Sandringham 6x6

[sako243]

On to this comment...

20 hours ago, Gazzar said:
Did you mention "design your own ECU"?

I can't remember exactly when it happened but at some point I made the decision not to go Megasquirt (partly cost) but also the faff of machining the crank pulley and fitting a load of brackets - it would be far nicer to use the factory sensors such as the flywheel based VR sensor.

Years ago I remember Speeduino coming out and I was messing about with the Nucleo boards from ST (basically an Arduino form-factor but with a far better, in my opinion, processor on it). ST did something really clever by making development boards (now often cheaper than genuine Arduino boards) fully compatible with the Arduino foot-prints as well as writing some software to make them able to replace any AVR based board by simply choosing the correct board in the menu and clicking compile. However, Speeduino at some point must have hit the performance limits of the AVR processor because I remember trying to cross-compile it (I'd done it successfully for other projects) to find there was a lot of AVR specific optimisations in there which wouldn't work on the STM32s. Revisiting the project it's matured a hell of a lot since then and in-fact one of the core developers has developed an STM32 based Arduino to use instead of the AVR based one.

One of the things that also put me off Megasquirt was a lot of installs seem to be a bit clunky in terms of boxing them up and connectors (not necessarily on this forum). At least with Speeduino being fully open-source and my skill-set I could make a decent enclosure with proper automotive connectors. Josh Stewart the creator of Speeduino also created Dropbear, basically a project from boredom through lock-down a 600MHz ECU just I think because he could and also incidentally claim the title of fastest ECU on the market. What caught my eye wasn't the ECU but rather the enclosure and connectors he had for it - a bit of hunting later and I found something very similar on Aliexpress.

I also came across whilst browsing through the code a UK company called DIY-EFI who rather conveniently make a module called the Core4, basically a Speeduino base-board and Arduino merged into one in a much smaller form factor. I know Megasquirt and Speeduino offer through-hole component and nice chunky components to make things easy for a DIY build but given I'm soldering stuff like this (those four holes are 3.1mm and the processor has 0.25mm pads spaced 0.2mm apart - not even legs poking out of it) the normal surface mount stuff doesn't phase me in the slightest.



So an hour or so with the laptop whilst watching Game of Thrones and a PCB was designed to mount the Core4 module on, with all the signal conditioning for the VR sensors, stepper motor driver (idle air control) and MAP sensor. An hour in the office the following day and this was the result, a nice waterproof ECU housing with proper automotive connectors.



When I was stripping out the Lexus engine way back when I really liked their setup where they had 3 I think of the 5 ECU connectors were dedicated to the engine wiring harness so when you wanted to pull the engine rather than having to dismantle it to get at all the connectors you simply unplugged the appropriate connectors, pulled it through the bulkhead and left it with the engine. This PCB has taken inspiration from there - the gray connector is all the "vehicle" wires, power supply, O2 sensor, fuel pump and debug. The black connector is all the engine wires: ignition, injectors, stepper, crank, cam, IAT, coolant, TPS etc.

There will be a Mk2 of this ditching the Core4 unit and most likely replacing the Atmel processor with an STM32 one and putting it all onto one PCB but the pin-out will likely remain the same to be able to just swap it straight in.

And to not scare @Stellaghost our resident metalworker away some bending and welding of metal later we have a bracket to mount it where YAFB (yet another fuse box) was added by some of the previous owners.



At this point we were well and truly in the lead up to the wedding / limewashing according to the photos on my phone so most of the progress seems to be documented by random photos I sent to @PaulMc for finding out what connectors were (thanks for that!). A significant benefit for running an electronics company at this point because of getting trade account discounts through distributors and not having to pay shipping as connectors were lumped in with other orders thus negating having to trawl through ebay to find the right ones. The other photos appear to be lots of random ones to @Bowie69 along the lines of WTF is this thing and what does it do... (Did I mention petrols were black magic).

Oh and rebuilding the JCB engine - that was fun, purely mechanical but god that thing puts automotive engines to shame. Refitting the sump involved a ratchet strap and bribing a 6-year old child to operate the strap whilst I tried to guide it and bolt it in place. It's about the same weight as a Tdi block.

