Sandringham 6x6

[sako243]

Round 2, remembered some photos this time



Also dumped one of the boxes that came with the cherry picker against the headboard, just ratchet strapped to the bulkhead for now but some much needed storage that can at least keep things out of the dry.

The eagle eyed amongst you may notice a couple of other additions not quite finished yet.

 

[Morris]

@sako243 you mentioned using Auto tune. Was this in TunerStudio?
I'm looking at doing the same and wondered how you got on with it, also why did it mess up the tickover part of the map?
Sorry for the diversion.

 

[sako243]

@sako243 you mentioned using Auto tune. Was this in TunerStudio?
I'm looking at doing the same and wondered how you got on with it, also why did it mess up the tickover part of the map?
Sorry for the diversion.

Yes. Basically I was advised by a friend to do the idle bits of the map manually and lock the cells so it doesn't mess them up.

I'm not 100% sure what happened but my fat fingers unlocked those cells and whilst I was at some roadworks I was struggling to keep it idling. Rather than have issues going through I quickly reverted it back to a known good tune.

I haven't had a chance to look but I did change one of the gauges to see the AFR and it was basically bottomed out. There are two AFR gauges and I may have selected the wrong one or there might be something funky happening with the wideband that caused the tune to go iffy.

As I said haven't really investigated as I was in the middle of traffic so just wanted to get home before doing anything. Just haven't had time to go back and look.

 

[Morris]

Thanks.

 

[sako243]

Confirmation today somethings not right with the wideband - had it on for the drive to my parents this afternoon (only a few miles) but the AFR gauge didn't move at all.

 

[sako243]

Well wideband investigations continue. First time I opened up the battery box the controller blinked one red led which indicated a shorted heater circuit. Then it just blinked the green initialising light then nothing indicating no power.

I pulled the wideband and it's sooty to say the least from all the oil it was burning.



Checked connections and everything looked okay, did various checks and everything seemed to be powered as it should be. I found the horrible little Molex mini fit connectors were badly loose (likely because of my probing).



I squeezed them back together under the microscope and they were much better fit. I eventually found the diagnostics connector and plugged it into the laptop. Now after the connector tweaking it's warming up to about 20% and then getting stuck there.

A bit of research and it might still be a wiring issue or the wideband might have been cooked by all the oil burning previously in the exhaust.

Next stage I think will be to pull the lambda back out and fire it up with it outside of the exhaust and see if it actually gets hot. If it does then something funky is going on if it doesn't it might still be wiring but possibly also confirms it's been damaged and a new one will be required

 

[jsf55]

I cleaned mine once and it came back fine, if you clean it with brake cleaner after a scrub with a wire brush you might be lucky. I tested mine by putting a cloth over it soaked in brake cleaner once fired up and it dropped to 7.5 ( Bosch Lsu 4.2)
Second time it was dead, after trying a cheap after marker one i gave up and bought a new AGM set up and it's worked fine so far.

 

[sako243]

I've got nothing to lose really but I'll pull it out of the exhaust and fire it up externally to see how hot it gets. Then I'll give it a scrub with brake cleaner and see what happens.

The only other way to test it would be to tap into the wires for it so I can see what's going on.

 

[sako243]

Well some tidying up done so at least the nose can be pulled in. Makes getting underneath a bit easier on a smooth floor. It also doesn't fit inside with everything else in there with the bumper on but as it's my daily it's getting used most days.



Lambda pulled out and fire applied. That's a bit cleaner now, didn't get a chance to check it as I ran out of time this evening but I'll try and remember to take the laptop on the school run to see.



And a goodie arrived in the post. Typical no instructions anywhere to be found but for £98 to the door I can't expect much. Might see how much it can be dismantled in case I can rearrange it in a more suitable fashion.

 

[sako243]

Some more goodies arrived from China.



Slight cock up with not having some components in stock when I thought I did but was able to program it and get the display up and running.



Time to order some more crimps for the connector and the correct LDO - the one I had in stock was a 5V out not 3.3V.

Then to install some extra wires into the ECU to hook up the relevant connectors for it to chat to.

 

[sako243]

Well some time has passed and some time has been spent messing about with lambda sensors. After checking over wiring and various bits and bobs I was reasonably confident it was the sensor itself as it according to the diagnostics software to the controller it wasn't heating up properly so a new one was ordered.

Offending culprit out and new one installed.



Then it wouldn't start... It started playing funny buggers and behaving oddly and doing all sorts of things but not actually starting. Pulled out the USB cable from the laptop and fired straight up.

The USB cable was a quick fix to get things up and running as when @Bowie69 was down now over a year ago I couldn't find my FTDI cable so just drilled a hole in the housing to expose the USB port on the inside of the ECU. I was not suspicious of it having just been left one end in the engine bay and one end in the dash in a humid and damp Wales. I not particularly like USB cables at the best of times.

