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| trickster5000 Member Since: 12 Dec 2015 Location: East Yorkshire Posts: 503   
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Very neat wiring as per usual
 Matt.
'89 90 CSW with a 3.5 V8 conversion (WIP) - http://www.defender2.net/forum/topic46809.html |
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27th Jun 2018 1:09pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Thanks
 I do like tidy wiring.
It's a Tayna EXV70 Enduroline, which is a 70Ah leisure battery that fits neatly in the space available in a Disco 3. I bought it for the split charge system on my old D3 and then salvaged it when that went. More recently, it's been used as a second battery for a caravan over winter and has always been maintained with a CTEK, so this will be its' third career. 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 |
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27th Jun 2018 4:27pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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It was probably about three days in total, although spread over a week or so as I ran out of foam part way through
 The beauty of this job though, is that the vehicle remains completely useable even when half finished.
Taking out the interior trim took longer than I expected, partly because I was working out how to do it as I went along. I also got showered with swarf as when fitted in the factory, they put the parts in place and drill them in situ. Putting it back together was much quicker. Some of that time was also spent altering wiring and installing the additional lighting. I used 2mm Silent Coat. Given the immediate difference it makes, it's hard to imagine that the 4mm stuff would be significantly better, to be honest. 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 |
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28th Jun 2018 7:18am |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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A few hours work this evening saw the split charge system installed and connected up. With both batteries removed, I positioned the bracket for the system on the rear edge of the battery platform, drilled holes and screwed it down:
 Click image to enlarge Then, with the batteries both back in position and secured, I made off the cables that connect the VSR to both batteries. The positive was relatively easy as the terminal has some nice big bolts for adding new connections: Click image to enlarge Making the earth connection between the two batteries was trickier as the existing terminal isn't really designed for additional cables. However, with the terminal tightened as much as possible, I managed to squeeze a ring terminal and another (Imperial) nut on the top. I can see me changing this in the MkII installation but for now, it works. Click image to enlarge The connections to the new battery were relatively straightforward and the much smaller earth wire from the VSR was also connected to the second battery earth. And the good news is that it all works! After starting the engine, after only a second there's a noticeable 'click' as the relay kicks in and makes the connection to the second battery. As I need to use my fridge tomorrow, I've temporarily rigged up a 12v socket that's connected to the second battery positive and the earth stud in the bottom of the battery box, but it's very much a lash up and will only serve for one day! So, it's all in and works but it's not perfect and some of it will need to be re-engineered in due course: I'm not happy with the wooden battery platform and intend to re-make it using either nylon or aluminium sheet. The threaded rods that form part of the battery clamps need to be secured at the lower end rather then just having a nut and large washer, as they're a  to tighten in what is now a cramped space.
The power feed to the drivers-side under seat fuse box needs to be re-routed as it's a bit tight, but as this is also a security feature, it was on the cards to do anyway. I've come to realise that the standard LR battery terminals are rubbish and almost impossible to tighten properly. I'd like to replace them but need to look into how to do it and what with. All of that is in the future, though. The next immediate job is to mount the electrical equipment that I want in the rear load space and run power to it from the second battery. Not sure whether to do the latter along the chassis or inside at roof level yet, so need to do a bit of exploring of routes. 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 |
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29th Jun 2018 9:37pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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I've spent some time over the last couple of days making this:
Click image to enlarge It might not look like much but it became something of a labour of love that needed much measuring, many templates and discarded failures! Click image to enlarge So, this oddly shaped piece of hardboard is a key component in the next phase of my electrical installation. It's designed to infill the fake window trim on the passenger side of the rear door, which will be a great place to mount switches and conceal relays. It will be supported on aluminium brackets that will be fixed to the rear panel with Sikaflex and covered with grey vinyl to blend in with the surrounding trim. I'm now waiting for various components to arrive to complete the next stage and hope to progress it during the next week! 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 19th Jul 2018 9:34pm. Edited 2 times in total |
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1st Jul 2018 3:04pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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After spending a bit of time in the evenings this week, an early start this morning to beat the heat allowed me to make a decent amount of progress on my infill panel.