 

[sako243]

Then wiring started (signified by the Excel spreadsheet held in place on the windscreen)



And one of the reasons why the twist locks were added way back when - changeable bodies. We managed to acquire this box cheap and local, it was an ex-130 service body I think that someone had started to convert into a camper trailer. The trailer "chassis" was useless, I think it was a back sub-frame from a car actually, so it got cut off and a steel frame welded up underneath so the JCB forks could go into it but it is roughly the right size to fit on the back of the Sandringham without too much overhang. God I missed not having the JCB for 18 months - shortly after the engine was rebuilt I totted up and I think it moved 200t of stuff about in the lead up to the wedding... Just shows you how much carp we have...



About a month after the wedding it was my best man's birthday so we met up with them and another friend and all respective families camping in the Cotswolds. Read visiting the distillery and Clarkson's pub... But it was a good opportunity to try out the box, on a trailer rather than the 6x6. So the dance floor from the wedding was repurposed... Double bed for us down below and little bunk-bed for the little one above, little kitchen in the back.



Conclusion from camping - it worked well but improvements to be made (well hardly surprising for a few hours work one evening). Another reason for @Bowie69's prompting is there's been a bit of a push on since we're supposed to be taking it to Scotland this summer...

 

[sako243]

Crank sensor, I forgot some potentially useful information about this.

So rather annoyingly as I found out the manual flywheel and auto flex plate have the timing marks at a slightly different radius and depth

.

The manual flywheel is PSD103340 which is a 60-2 tooth setup with the first tooth 60 degrees before TDC if I recall. According to parts diagrams there's also a different sensor for it AND a different "block" well adapter welded into the block.

Through sheer luck after a bit of Googling I found that Turners appeared to have the correct adapter, EIQ100020.

https://www.turnerengineering.co.uk/products/eiq100020-crankshaft-sensor-housing-used

An email fired off to double check and 20 minutes later I had a response, at 9pm on a Sunday... They didn't know but at £30 I decided to take a punt so ordered it rather than faff about trying to make one. 7am on Monday I had a notification saying it had been dispatched. Fair play!

Old adapter weld ground out and new one inserted. Turned the TIG all the way up and stuck it together.





Wee spacer plate made up - 1/4" Ali bar I had lying around from offcuts from a work project.



And here it is poking through into the flywheel.



Turning over the engine by hand with an oscilloscope attached to it showed it was generating the appropriate waveforms.

The old auto spacer showing the difference in thickness.

 

[sako243]

So the next thing was fuel tank according to the photos. The stupid, hateful annoying setup it came with. I think someone took a fancy to those American cars that you fill through the boot as the filler spout exited through the bed frame. I don't think I ever managed to put more than 20l in because pumps kept cutting out with it being horizontal.



The original sender on the left and a pump I thought would fit in the hole. Oopsie it doesn't. Damn. Also I'd have to sort out a sender, oh well.



Whoops that's a slightly bigger hole than necessary.



Also note the dissapearing filler spout (don't worry there was a spare on the side). But it's the perfect size for a P38 unit (pump and sender all in one).



And a lick of paint

 

[sako243]

Then we get into a bit of an issue...





I mean they fit... But...

Pete was convinced a BFH hammer and/or a pry bar would move them across. A 5ft crowbar and big hammer did nothing.

Interrupted by installing the fuel tank.

 

[sako243]

Now there was a very generous offer from Pete to come down for a weekend and he was convinced we'd get it running. So what happened was a lot of running around gathering bits in prep for his visit.

A belt to drive everything, minus the aircon which annoyingly doesn't quite fit with the wings.



Finding out the radiator mounts need a bit of work to provide some clearance.



And nipping down the road to have a new power steering hose.

 

[sako243]

Then another massive thanks to @Bowie69 for coming down for a weekend. Whilst I set about cutting the exhaust manifolds and welding them back up to make them fit he set about the remaining wiring. The engine side had mostly been done so it was mostly the power distribution side of things which he said I'd simplified a great deal by having an ignition switched 80A relay.

Unfortunately the only photo I have from this manic weekend is this... After Pete left and I was pushing Sandy back in...



Remember how I said petrols were black magic because you had to inject fuel and light it? Well what I didn't fully appreciate was that the fuel just had to be sprayed in the vague vicinity of the engine and the spark at vaguely and I mean vaguely the right time. I think Pete was messing about with ignition timing and it was going from 60 degrees BTDC to 60 degrees ATDC and it was still producing somewhat the right sounds... We were also farting about trying to translate his knowledge of Megasquirt to Speeduino.

