As has been noted earlier, the AC has had its fair share of fuel flow problems. Ranging from the large (a rotten fuel tank) to the tiny (a flake of corrosion in the accelerator pump). Here’s a few things that were done to try and cure it.

Firstly, replace the filters that sit on top of the fuel tank drain plugs. They may not seem like much, but internally the fuel intakes come down inside the tank, and slip inside the filters that are on top of the plugs. This fine mesh is the first line of defence against rubbish in the fuel tank. We thought we could get away with old ones that had a slight tear in them. After a few weekends of running, further inspection showed a pile of gunk sitting inside the filter! This would lead directly to the fuel pump…

The second thing to do was to insert an inline filter between the fuel solenoid (since the AC has two fuel intakes), and the fuel pump. This is just a bog standard plastic inline fuel filter after the solenoid, and is there to save the pump from any rubbish that somehow gets past the gauze filters on the drain plugs. We also took the chance to replace all the fuel hoses between the solenoid and the carburettor. The existing hoses were coming up on 30 years old, so we though it wise to avoid any rubber degradation issues and replace the whole lot in one go.

Roughly at the mid-point now, we opted to change the fuel pump. It had been noted that the fuel was flowing back down the line after the car had been left to sit for a day or two. This made starting it particularly difficult, and was probably the precursor to a failed pump. Add to that all the rubbish that had been coming through the fuel system in those weeks of diagnosis, the pump filter had been cleaned out more often then we had had hot meals. A new pump was fitted, and the fuel draining problem immediately vanished.

Annoyingly though, we were still experiencing problems with fuel flow. Between Gordon and I, we must have stripped the about 20 times. Every time it would work great for 20, maybe 50, miles before reverting to its normal way of not letting any fuel flow when under load.

Convinced it was a problem of more rubbish in the fuel system, we decided to fit another filter after the pump and before the carburettor. Initially we went for the cheap plastic inline filters that are readily available, but we didn’t leave it in that configuration for very long for another reason – we fitted a Filter King instead.

The Filter King not only acts as a filter, but it also has a sedimentation bowl which doubles as a small fuel reserve. Any rubbish floating in the fuel can fall to the bottom of the bowl whilst the fuel in the bowl can continue to be drawn upon by the carburettor. We initially tried the Filter King before the fuel pump, but it’s clearly designed to have fuel pushed through it. The pump couldn’t draw air hard enough to draw fuel into the Filter King, and nothing worked. Now, the AC 3000ME range historically has a problem of fuel starvation during a long corner. This is most likely due to the shape of the fuel tank, but appears to be mostly mitigated by the Filter King now.

Sadly, after all this work, the fuel was still not flowing as planned. At higher revs after 30 minutes of running it would start to cut out. Something was clearly wrong, and all things started to point to the carburettor… no matter how many times we stripped it down and rebuilt it!

When you blip the throttle on the AC, it activates the accelerator pump. This pumps a higher than normal amount of fuel into the carburettor in order to rapidly increase the revs of the engine. It also ensures the engine stays running and doesn’t cough and splutter to a halt. Sound familiar? After much poking and prodding, I discovered that the one of the two accelerator pump outlets was partially blocked! These outlets start at about 4mm across, and narrow to about 0.5mm. That’s why it had passed our cursory blowing through the thing to see if it was clear. Using a small length of wire from the fuel hosing braiding, the passageway was cleared, and tiny flake of white aluminium corrosion fell out…

So that was it, all those problems were caused by a tiny bit of corrosion that had worked itself up to the narrowest gap it could wedge itself into. Although it seems like we were on a wild goose chase for a lot of it, I believe that a lot of worthwhile work was still completed. Replacing the drain plug filters was definitely required, the pump was on the way out, and the Filter King cures some edge case starvation problems, as well as providing a handy visual indicator for the state of fuel flow in the system.

Recently I’ve been looking at getting a computing device into the Land Rover. Short of buying a full sized 7″ touch screen, I opted to go for a slightly cheaper £20 4×20 LCD display. This was more to be proof of concept, and give me a starter to work on, before I decide whether or not to put a full sized screen in.

Ultimately, I purchased a SmartieLCD module from Ebay. It arrived, I plugged it into my laptop running Windows at work, and it worked first time. Now it was time to get it working with LCDProc!

Earlier on I had spotted that SmartieLCD in Windows used the Matrix Orbital DLL file. Sadly, when using LCDProc in Linux, Matrix didn’t work at all. It was time to go looking

Enthused by http://lists.omnipotent.net/pipermail/lcdproc/2009-July/013021.html, and manufacturers documentation, I decided to check out the CVS copy of LCDProc. The last ‘release’ was back in 2007, so if I was to get anything recent it would have to be from CVS

cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@lcdproc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lcdproc login
cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@lcdproc.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/lcdproc co -P lcdproc

Having a look around the source files indicate that Sure Electronics displays were supported, but not enabled by default. A simple ./configure flag would enable them, so it was time to get compiling. Firstly some support files have to be installed first.

sudo apt-get install libusb-dev autogen automake

After that, kick off the build process, and enable Sure Electronics support at configure time.

sh ./autogen.sh
./configure –enable-drivers=SureElec
make
sudo make install

Now that the software is installed, LCDd needs configured in order to send data to the LCD display.

sudo vim /usr/local/etc/LCDd.conf

In here, a few parts need changed -

driver=SureElec
DriverPath=/usr/local/lib/lcdproc/
Edition=3
Contrast=200
Brightness=480

And that’s it! Execute /usr/local/sbin/LCDd, and you should get a Clients: 0 and Screens: 0 on the LCD display.

All is good!