First port of call add some wires to the "vehicle" connector on the ECU to bring the UART(s) and power through the bulkhead.



With the delivery of my missing bits from Mouser I could progress on with the gauge build. ECU extracted from vehicle and hooked up to the gauge on the bench and after much messing about because of things misbehaving live values now being reported reliably.



Whilst the ECU was out decided to hot glue the hole for the now redundant USB cable (I had to reverse engineer a bit of the module I bought so I could put the Silicon Labs USB chip into reset because it was playing funny buggers). Also conformal coated the board finally and hot glued the temporary permanent capacitor that was added.



ECU back into the vehicle and a quick test. Sensible values. Good. It's nice when things just work.



Next up some 3D printing to see if I could squeeze everything inside a "52mm" hole, actual bore of the inside is 47mm.



Much fiddling around because of a compromise I made to make the print easier to design the gauge is installed and just waiting on the back threaded cap to finish printing to complete it.



And the main UART is also temporarily wired to an Econoseal in the dash so that it's a bit more of a robust connection. Adapter made up which can live inside the vehicle.



Now hopefully with a working AFR reading I can go back to tuning...

However in an interesting turn of events whilst working on the AFR a chap turned up to notify us of a rally going past. Turns out he's just up the road and does a fair bit of tuning for rally cars and V8s as well as builds them. Knew a lot of mutual people between us as he uses the steering controllers I build for someone else.

Might pop in and see what he thinks about tuning this up...

 

[sako243]

Forgot I also swapped out the nuts and bolts on the front sheet of the bed for some rivnuts to make it less faffy if I need it off.

Since the weather was nice I also thought I'd tackle the weeping freewheeling up. Turned out all the 5/8ths bolts had backed off - not sure why as they have lock washers on. Cured that leak but was still leaking from the end cap so a bit of dog tin cardboard box to the rescue and a gasket was made.



Two of the Allen bolts were worn / damaged (and I think the threads too) so weren't engaging properly but an M4 was close enough pitch to whatever they are to engage and although mismatched work for now until I can properly sort it out.

Then going to park it back undercover I got distracted and ended up wiring in the USB socket, and did it properly through my connector block and to the fuse box in the conduit. I also whilst I was there added some more conduit to the bits of the wiring loom that were missing some at the back of the engine.



At least I can keep my phone charged next weekend laning with it whilst the maps are on.

 

[sako243]

Well it had a run out today with the gauge plugged in. Got a few miles down the road and noticed the AFR was pretty much leaning towards the lean side of things. Being prepared I pulled over and plugged the laptop in and bumped up the base fueling from 18 to 19. There's some funky behaviour when TunerStudio gets introduced to the mix (was trying the autotune) with the gauge, to be investigated...

Anyway it was way happier drinking more dino juice and it's stopped it stalling when the clutch is dumped coming up to junctions which is a massive improvement.



Sitting in a nice queue for about 45 minutes waiting to get into the hospital let me study the idle behaviour via the gauge. The load was minimal so I think a little fiddle of the base idle screw is needed, was idling about 850rpm initially but the stepper was "bottomed" out.



There's something a little funky happening with the alternator, seems to take a good few minutes or more (at least today) for it to kick in and bump the voltage up to 14V but once it kicked in it stayed there. Something to monitor and investigate. Battery hasn't been on charge at all since it's been on the road so it's obviously charging, I'd just expect it to start more or less straight away. The charge light also doesn't light up with the ignition on but I've been known to dislodge that before.

Then a little visit up to @Chris Davies to stretch it's legs a bit more, apparently it's too quiet as he didn't hear it arrive or coming through the village

. On the run home in torrential weather it had plenty of power (I'd say about twice as fast as the 110 getting to 60mph). Lots of wind noise through the doors and shaking of those, the hinges have a little play but it means that wind noise at 70mph is substantially louder than the engine. Might actually be quite pleasant once they shut properly.

 

[knighty]

I'm impressed you're still cracking on, it's all too easy to start slacking once things are up and running!

 

[GRW]

On the run home in torrential weather it had plenty of power (I'd say about twice as fast as the 110 getting to 60mph).

Sounds like you're having fun pressing the Loud Pedal

 

[sako243]

I'm impressed you're still cracking on, it's all too easy to start slacking once things are up and running!

If I'm heading to Scotland in it next month I need some confidence in it. I'm pretty happy with the engine but it hasn't had a decent long run yet, probably about an hour and a half non stop run today to Swansea.

Annoyingly front prop has some play in the splines so that's quite important to sort. Very high up the list is try and sort out the door alignment and sealing because the wind noise at 70mph is pretty bad.

Sounds like you're having fun pressing the Loud Pedal

All in the aim of tuning . I can almost see the fuel gauge going down though but I think the sender is maxed out long before I actually have a full tank which is nice in some respects because I get better resolution as I'm nearing empty. I don't think I've actually managed to fill the tank fully yet because of breather issues and horizontal filter neck.