Working Though the List

I’m slowly working through the list of completion jobs. I have had the last few days off, so haven’t driven the 109 recently. It’s clocked up about 300 miles now.

I have “tuned” the rear fuel tank’s sender unit to the gauge. The gauge was indicating roughly 3/4 with a full tank. The problem was in the movement of the float arm – the top restricting peg needed moving up a little to allow more arm and potentiometer rotation, and the arm needed a little increase in its bend to get the potentiometer to its full travel without the float being restricted by the top of the tank. With this done, the gauge now reads correctly. I’ll have to do the same for the front tanks, but it shouldn’t take more than thirty minutes in total. I’m glad I decided to make the rear tank inspection plate so big when rebuilding the tub – I had considered omitting it all together to retain floor strength, before coming up with a solution that retained the strength but also gave easy access. It really made the job a doddle.

I have also fitted the Defender mud flaps. I had to use these, as opposed to SIII flaps, because of the wheel offset and spacers. Doing so caused some issues, due entirely to the completely different configuration of the Defender chassis – there were no common chassis points for the mounting of 109 and 110 mudflaps.
The front pair use SIII front flap brackets with new holes drilled for the flap bolts. The inboard end bolts to a rivnut in the chassis. The outer end was straightened and has the outer bracket support hole used by the outer flap retaining bolt. This passes through the bracket and flap into a rivnut in the front of the reinforced sill.

The rear pair were fitted to the tub wings in the standard 109/110 fashion. The inboard end of the brackets needed a vertical extension to account for the difference in the shape of the chassis main rails – 109s have straight rails behind the axle, but 110s have a downward swoop. I also had to cut a significant oval in the left flap and bracket to allow the exhaust pipe to pass through – the pipe routings are also very different between models. It all just goes to show how none of my mods can go on simply!

I got around to fitting anti-rattle washers to the seatbelt fixings, and have ordered a Smart Screen intermittent windscreen wiper system. It gives between 3 and 30 seconds of delay by measuring and mimicking the time interval between consecutive applications of a single sweep on the standard wiper switch, so doesn’t need any new switchgear. It will also automatically give me three sweeps after pressing the washer jet button. I’ll be fitting that at the same time as I fit the new washer nozzles – the bonnet mounted spare upsets the airflow and the standard nozzles randomly splatter water onto the screen. I have bought a pair of small three-nozzled heads that attach to the end of the wiper arm. With a length of black rubber hose clipped to the arm, running from the original pipework, I’ll have three washer nozzles per side which spray from an inch away from the glass and move with the wiper blade.