 | Home > My Defender > An Anorak's Utility Station Wagon |
 
|
|
|
| AlexCW Member Since: 04 Mar 2020 Location: Staffordshire Posts: 67   
|
Great thread LRA
I'm in the process of some auxiliary wiring in my 110 at the moment so I'm watching with interest, even though I don't have the intellect to dissect the wiring diagrams, I'm trying my best and they're a great help. You've also fitted some accessories I plan to add in the future so I'll be going back through for more reference points  Alex
2013 2.2 TDCi Puma Hard Top https://www.defender2.net/forum/topic72473.html |
||
11th Apr 2021 7:53pm |
|
| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
|
Thanks chaps.
Alex, the wiring might look complex but it's really just standard relay wiring. The only real difference is that there are three all next to each other. Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
||
|
11th Apr 2021 8:35pm |
|
| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
|
So, tomorrow ran into Tuesday because, much to my surprise, snow stopped play!
The fuse box shown above and the relay pack are to be mounted inside the LH wing in the areas shown below:  Click image to enlarge The fuse box will be fixed to the face of the existing black metal bracket in front of the heater duct and will require another bracket between it and the back face of the box. The cables in flexible conduit that snake over the heater duct to sensors in the foreground will be in the way of this and get re-routed under the duct. The relay pack will be fixed to the inner edge of the wing top, in front of the bracket holding the A/C pipe, using the bolt for that bracket and the spare hole further forward of it. The wiring design calls for three relays - one each for the dipped beam, main beam and spotlights. I’ve sourced a nice three relay pack with its own little mounting bracket for the purpose from a company called Mouser Electronics. Anyway, it needs a bracket to attach it to the wing, which I’ve made from 2mm thick aluminium. Cardboard aided design in action: Click image to enlarge The series of twelve small holes near to the bottom are the basis of clamps for the three multicore cables that will terminate at the relays. They’re 3mm diameter and spaced 6mm apart, which allows a 2.5mm wide cable tie to pass through and pin the ends of the cables to the bottom of the bracket. This will, in turn, prevent them being dragged out of the relay block if they’re inadvertently pulled. The bracket temporarily bolted into place: Click image to enlarge The spare hole in the edge of the wing just needed the touch of a 7mm drill bit to clean it out sufficiently to accept an M5 rivnut. And with the relay pack fitted on its own little bracket that enables it to be easily released, which will help with wiring: Click image to enlarge The bracket for the fuse box followed a similar development path with much cutting and scribbling on cardboard before arriving at these two pieces, shown with the existing black bracket that I removed from the wing during the process: Click image to enlarge The larger of the two new pieces fits to the black bracket and provides mounting points for the fuse box enclosure. It’s deceptively complicated with a small bend in the lower end to match the shape of bracket that it will be fitted to and two countersunk holes for fixings that will be concealed by the enclosure. The smaller piece is to provide a fixing point for the fir tree mount on the re-routed sensor cabling, which was originally positioned on the black bracket. This picture shows the new brackets temporarily bolted into place: Click image to enlarge And these show the fuse box enclosure fixed to it: Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge In this location, the enclosure just clears the underside of the bonnet, which is quite thick around the edges. I’d measured it so it should have worked but it was a small relief when it actually did. The only problem with this location is that installing the wiring into the box will basically have to be done upside down, leaning over the wing. However, I think I can pre-install virtually all of it on the bench if I leave the fuse box loose until the end. Time will tell! It was my aim to install all of this stuff without drilling any additional holes in anything on the vehicle. However, once the enclosure was in place, it was obvious that it needed a third fixing point to prevent it flexing and so I had to accept drilling an extra hole in the black bracket. Finally, I decided to paint them so that they'll look more like they were intended to be there: Click image to enlarge Making all of these brackets is very time consuming but having the components mounted neatly will hopefully make building the wiring loom that much easier. It’s also very satisfying 
Next it’s on to the wiring… Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia Last edited by LandRoverAnorak on 14th Apr 2021 6:09pm. Edited 1 time in total |
||
|
13th Apr 2021 3:58pm |
|
| Tiger Member Since: 06 Jul 2012 Location: Wales Posts: 2265 
|
Excellent, you been watching Binky?
|
||
|
13th Apr 2021 4:03pm |
|
| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
|
Absolutely! Can't wait for the next episode when they finally re-assemble the damn thing
Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
||
|
13th Apr 2021 4:10pm |
|
| Co1 Member Since: 19 Aug 2018 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 3671 
|
Not just me then?! |
||
|
13th Apr 2021 4:35pm |
|
| L110CDL Member Since: 31 Oct 2015 Location: Devon Posts: 10733 
|
Me too waiting for the next Binky
It is always a great read when you post how your project is getting on Darren   1996 Golf Blue 300Tdi 110 Pick up.