Unfortunately I didn't own a timing light nor a tool for finding TDC and the two things Pete forgot to chuck in the back of his car... Yup

.

Shortly after he left some things arrived in the post.



And a donor plug was suitably smashed and modified into an adjustable TDC tool.



Also with a non capped petrol tank and my office above some dismantling of a donor was performed in an attempt to salvage a filler cap before I realised the pipework attached to it was bloody massive.

 

[sako243]

So from going from an engine that was about 1/2 wired up to it actually chatting to the ECU and making attempts to start in a mad weekend a deep breath was taken and investigations started.

According to TunerStudio we were getting good cranking signals until it started to fire then it started dropping out.

Time to break out the big kit... Let's have a look at that signal with a £5.5k sillyscope. Yes it's a bit of an overkill but it makes this kind of stuff a doddle.

This is a decent VR sensor signal when it starts cranking (zoomed in view at the bottom).



And here's the double tooth passing the sensor.

And when it all goes wrong...



So the problem identified here is that a VR sensor generates a higher voltage the faster the sensor passes through the teeth yet as the crank speeds up (as it begins to fire) the voltage falls off. This is actually looking downstream of the signal conditioning on the ECU just before it goes into the microcontroller. The horizontal line is set at 2.2V which is marginal for it detecting it at a 5V logic level.

Some investigation of the PCB and one learnt do not design or populate a circuit board after a beer or two late at night... What should have been a pull-up of about 1k was infact 100k so it wasn't "pulling the signal hard enough". Swapped it out and added another resistor I'd missed off and then we get death of a microphone

 

[sako243]

What came next was dropping the wings back on to starting finding out how other bits were going to work.



Radiator mount mocked up

Well it needed to be lifted up so some measurements were needed.

Sod, P38 GEMs top hose not long enough. Well this rad is quite far forward but it means I don't have to cut out the (probably bodged) front cross member.



Also when things were not firing up the original spark plugs were quite dirty so some new ones were ordered to eliminate those.



Also forgot to note just before Pete arrived I'd asked our local garage if he could get a price on some EFI fuel hose. It was a few quid a reel more than I could source online but he'd have it the same day 3 miles away. Asked him what I owed him and he said "oh we'll sort it out at some point". I've had the invoice for the spark plugs but so far the hose has proven to be a damn sight cheaper than online

. He also donated a bunch of brake line fittings to @Bowie69 when he had the mystery of disappearing brake fluid.

 

[sako243]

Another toy tool arrived to help diagnose the lumpy chuffing.

Oh bugger...



Some time later hunting everywhere I found my cheap crappy bore scope and it actually still worked...

And the omens weren't great.

Double bugger...



Well it was a bit of a punt this engine.

 

[sako243]

We're into late Feb 2024 now and you can probably guess what happened next. Having never been inside a petrol engine...





And the culprit, a burnt exhaust valve.

 

[sako243]

Once again @Bowie69 offers his advice on the end of the phone on I think it was a Saturday night. Although it was funny because he said might as well take the other head off to check since one's got to come off. That happened 20 minutes ago I said.

I also happen to vaguely know a chap who's recently started working for Hargreaves Engineering in Carmarthen. I message him on Sunday asking about what the process would be. I agree to pop them down on Tuesday have a good lengthy chat with him and he introduces me to the boss man Adam who's another LR man. Said they should be able to get around to looking at them mid-next week. Well Thursday I have a phone call from Graham saying they've cleaned, pressure tested them and all okay. They gave them a very light skim to tidy up the faces and what did I want to do about valves etc. We agree to replace all the exhaust ones and new oil seals and reuse the inlet as they're fine.

Tuesday the following week when they were meant to look at them I come home with these. I am building up a substantial list of people who want me to call in and show them the vehicle though...

Only @Stellaghost has been known to turn them around faster.



Only problem was the rest of the engine started looking a bit grubby so some brake cleaner and scotch brite tidied things up a bit.



And a leisurely afternoon was spent reassembling things.



And now we get better vroom vroom noises.

 

[sako243]

One thing that did highlight though was a suspiciously high idle. Thumb over the port on the throttle body confirmed the stepper was not behaving as it should because blocking off the port got it to idle and almost stall out.

A quick (well mornings trip) up to the office and some old code repurposed into a test harness for it.