After much, much, measuring and drilling, the mounting brackets are now installed and the panel itself has been trial fitted: Click image to enlarge The panel is secured with black nylon pan head bolts, which will hopefully blend in once it's been covered in grey vinyl. Because absolutely nothing is square to anything else in this corner, I used lots of tape that I could mark on to create reference points, which can be seen here: Click image to enlarge The brackets, which comprise two sets of aluminium angle bolted together to give the correct depth, are glued to the rear bodywork panel with Sikaflex and are positioned vertically. Fixing bolts are screwed into rivnuts, that will allow it to be dismantled without stripping out the trim, should the need ever arise. Click image to enlarge And the final job for today was to mount the main part of a plastic project box to the panel, with screws from the other side: Click image to enlarge The side covered with tape will be where the various switches are mounted, for easy access from the back door. There's a large hole in the panel concealed by the box that will allow wiring into the space behind, where the various control relays and fuses will live. I'm now waiting for various components to arrive before I can mount all of the hardware, after which I'll cover the panel with vinyl. Then it's just a case of installing 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 13th Aug 2018 2:51pm. Edited 1 time in total |
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7th Jul 2018 4:17pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Earlier in the thread I mentioned being unhappy with the LR battery terminals as it seemed impossible to tighten them properly, so this morning I fixed them.
I bought a small square (50 x 50mm) of 0.5mm thick copper, from which I cut two 17mm wide strips (to match the battery post heights) with tin snips: Click image to enlarge The intention was to wrap these around the battery posts, but they proved to be far too thick. I then cut one down to half its' length, which was much more successful: Click image to enlarge I repeated the same on the other terminal: Click image to enlarge This worked a treat. Not only did the terminals clamp the battery posts better, but it wasn't necessary to tighten them excessively to do so. By comparison when I started, the negative terminal just pulled off the post despite the nut being so tight that I couldn't undo it! Whilst I had the terminals off, I took the opportunity to make a longer bolt for the negative. The original was barely long enough to fix a second connection to, so I took a 5mm longer M6 stainless bolt and ground the head down to fit in the slot on the underside of the terminal: Click image to enlarge With that bolt in place, it was then easy to add the connection to the second battery: Click image to enlarge 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 |
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8th Jul 2018 10:25am |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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I'm slowly making progress on all of the components of the electrical installation that I have planned for the rear load space, but there's proving to be a lot of fiddly little bits of fabrication required. For example, part of the circuit that I've designed needs a changeover relay but the only one I could get, unlike the standard relays I'm using, doesn't have a mounting tab on it. So I've added one by cutting and drilling a bit of aluminium strip and gluing it to the relay with epoxy:
Click image to enlarge Not difficult, but half an hour or more of faffing around. I ordered some switch mounts from First Four Off Road that arrived yesterday, so I cut them into the project box shown earlier. This involved some careful marking up, drilling the corners and then steadily cutting out with a razor saw: Click image to enlarge I also drilled a suitable hole for a volt meter. Again, time consuming but I'm quite pleased with the result: Click image to enlarge The graphics on the switches will all need to be changed, for which I think I've got a cunning plan but needs a bit of experimentation. This evening I cut and drilled the mounting plates for the various relays and other components that will be fixed to the back of the infill panel shown above, and started to lay them out: Click image to enlarge I've now realised that the fuse box that I bought is far too bulky and so have ordered what I hope is a more compact version. I'm also now waiting for stuff to turn up! I need some specific small nuts and bolts to assemble the various brackets and two more latching relay modules (the blue boxes towards the bottom of the picture) that appear to be on a slow boat from China
If I'm honest, by choosing to use Land Rover switches I've made this far more complicated than it need be. If I'd gone with something more generic like Carling switches then I could have done away with half of the kit shown in that picture. Still, where's the fun in that? I've quite enjoyed working out the logic to not only achieve the functionality that I want but also to use the OE switches. I even think I've worked out how to modify a switch to provide an ON/ON function, which I need for one particular function. Again, I'm waiting for a latching switch to arrive to test out that theory. In the meantime, here's the latest version of the wiring diagram for this little lot, although there are still a few tweaks needed: Click image to enlarge 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 7th Apr 2020 9:30am. Edited 2 times in total |
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11th Jul 2018 9:31pm |
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| L110CDL Member Since: 31 Oct 2015 Location: Devon Posts: 10810 
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I always find your electrical updates so fascinating and educational and most of all great to read, many thanks LRA
My hat goes off to you  1996 Golf Blue 300Tdi 110 Pick up.
