Hi, as the title sugests I'm in New South wales, Australia and was wondering if any others readers are local to me? I'll have to reset the settings on my camera as the standard picture is 2Megs and I'm not able to download them, a pity as I have some interesting ones of a recent 12 week long trip through the Simpson Desert through the "1000" sand dunes to the Alice and then down to Ayres Rock and back home via the Tamani Desert to the Kakado National Park and some great days hunting scrub bulls and water bufalo before going up to Cape York.
My "beast" is a 1999 Discovery 4 cylinder 2.5 litre 300 TDi. When I first got it it had the 4 speed auto box but I had the engine replaced with the new generation cylinder head at the same time I had a R380 5 speed gearbox with cross drilled gears and a reconed transfer box installed.
The PTO on the trany is fitted with an auxillary oil pump that circulates oil from the gearbox through the oil cooler that remained when the auto box was removed. The engine has its own air cooled oil cooler and the radiator oil cooler was removed and the radiator modified to increase the cooling capacity. I've had Detroit Truetrac lockers fitted front & rear differentials, a "Safari" snorke fitted along with an ARB bull bar with a 12500 kilo winch and a heavy duty steel rear bumper.
Most times I run it on home brew bio-diesel.
Other mods include twin battery set-up, HDI lighting and conversion of all the other bulbs to LED's for longer life, the standard radiator fan was replaced with an thermostatically controlled three speed electric unit rescued from a Diahatsu Truck.
The air bags, anti-theft module and anti-lock braking were removed to simplify the electrics. The standard shocks replaced with bilsteins and the springs replaced with +25mm units and the brakes upgraded with Mk3 units with the larger disc pads. I had a Land Rover 145 litre fuel tank fitted very early in the piece and it has a stand-by electric pump should the mechanical one on the engine pack-up.

 

Nice rig! Link us some pics of that beast! There are a handful of aussies on here not many though.

 

Use Photobucket and link the pics here, when you upload your pics there you cut an s paste the image code here and the pic appears in the post here

 

What Tweak said.
Image hosting, free photo sharing & video sharing at Photobucket
Upload your pics to the free image hosting site.
Then once thats done find the pic you want to put on the forum, copy the "img code" tab and paste it here.
Like this.







If you put a space or two between the pics it is easier to read the thread and you can put text above each pic too.
If you have a iPhone you can download the Photobucket app and take pics and upload them to photobucket from your phone.

 

Thank you,
All your comments have been taken on board and I'll try them, Oh, and while I'm not a Ludite I dont have a mobile phone, with very little coverage out in the Australian bush once you leave the confines of the cities and towns there doesn't seem to be any point in getting one, I do have a satellite phone though but it doesn't have a camera built in to it.
My little toy is currently off the road while I play with a better design water pump (the original pressed steel impellor is crap) and I'm having an additional 1/2" tube core fitted to the radiator. I'm seriously thinking of trying a Craig Davies electric unit - has anyone tried this option?

 

Are you talking about electric engine cooling fans?
Or a electric water pump?

 

Hi Spike,
Currently I have a 3 speed Diahatsu (off a 6 cylinder diesel tipper truck) thermostatically controlled fan, low speed comes on at 70 degrees, medium at 80 and high at 90. It generally maintains DELIVERY water temp from the radiator at around 85-90 the RETURN to the radiator from the thermostat housing is a different kettle of fish being up around 110 degrees which indicates very poor circulation through the engine.
Point here, (and because I'm an old fart and anally retentive ) the welsh plugs were removed and the block was shot blasted through the water jacket and then fully chemically cleaned before it was assembled with a new crank, pistons, rods etc. The badly scored bores were machined out and dry liners pressed in and then bored out to the original standard diameter. An old mate who prepares drag cars motors did the rebuild and the crank, rods, pistons, flywheel, crank pulley and clutch have all been balanced to drag car specs. When she runs she purrs!!
On days when the ambient temp is over 30 Deg. C (at least 85 days of the year during summer) after a long run and even after around 3 minutes turbo cool down idle time once the engine is switched off the water temperature shoots up, not to the point that it causes the header tank to discharge but very close to it, using a the same thermocouple inserted into the header hose I measured the water temperature at the thermostat housing at 125 degrees C.
The reason I'm thinking of switching to the Craig Davies Cooling Fan and Electric Pump combination are that they have a thermostatic controller and are both independently speed controlled from 240 RPM (10%) to 2400 RPM (Fan) and 85 to 850 RPM (pump)and they will continue to run even after the engine is turned off until the water temp is down to 80 deg.C. The EWP115 delivers a claimed 85 l/m (1300 US gallons per hour) at 5.8 PSI static which is an increase of 45% water delivery over the original pump at 2500 RPM engine speed which is my cruising speed of 110 kilometers per hour, the maximum permitted speed in NSW.
Any comments or ideas? Personally I'd like to keep the original pump, if only because plumbing in the EWP is going to be a nightmare but the original pump with its pressed metal impellor is crap (at 63 I can **** further and discharge more water) and the cast alloy replacement doesn't appear to be much better, I wonder haw LR managed in their high temperature desert tests?

 

I think the electric fan's would be a since to install.
But the water pump...
Not sure if you have a/c or not, if you do you could always hook up those fans to a switch that you turn on or off as needed, either a thermo switch or manual and they would run even after the engine was shut down.
If you do not have a/c those fans are easy to get and to install, then again install them on a switch.
As for the water pump, have you thought about installing a electric water pump to work with the original pump?
Have you thought about a bigger radiator?
Instead of a 3 core you go 4?
I have zero experience with electric water pumps on cars, so I'm of little help there.
Also have you thought about making your own Saudi Grill?
Check the tech section on the DI page, it is a high air flow grill that was OEM for trucks sold in the Middle East where it is 100% hot 120% of the time.
They are no longer made but you can make your own for pretty cheap.

 

Thanks for that Spike.
The radiator IS a 4 row high volume unit and using 1/2" tubes in lieu of the standard 3/8".
I was intending to put the electric pump in as well as the original (it doesn't do a great deal anyway so.........)
I have A/C and the fans are controlled by the refrigerant head pressure.
I've heard of the "Saudi Grilles" but never seen one. In any case the other problem we have in Oz is bugs, bloody millions of them -- we have bush flies big enough to pick you up and fly off with you -- and they really do clog up the A/C radiator unless you fit a temporary insect screen over the front of the grille, I have a "tailored" one that is always in the back of my Disco that has rubber straps fitted to sewn-in eyelets for easy and fast install, the other time I use it is when I'm driving through long grass to stop the rads from getting clogged with grass seeds.

 

We used to take window screen and cut it to size for the grill of our pick up trucks when I was a kid to keep the bugs from clogging the radiator.
If you used the right kind you could hose it off and reuse it, when it got to old or could not be cleaned you just threw it away and made a new one.
So I know exactly what you mean about the bugs and pollen and junk clogging your radiator and restricting your air flow.