short out your electrics. I actually plugged one in using a 4A car battery charger just to see what'd happen, the spring turned red in under a second and generally it was bad, bad news. It could set your car on fire. Not joking.

Seems an awful lot of bother when your lights were working before anyway...

Well, they weren't - the Land Rover lights I fitted were *extremely* unreliable. However, the truth is, as I'm basically housebound right now I needed something interesting to do that was SJ related. In almost every way what I did makes no sense at all - I can buy LED lights for £9 that fit (and the bare LED COB units cost me £20, let alone the other stuff/my time) so I wouldn't do it again, but I don't regret doing it because it gave me something interesting to do and I learned a fair bit about LED's.

I spent quite a long time looking into the quantum mechanics behind amps and volts too, and now I have an understanding of what both of those are at a quantum level. That always bugged me, but now I "get it". I get why amps are more important than overall wattage/voltage to choosing a gauge of wire, for example - it makes perfect sense now.

I'm one of these weird, twisted individuals who does stuff for the sheer pleasure of finding out how stuff works.

[ROBBIE]

Wires falling out, shorting out, killing all the electrics, are you sure you haven't got my old SJ there?

[Anton]

Wires falling out, shorting out, killing all the electrics, are you sure you haven't got my old SJ there?

As much as I want to blame the SJ for the problems, the truth is that it's my own damned fault for fitting Land Rover lights.

My SJ is allergic to Land Rover parts. I should've known better...

[donkeychomp]

I told my Vitara her rear lights are Unipart ones and no probs whatsoever!

[Anton]

I think mine were OEM. Maybe I should've got Unipart ones?

Doesn't matter now.

[donkeychomp]

Get better. Pop over here. Fix hubs. Go get muddy.

We can do your SJ here if you like, bodywork will take me a couple of days maybe..engine we can do in an afternooon (he says lol). The lights I will leave up to you as I though a heatsink was a Douglas Adams invention (Restaurant at the End of the Universe).

[Anton]

I love Adams, but I wish he'd done more homework on black holes before publishing that...

Scientific nonsense in books aimed at geeks (some of whom invariably like reading books about quantum mechanics) is just unforgivable.

If you want, you can post the hubs to me, I'll sort them out, and post them back mate.

[donkeychomp]

No rush matey as she drives fine as is. When you are up to it ok?

[Anton]

The problem is that it might be a year or so before I'm well enough to drive down there again, if history is anything to go by.

[Anton]

My mate Daniel popped over and helped me get the SJ ready for an MOT, booked in next Monday.

Sorted the wheel bearing* by packing it with grease, tightened the t-case handbrake drum (a bit too much, actually, but meh), got the horn working again (as I suspected, it was just a fuse). The main beam tell-tale and the 4x4 light have stopped working though.

But according to the MOT manual, section 1.7 subsection 4c, you only need a working tell-tale for main beam if your vehicle is post 1st April 1986, and mine is a 1985.

I still want to get it working though, so if anyone has a wiring diagram for the dash plugs (the two big ones behind the dash) then I'd be grateful.

The starter is doing the "clicky starter" thing again, too. I might try adding a relay to it, if that doesn't work I'll either strip it down again or I'll buy a brand new skinny starter so I'm ready for the 1.6 if/when it happens.

Also now I've realised that because I fitted the new seat too close to the bulkhead, and the seat belt doesn't retract properly because of that, I'll probably have to remount the seat this weekend. 99.9% sure it's an MOT fail otherwise. But the work is sort of "wasted" work since I HATE that seat - it's too narrow between the bolsters, and bruises my legs. My ass fits, but my legs don't!

So any suggestions on seats I could fit instead? The seats in Scottie's SJ seem spot on, and Donkeychomp has the same seats in his Vit - and I loved hooning about in that. It's a squeeze, but super-comfy once I was in...

* I hope...