Keeper. Clayton. |
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12th Jul 2018 8:24pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Heh, heh, thanks
 I've got the day off tomorrow for LR tinkering, so hopefully will have more progress to show. 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 |
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12th Jul 2018 10:06pm |
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| L110CDL Member Since: 31 Oct 2015 Location: Devon Posts: 10810
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1996 Golf Blue 300Tdi 110 Pick up.
Keeper. Clayton. |
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13th Jul 2018 7:49pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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I've made a bit more progress over the last couple of days. Most of Friday was spent routing a conduit for a 70amp cable from the battery box to near to the rear lights. Despite taking the rear wheel off to improve access, the biggest challenge was removing the plastic shield from in front of the rear lights, as one of the screws had rusted solid. I ended up having to drill it out and, when putting it all back together, used some new stainless screws.
As part of the grand plan, I need a signal from the reversing light, so I made up a short lead with male and female Econoseal connectors on the ends and a loose wire spliced in. This plugs in between the existing loom and light. Click image to enlarge This shot shows the lead in position with the existing loom female connector cable tied to the new 16mm conduit. The latter terminates behind the rear LH speaker cover alongside the rubber grommet for the lighting. The extra yellow wire can be seen following the existing lighting loom upwards, where it passes through the rubber grommet. Click image to enlarge The new conduit follows the route of a similar sized existing one: Click image to enlarge Further forward, the conduit passes close to part of the exhaust. The existing is protected against heat with some sort of wrapping so I added some heat shield material to the new conduit, too: Click image to enlarge At the rear end, the conduit is terminated with the proper threaded fitting but at the battery box I decided to use an existing hole and drill out the large rubber grommet that was already in place: Click image to enlarge Inside the battery box, the new cable was connected up to the 60amp fuse that will protect that run. I've left quite a long tail on the cable in case I change the layout of the equipment in the battery box at a later date. Click image to enlarge I haven't made the final connection to the battery yet as I don't want it live whilst I'm still building the rest of the installation. At the rear end, the cable terminates on a busbar that I've mounted inside a plastic enclosure: Click image to enlarge When it's finished, that enclosure will have a lid marked with a suitable warning: Click image to enlarge In that picture, you can also see the yellow wire that's the feed from the reverse light and my homemade earth busbar. The latter is a short length of aluminium angle, screwed down to the wheel box and fitted with six self-tapping screws on which earth wires can be terminated. Todays' job was to install the wiring for the rear work lights and load space light, and create a feed from the switched supply of the interior lights, all of which required half the trim and head lining removing to get at. This new section of wiring loom is fixed to the inside of the rear of the roof and passes down into the space behind the trim to the side of the rear door for later connection: Click image to enlarge I also installed the new rear work lights, which began with making some rubber gaskets to fit between the light brackets and the rear roof panel: Click image to enlarge After a lot of very careful measuring, two light brackets and stainless glands for their power cables were installed above the rear door: Click image to enlarge The lights themselves are a pair of 18w LED flood lights, which have been positioned so that they don't project above the roof and are not obscured by the rear door being opened. Click image to enlarge Click image to enlarge I was originally going to go for a Scenelight positioned centrally above the door but it interfered with plans that I have for a reversing camera. Also, two lights spaced as these are should reduce shadows and give a more even light over a wider area. That's the theory, anyway. 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 29th Mar 2020 8:06am. Edited 3 times in total |
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14th Jul 2018 9:38pm |
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| L110CDL Member Since: 31 Oct 2015 Location: Devon Posts: 10810
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Many thanks for another great read
In the third pic down, you show where the yellow cable connection male/female is, did you take off the plastic protector to protect it from the elements ? 1996 Golf Blue 300Tdi 110 Pick up. Keeper. Clayton. |
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16th Jul 2018 8:20pm |
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| LandRoverAnorak Member Since: 17 Jul 2011 Location: Surrey Posts: 11324
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Yeah, that's the thing I wrestled with that I mention in the first paragraph.
I've got a set of Gwyn Lewis shields to go on there but I'm waiting until September when I will have had it Dinitrolled. 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 |
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16th Jul 2018 9:12pm |
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