And some wires (we did take a guess at them) rejigged and all working.

And back into the engine.

That's a bit better.

 

[sako243]

Uh oh some aluminum tube arrived in the post. That means I can't put off the cooling system any longer...



First off a new 88° stat installed. Pete was right they're an absolute sod to get in if the inlet manifold is on.


Next up some welding to keep @Stellaghost happy some bits of rectangular section butchered to make some radiator mounts.



And the rad is installed, with rubber bushes top and bottom

 

[sako243]

Why O why does everything want to be in the same damn corner. That's power steering, power steering hoses, and four coolant pipes all wanting to occupy the same space (expansion bottle hose not shown). Despite it looking like I've managed to find a bottom hose if you look closely they aren't actually connected.

No animals were harmed in the making of this but a top and bottom Defender V8 hose may have met the choppy chops.



Many expansion bottles were offered but only one was chosen.



The original one that came with the vehicle (I think 2.25 or 2.5 petrol?) I did pick up a new Tdi one so I could also include the low level switch but it was going to require quite a bit of work to make it fit. By now the bug of burning petrol making loud noises was really biting so the quickest route was chosen.

Speaking of quick, best learn how to tig weld ali quick...



That didn't go well...



That's looking a bit more hopeful. Guess it's time to try and stick some bits of pipe together...

 

[sako243]

Bead roller stolen borrowed from a customer.



Plan A - well it's glued together without any obvious holes.



Useless plan, into the scrap pile. Well actually the spigots got repurposed into Mk2



That's more like it. Old piece of a 300Tdi expansion hose repurposed for the expansion bottle. Random bit of hose with the right bend for the bypass connection and a P38 GEMs top hose with an extension for the top hose.



That was a successful way to spend my birthday.

 

[sako243]

And we're basically caught up to date, reducer found and installed for the filler neck. The plan is to have a small storage box infront and behind each wheel on either side so on this corner unfortunately it will mostly be taken up by the filler next and twist lock.



A special tool make to replace the headlight switch which has always been dodgy



Alternator feed signal wire found, extended and wired in.

Oil pressure switch wire found, extended and wired in.

Power steering reservoir provisionally mounted. It ideally wants a longer return but I'm waiting on Tomos (local garage) to source some. Genuine stainless Jubilee clamps aren't cheap, okay I didn't use all of them but 10 big ones and 10 smaller ones were £60odd, even with an account discount

Then amazingly on Saturday morning just gone a genuine Stage 1 throttle cable arrived from Brooklands. Thank you to @Gazzar for digging out the part number. It reached albeit with a slight modification to the GEMs bracket (drilled a 7mm hole and slit it to the side to accept the cable).



This meant I could make vroom vroom noises from the cab

 

[sako243]

Yesterday was the first time driving under its own power. There's quite a lot still to do but they're mainly normal LR things like sort the brakes out, paint chassis., etc.

The only two major items left (ones that will require some thought) are intake and air filter and exhaust. The plan for the former is to take out the big metal brace behind the engine which housed a filter previously and see if I can make a 300Tdi one fit. The exhaust is probably just going to dump on the ground like a van to be honest. I've got a few P38 back boxes around to add a bit of silencing. Hopefully that will quieten it down suitably

.

Rear lights are annoyingly mostly cracked (a couple in my ownership but mostly already cracked) and they appear to be Rubbolite M314s similar to some Ifor ones but basically NLA. So after some thought I've just ordered a set of 95mm NAS tail lights which should suitably fill the substantial steel box that's been welded to protect them.

Off the top of my head

• Exhaust
• Air intake
• Fuel gauge
• Rear lights
• Front lights
• Brakes
• Prop UJs
• Annoyingly the rear output seal from the through drive appears to be weeping so that's going to be fun to source
• Slight weep from one of the freewheeling hubs on the centre axle
• Replace PTO with normal plate
• Handbrake
• Doors back on
• New wing mirror glass
• Temperature gauge*
• Weld some twist lock mounts to the flatbed (source some >100mm wide Ali ~1/4" channel)
• Temporary bracket to support fuel filler

Plenty more for after that but that'll be the bare minimum to get it usable on the road I think.

 

[sako243]

Am I seeing correctly you didn't do the timing chain? That's something I'd always replace if I was in there. And judging by the rest of the engine, probably the cam as well.

