Monthly Archives: January 2012

Found the missing power

Since fitting the TD5 the performance has been a bit flat at higher revs. While this has been good for fuel consumption figures it’s been a bit annoying. I rigged up a makeshift fuel pressure gauge today using an oil pressure gauge and sender.

Turns out we were only getting 20 psi at the rail, the TD5 is supposed to run at more like 65/70 psi at the rail. I replaced the pickup in the tank with a 300TDi version and it’s transformed the vehicle. A good constant 70 psi at the rail and it shows in the performance. Were it not for the diesel rattle you’d almost think the V8 was back.

Still need to sort the exhaust out though as it’s still running with the “temporary” one I hooked up using bits of the V8 system.

More money spent…

We ordered the roll cage today from Protection and Performance, should be ready in 4-6 weeks. We’re having it delivered to Maddison 4×4 so I can go over and fit it there where there are some extra hands available as and when needed.

It’s an expedition external cage to minimise any loss of interior space but with an internal hoop with cross braces that should make it a lot stronger should the worst happen. The cross should also make a handy mounting point for hanging “junk” from.

The roof tent will mount onto the cage too, giving it a good solid method of mounting.

We’re getting a snorkel with the cage so it matches 🙂

It lives :)

Patrick sorted the problem with the gearbox pipe, it turns out that the push on connector wasn’t quite locating. Some of the steel pipe section needed bending slightly to give the flexible pipe a bit more slack so it would push on properly.

So it’s all up and running now and just needs a bit of bedding in and tweaking. The engine seems a bit low on power at the moment so I’ll need to figure out what’s going on there. It’s fine at low revs but seems to hit a brick wall at higher revs.

It moves… while it did !

Finally got the 90 back on the road after it’s engine and gearbox transplant. We took it for a trip over to see Patrick at Maddison 4×4 so he could help me set up the Compushift to improve the shifting pattern for the electronic auto gearbox.

As it turned out this particular “shakedown” revealed a problem with the gearbox oil cooler pipe on the driver’s side. When we pulled into the petrol station for our first diesel fill up, a passer by pointed out an oil leak at the front. As it turned out the gearbox oil cooler pipe had popped off, probably as we pulled onto the forecourt. Didn’t lose too much oil and managed to get the pipe pushed back on again and continued our journey.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of that particular problem and while Patrick was doing his stuff and showing me how to set up the shift points we lost all drive. The pipe had come off again and, this time, deposited the contents of the gearbox all over the road. We weren’t far from Maddison 4×4 so a quick phone call brought copious amounts of “cat litter” to mop up the spill and we towed it back.

By this time it was dark and getting late so we borrowed a courtesy car for the night and left the 90 with Patrick to see if he could get to the bottom of the problem with the push on connector.