Keeper. Clayton. |
||
|
14th Apr 2021 7:32pm |
|
| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
|
This one’s a long one so strap in…
To make my life as easy as possible, I made all of the connections to the fuse box and distribution block on the bench. As expected, it’s tight but does all work as intended. I then disconnected the feeds to the LH head and spotlight as I’d basically made off both ends of each cable and would have to cut them to length once I’d worked out all of the routing. This picture shows both stages of that process: Click image to enlarge There are a lot of cables going in and out of this box and I’ve had to use rubber grommets to accommodate them. They don’t provide any restrain though, which is something I’m quite keen on. As a compromise then, I cut some strips of 2mm thick plastic, 10mm wide and about 50mm long and drilled 3mm holes to accept cables ties. The idea is that they span across the grommets inside the box and when the cables are tied to them, won’t allow them to be pulled out: Click image to enlarge The first stage of the actual installation was bolting my shiny new brackets into place, which was all quite straightforward, and fixing the existing sensor cabling fir tree mount: Click image to enlarge Next was installing the fuse box enclosure, which was more of a challenge as access is limited. Got there in the end though, with the help of tape on the ends of various tools to position nuts and bolts in hard to reach places. After a lot of scrabbling around, I managed to route the cabling to the RH head and spot lights across the top of the bulkhead and along the inner edge of the right hand wing and then down to behind the headlight: Click image to enlarge At that point and with the front end stripped down, I realised that I needed yet more brackets as locations to tie off the ends of the various cables. Once you get to behind the headlights, all you’re faced with is the featureless plastic of the wheel arch liner. I also wanted the spotlight wiring to pass through to the area behind the grill where it was to terminate in an Econoseal connector that needed to be secured. There are large holes in both inner wings to allow this and for a bit of extra protection I added some plastic sheathing to the cables in this area. Anyway, with all of this in mind I came up with the following, cut from aluminium angle: Click image to enlarge The two on the right were fixed to the wheel arch liners and, by chance, I was able to re-use holes that were formed for the ill-fated LED headlight bulb drivers. I used plastic M6 nuts and bolts for these to avoid any issues with exposure to road salt and the like. The brackets have a series of holes to again accept 2.5mm cable ties to provide fixings for both the original wiring and the new: Click image to enlarge The remaining brackets were fixed to the A/C condenser frame using two existing holes in the flat plates between the frame and the condenser. It pained me to bolt them to such crusty existing parts but I do have painted stainless replacements awaiting installation when I get chance. That’s a job for another day though, and I’ll probably paint these new brackets at that time. This picture shows one of the brackets in place and after installation of the connector and spotlight wiring. Getting all of this in place was akin to keyhole surgery but I was keen on the location as it provides a modicum of protection to the connector: Click image to enlarge That picture also shows the additional cable tie hole that the spotlight bracket has acquired to keep the wiring tidy. With all of the wiring end points established, I could cut the cables to the RH headlight to length and make the final connections in the fuse box enclosure. As predicted, it was tight and a challenge to do upside down so I’m glad I was able to do most of it on the bench: Click image to enlarge On the LH side, the existing headlight wiring is re-purposed to provide trigger feeds and earths to the relay coils but on the RH side, the existing wiring is surplus. I therefore made up a blanking plug out of a male headlight connector with a piece of plastic glued over the rear end: Click image to enlarge It was quite a snug fit but I secured it in place with a cable tie too, and then tied the cable to my new bracket: Click image to enlarge Behind the LH headlight, the trigger wiring was connected to the existing headlight wiring and in this picture you can also see the new headlight power feed. All of this gets tucked away and again secured to a bracket: Click image to enlarge With all of the wiring finally in place, I could then install the relay pack. I chose this particular pack after seeing