Things were discussed but at the moment trying to keep the costs somewhat under control - I have just had to spend a couple of hundred quid on lights

. I did check the cam over thoroughly and it looked to be in good condition and amazingly most of the bores still had some cross-hatching visible and generally seemed to be in good condition.

6 hours ago, Bowie69 said:
Ed has another V8 as you know, for which there may be plans.

More than one...

The Thor is quite tempting because it has the different manifold and timing cover which puts the air-con pump up near the middle of the engine rather than sticking out to the side.

One of the things my 110 had until fairly recently was an air-con pump as an air-compressor and that thing was monsterous in it's output, at idle with a 50A plasma cutter attached (which eats air like nobodies business) the 300Tdi was coming on and off load showing that the air-con pump was filling the small P38 air tank I had and supplying the plasma and kicking out because it had reached pressure so quickly. I haven't investigated fully but I think the air-con pump off the GEMs has a proper sump for lubrication which would eliminate the problem I had with the 300Tdi one of having to lubricate it through the air-ports.

You may have spotted the cherry picker in the background - that is also going to be getting the twist-lock arrangement and ideally will have a mains feed, airline and pressure-washer hose fed up the boom for doing maintenance on the house. If Sandy can provide the air supply directly for spraying then it would eliminate having to carry around a separate air-compressor as the engine will have to be running for the hydraulics anyway.

6 hours ago, Stellaghost said:
@Ed Poore I have this if it's any good to you

It is 180mm diameter and 260mm long. Unfortunately the legs are missing, but that's easily sorted with your talents

Regards Stephen

Unfortunately it's a bit too large a diameter so would necessitate changing that bracket anyway. The 300Tdi air filter is 6.75" which I tried and it doesn't quite shove in there, from my previous notes / measurements something about 6 3/8" would work nicely. If I'm taking that bracket off I might also consider fitting the P38 one since I have a spare housing and it was designed for the 4.6, that's just a square box I think. The 300Tdi would have been nice because a simple bend in pipe to the intake plenum and then a pipe can come off the bottom to a snorkel / wing vent like in the 300Tdi.

Fair enough. It's just that the chain is such an easy thing to do while you're this far in.

A fair point but to add to the above - I knew that if I started tearing into the bottom end I'd not stop at the simple stuff, there's quite a lot of space around this engine (particularly in-front) so doing it in situ would be quite easy and it's not a huge amount of work to remove the engine. The wings are only 4 bolts and as I'm going through things I'm making bits and bobs easily dis-connectable, e.g. the ECU wiring, one plug on the ECU and that's the engine harness out with the engine. The only bit left to do is the "power distribution" wiring that Pete put in but those were all planned in a way that once we knew how many wires were run I can source a suitable multi-way wire-to-wire plug (econoseal for the like) so the power distribution side can be disconnected. The starter motor cable needs to come off but the alternator stays in place.

The plan might be to strip out the other P38 bits and build that up into a decent working block but unless something sounds drastically bad from this (which I doubt given the examination) that'll be on the back-burner. The 110 keeps squeaking through it's MOT despite me feeling it shouldn't because of the bulkhead so there's that to sort first. Oh and finish wiring the workshop, office, building my desk, doing more stuff on the house (that won't ever be finished)...

 

[sako243]

A point on the ECU, there may be an interim version with my manual mods but also the addition of (look away @Stellaghost) CAN bus...

In exchange for all the help that @Bowie69 has offered without question I built him an upgrade for LGT. Time for an update Pete

?

One thing that's on the list to sort is a temperature gauge. I'm hoping I can get the standard gauge in the instrument cluster working sensibly but in the mean time the ECU is taking ownership of handling that. So add CAN bus to the ECU and then a wee display to fit where there was an extra 52mm gauge in the middle dash to talk to it and pull off crucial information via the CAN bus.

Long term I'd like to fit a secondary sender to the manifold to hook up to the Stage 1 (I assume) gauge. On that note, does anyone know what the thread is on the port next to the water temp sender (black connector, there is a bolt in it currently just to the right of the red alternator wire above the jubilee clip).

I think it might be a 1/8 NPTF but don't have any imperial thread gauges to confirm. I could always tap it to something bigger.



Since the ECU sender can be calibrated I was going to chuck in a thread compatible VDO sender there for the ECU and then fingers crossed the LR sender (with the JPT connector) is compatible with the instrument cluster gauge.