Sunday, October 2, 2011
Ah, time for another blog entry.
It's all quiet, and we are counting the days before going home. Just a few days to go! The trip has been busy but uneventful.
At home there are a few developments. Our current neighborhood is a bit dodgey, and noisy day and night. We love our house, and have spent a long time making it pretty and Isolde did amazing work with the garden.
Unfortunately, no amount of work will improve the neighborhood, and so we decided to move to a better neighborhood in the same town. We'll certainly miss our old house, and I will take a few photos just as we move out.
The new house id a gem, though. I was leasing it out, and it will take a month before the current tenants vacate the place. Then it probably will take another week of serious fixing and painting before we can move in. The we will have to do a bit of painting on the old house and then we can start looking for tenants for that house.
One of the unexpected benefits of the new house is that Ethen's current best friend will practically become a neighbor. Here is an image from google earth.
We will have to start all over again with gardening, but at least we have the sea to one side, and the desert on our doorstep. Hmm, maybe I will need a better picture of just the sort of neighborhoods involved...
Yep, I am actually looking forward to moving!
Friday, September 16, 2011
Proud daddy...
Ah, it was just the other day that Aiden was born, and at only 7 months of age he has already destroyed his first computer. Definitely his daddy's genes there.
It's been a lovely break this time around, with a camp in the Hauchab fontain farm, and some really adventurous sand driving with a bunch of people from the coast.
More about that later, when I get around to shrinking down the videos to youtube standard.
There are now exactly three weeks between me and being home with the family again. I am really looking forward to it. Amazing how much one gets to miss being home.
It's been a lovely break this time around, with a camp in the Hauchab fontain farm, and some really adventurous sand driving with a bunch of people from the coast.
More about that later, when I get around to shrinking down the videos to youtube standard.
There are now exactly three weeks between me and being home with the family again. I am really looking forward to it. Amazing how much one gets to miss being home.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
1UZ-FE
This is the code of the engine that have finally made it into my Land-Rover Discovery.
Here it's a bit noisy, as it does not have any exhaust fitted. When it's idling, however, its surprisingly quiet.
Here it's a bit noisy, as it does not have any exhaust fitted. When it's idling, however, its surprisingly quiet.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Vasbyt!
Ah, the roar of the big machines.
Every year they all come and try their skills, course makers and competitors alike.
Here is the highlights from the 1 July 2011 event:
Every year they all come and try their skills, course makers and competitors alike.
Here is the highlights from the 1 July 2011 event:
Saturday, July 9, 2011
My last holiday in short....
While I was at work, Aiden was growing and growing. And not giving his mum a lot of sleep. Anyways, I was quite surprised at how much he had grown by the time I got back. Luckily Isolde was taking pictures in my absence. Here Aiden is posing a little on a sunny afternoon.
So, being back at home, and Aiden coming along so nicely, we decided to go for a little drive. First we went down to Paaltjies, the beach south of Walvis Bay for those who don't know, but it was far too cold and windy, being the middle of winter for us. Then we went looking at the Kuiseb river that was still coming down. It was only a few centimeters deep, and so we went to visit one of our favorite camping spots:
Notice all the greenery. Usually this place is quite dusty, and can be seen on some of my earlier videos.
So, we decided to camp a little the next week. We packed the trailer, and I got a chance to try out the Kaudom... it's the big tent in this picture. We have had it for a year, and never been used, as Aiden's arrival was imminent. It takes about an hour to pitch. It was a lovely camp, nice and quiet and far away from people.
We had a full eclipse of the moon during my break as well. Amazingly, it was a clear night and I had a tripod handy. Finally I have a good picture of the Moon colored red by sunlight shining through the Earth's atmosphere. The previous couple of times I saw an eclipse it was always at work where a tripod does not do much good.
Aiden got to be four months old during this break, and he is looking to become quite a handsome fellow. Must be his mom's genes, I guess....
So, being back at home, and Aiden coming along so nicely, we decided to go for a little drive. First we went down to Paaltjies, the beach south of Walvis Bay for those who don't know, but it was far too cold and windy, being the middle of winter for us. Then we went looking at the Kuiseb river that was still coming down. It was only a few centimeters deep, and so we went to visit one of our favorite camping spots:
Notice all the greenery. Usually this place is quite dusty, and can be seen on some of my earlier videos.
So, we decided to camp a little the next week. We packed the trailer, and I got a chance to try out the Kaudom... it's the big tent in this picture. We have had it for a year, and never been used, as Aiden's arrival was imminent. It takes about an hour to pitch. It was a lovely camp, nice and quiet and far away from people.