Work continues on the Land Rover, and it’s mostly road legal now. More than it’s ever been in the past 3 years

Things now fitted include…
Front lighting grills
Radiator grill
Reversing switch and lamp
New floor
New seats
Replaced foglight wiring and switching
New dashboard switches
Extra windscreen to roof seal
27A Rear accessories electrical supply
Repaired offside rear hub
New hub bolts and gaskets
Battery clamps
Forward fuse box and circuit
New gearbox frame and lever
Fuel cap

It’s pretty much good to go for an MOT. It just needs grease and oil in the right places. I don’t know if I’ll manage to get it ready before I go on holiday, but it would be nice. On the other hand, it would be preferable to get things like the door trims, lighting, radio gear and computer installed before an MOT. Just get it all done before the big day really.>

For a while now the AC fuel system has been extremely temporamental. At times it works great, other times it starves the carb of fuel, and when left overnight the fuel drains back into the tank. It was noted that this could be signs of pump failure, and the garage later confirmed that during the MOT.

Just this evening, I got around to replacing the pump. On this AC at least (can’t vouch for the 130 others ) the pump is wedged between the alternator and the end of the engine. With about 4 inches of space to work around, it’s a bit of a pain. On the oh-no-o-meter, it’s about 7.5/10. Whereas the TR6 and the Land Rover pumps are down at around 3.

Firstly, remove the bolt at the bottom of the alternator. This is the adjuster bolt, and the adjustment arm will drop away, allowing the alternator to be swivelled in a bit to remove the belt. Next up, remove the two bolts at the top of the alternator that attach it to the mounting frame. Swivel the alternator up and over and rest it on the manifold or heatshield.

Now that the alternator is out the way, you can get access to the bolts that hold the alternator frame in place. There’s one bolt into the block, and another 3 (!) down the front of the timing cover. Remove the top two bolts, and loosen the lower one. This will allow the frame to be swivelled backwards and out of the way to give you access to the fuel pump.

Remove the fuel pump simply by removing the two bolts (and optionally the stud, if it chooses to come out first), and slip the pump off. Prepare the surface on the block, remove the remains of the previous gasket, and generally tidy up the surface. You don’t want any oil leaking out of here. Put on a coating of Hylomar Blue on the surface of the mount and the pump, put the gasket on (make sure it’s the right way up), and then bolt the two together.

In good old Haynes fashion, refitting is the reverse of the removal. Line up the alternator mount/frame, stick the bolts in loosely, and then put in the last, small, bolt that holds it to the block. Once that’s in place, tighten up the remaining three. This leace the alternator free to be mounted, the belt to be put on, the adjustment arm to be connected, and off you go.

After a slight hiatus, progress has been made on the TR6. Last Saturday, I managed to head out to the garage and get the fuel pump changed, along with the pipework to the carburettors. Instead of solid pipework snaking around the rocker cover and being held in place by a bracket attached to the thermostat, it’s now shiny braided hose (originally bought for the AC), secured in place with P-Clips.

 

My dad had taken the time to remove the old rocker cover, clean the head, and fit the new gasket and rocker cover. It looks the part, and I just need to clean up the block now

Also on the completed list are the seat rails. Bill had come out for a catchup, so he devised a cunning method of replacing the rivnut in the floor with a welded in replacement. This allowed the seat rail to be bolted down correctly and finished off. I just need to fabricate a plate for the control rod latch on the seat rail, and all will be good.

This Saturday afternoon was spent fitting the new ignition coil, distributor cap and HT leads. Last week I’d cleaned and adjusted all the spark plugs but it still ran rough today. Somehow… all the plugs were still set wrongly. Readjusted them, and all 6 cylinders fire nicely

The smooth(er) running highlights one other issue. The rockers need adjusted.

Well, it’s hit a little obstacle in the project timeline. After preparing the Land Rover for the upcoming chassis swap by Sundown Farm, we called them up to book a time. Earliest time available is February 2009

In the meantime, work will continue on the TR6, and I’ll try and spend some time replacing the seatbox and floor panels on the Land Rover.

Stage 1 of Many was completed tonight. The Land Rover finally had various items removed before it gets sent off to some nice people who are going to replace the chassis on it. It’s been a long time coming, but as the photographs show, it’s desperately needed.

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One very rotten floorbox. This is a compartment under the passenger seat – I’m glad I didn’t keep anything in it, as it’s ready to fall out any second.

Spring hangers being held onto the rear chassis leg with a ratchet strap on long term loan from Mike. Don’t worry Mike, I’ve not forgotten

The best way to hide the fact that a ratchet strap is holding your suspension together is to tuck it away neatly. Well, it was neat until I started pulling things out the back…

Removed so far… spotlights, auxiliary headlights, rear working light, amateur radio antenna, fm radio antenna, roof light bar, center cubby box & console, front and back seats, spare wheel, loadbay protective covering, various bits of interior trim around the floor, and some driving lights.

Other than the rear step and military tow hooks at the front, it’s pretty much good to go.

I’m so easy to please Dad surprised me today with a new toy in the garage, a 1Kw portable generator. Ideal for transporting to friends houses and sheds for working on stuff.

It occurred to me that recently I uploaded some AC manuals so that others with a similar interest can have access to them. I scanned them in so that the garage could have a copy to mess about with, and I don’t have to worry about the originals.

Enjoy

Finally got the exhaust of the TR6 fixed. A bit of a hassle it was, as the corrosion had rusted a hole in around one of the rear mounts. The whole rear section had to be cut off, done a week or so ago by Gordon, and then over the course of a few nights I trimmed off the bad metal and welded in a patch. Today was the big day as the exhaust was mounted back on, this time using a home made connector, and sealed up with Gun Gum and a Gun Gum bandage around the joint. After half an hour of idling, we had a toasty warm exhaust with no holes in it. Job done