somebody else use it on here (sorry, can’t remember who, it was some years ago) and thought that it looked like a neat and compact solution. It accepts 35amp ISO standard relays and these particular ones are the changeover type although I’m not using that function: Click image to enlarge Again, terminating the wires here was extremely tight and in hindsight, I should have made the bracket slightly longer to allow more leeway between the underside of the relay pack and the cable fixing points. After a degree of cursing, I got there in the end though: Click image to enlarge The power feed for the whole setup comprises two 6mm2 cables that connect the fuse box enclosure directly to the battery. They were routed back to the bulkhead where the earth wire was terminated on a convenient 6mm stud: Click image to enlarge The positive wire was then fed down vertically along the inner face of the passenger footwell until it met a large bundle of existing cables, to which it was cable tied. From there, it was fed backwards picking up various existing attachment points until it entered the battery box through the main earth cable grommet. Here was the location of my final bracket, which was a small flat plate drilled to receive a midi-fuse holder and was used to tag on the extra main fuse required for this set up to the panel on which my split charge system is mounted. This one is just a temporary solution as I want to re-organise the battery box to take a bigger second battery and I’ll re-make this panel then: Click image to enlarge My hydraulic crimping tool made short work of the necessary connections to the new fuse and I left a long-ish tail on the cable to allow for future changes: Click image to enlarge With the power connected it was finally time to test it annnnd it didn’t work  Not properly, anyway. After a bit of head scratching and diagram studying, I traced a couple of the pins in the relay pack that hadn’t seated properly and a poor crimp on one of the pins in the Econoseal connector for the right hand spotlight. I was very relieved that it wasn’t anything more fundamental with the design! Anyway, all now works as intended:
Click image to enlarge It’s been something of a slog, this one: not including the initial bracket fabrication, I’ve probably spent four days on this installation including half a day of fault finding and reassembly. Despite my best efforts at planning, there were still lots of little details that had to be worked out along the way and routing of cables and making of parts took far longer than I expected. Still, it’s done now and I can enjoy my spotlights and also be confident that my headlight switch won’t burn out! I just need to wait for some darkness to give it a proper test… Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia Last edited by LandRoverAnorak on 20th Apr 2021 9:23am. Edited 4 times in total |
||
|
18th Apr 2021 3:56pm |
|
| Co1 Member Since: 19 Aug 2018 Location: North Yorkshire Posts: 3671
|
Bravo! Great work.
|
||
|
18th Apr 2021 4:36pm |
|
| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
|
Thanks
Took it out for a spin to a 'dark place' last night to see how it all looked: Click image to enlarge To be honest, there didn't seem to be much of an improvement in the headlights but they were already pretty good with Crystal units and uprated bulbs. The spots work well and have a good range but even in the above picture it's obvious that their light is more yellow than the headlights. I'll have to see if I can find some uprated bulbs for them that better match the headlights. Darren 110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
||
|
19th Apr 2021 8:29am |
|
| ChrisDefender Member Since: 29 Oct 2015 Location: Midlands Posts: 453
|
Excuse the pun: Spot on
|
||
|
19th Apr 2021 8:44am |
|
| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
|
 Darren
110 USW BUILD THREAD - EXPEDITION TRAILER - 200tdi 90 BUILD THREAD - SANKEY TRAILER - IG@landroveranorak "You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!" - Princess Leia |
||
|
19th Apr 2021 9:08am |
|
| Pace Member Since: 19 Mar 2021 Location: Somerset Posts: 73 
|
Very nice, well-thought out and neatly executed mod. I will be taking inspiration when I add some lighting later this year.
|
||
|
19th Apr 2021 9:09am |
|
| excossack Member Since: 22 Feb 2012 Location: North West Posts: 5842 
|
Nice work. Out of interest, did you measure the voltage at the headlights before and after? 1999 Defender TD5 110
Regards John M0VAZ Econet Station 48 no clock |
||
|
19th Apr 2021 1:00pm |
|
|
|
| All times are GMT |
< Previous Topic | Next Topic > |
Posting Rules
|
Site Copyright © 2006-2024 Futuranet Ltd & Martin Lewis