We had a full eclipse of the moon during my break as well. Amazingly, it was a clear night and I had a tripod handy. Finally I have a good picture of the Moon colored red by sunlight shining through the Earth's atmosphere. The previous couple of times I saw an eclipse it was always at work where a tripod does not do much good.
Aiden got to be four months old during this break, and he is looking to become quite a handsome fellow. Must be his mom's genes, I guess....
Sunday, July 3, 2011
The car saga continues....
Yep, it's again at the end of another five week holiday of which an effective four weeks were spent at home.
It sucks when travel sucks out 20% of your holidays.
Anyways... back to the Land-Rover. The Land Cruiser 2H gearbox arrived just before me. When I went to look at it, it was clear that this would also not fit my Lexus V8 engine. So, back to square 1. Don't pass go, don't collect anything.
Apart from not fitting, it's an amazing gearbox, and I would have used it in a heartbeat, if I could. The power outputs are in the right place, and it's an automatic, and it's quite a beefy beast. So beefy, in fact, that it's bigger than the Lexus V8 engine's mounting places, where the problem of it not fitting comes in. So, the muppets at JapanAuto screwed me again. I did ask on the phone and in an email whether this gearbox would fit the Lexus V8.
So... what to do? I decided to just bolt a Lexus V8 auto box to the engine, since they were designed for each other, and there is a glut of these auto boxes around here. I am currently the proud owner of two, and know where to get a few more, should I need one.
And then I just had a propshaft and adaptors made up for the lexus box so that I can test the stuff we have in the car in 2x4 mode.
Good news is that this path seems to have worked in part. I found another failed bit. The gearbox computer that was ordered with the engine computer is faulty. We tested the hell out of everything else, and found quite a few small and easily fixed problems.
Bad news is that it's the end of my holiday, and these custom gearbox controllers are not commonly available, so the one I ordered is going back to it's manufacturer to be checked out and repaired.
Hopefully, by the time I am back in the country, I will have a working gearbox controller unit, and a Land-Rover that can drive long gravel roads, but not sand... yet.
The second part of my brilliant plan was to buy another Discovery's transfer case, and have an engineering shop in Walvis Bay make me the adapter. As it happens, Walvis Bay is a harbour town, and we have a glut of engineering shops. I picked one that looked like they have the right tools and experience, and am hoping for the best.
This route is the route originally suggested by Adaptor and Conversion Centre in Johannesburg, and if they made the adapter and returned me the transfer case like agreed, I would have been mobile last year this time. I still cannot fathom why the boss of the place acted like such a dick.
From all this adventure, there are a few points that stand out clearly.
1. If you have a Land-Rover with a broken engine/ECU, put a Land-Rover engine in it. It's more expensive than the engines around it, but cheaper than modifying a Land-Rover. Aftermarket ECU's can be used, but your mileage may vary.
2. Should you _still_ decide to modify your Land-Rover, get the Lexus V8 engine with a rear sump. It fits better in the engine bay. There is a Toyota Surf gearbox out there that does bolt on to the Lexus UFZE1 engine, but I have still to see this mythical beast. This option also leaves you without a Handbrake or speed sensor.
3. If at all possible, go to the place where you are getting your spares from, and check that you have everything you need and that it all fits together before you start. This way, you don't close the door on option 1.
:)
So, here's to hoping that there will be a shiney new gearbox controller installed in my very clean Landy when I come back in five weeks. I cleaned the thing waiting for a mechanic one day before test driving it. Also, that the engineering shop makes a spline adapter shaft and adapter housing that I will not manage to break, in time for my eventual return.
All that should then be left to do, would be to sort out the linkages and 4x4 lever in the cab, the adaptor mountings, rear propshaft, if a standard one won't fit. ( measured the adapter to place the transfer case approximately where the Land-Rover one used to be. )
Then, I have to assemble the handbrake, as the transfer case that I bought is about as bare as you can imagine and still be called a working transfer case.
And then patching the hole around the gearbox/transfer levers and sound-proofing the cab.
One very nice touch was that we were able to make the exhaust on this break. It silences the engine quite nicely, but I had to re-seal the manifold flanges.
Luckily, all the other cars have been behaving themselves quite nicely.
Lastly... When we first wanted to start up the Landy, we saw that the tank was about as empty as you can get. So, we put in 20L from a jerry can. The reserve light was still showing, and the needle did not move. 20l is half a tank for a normal road car, or about 1/3 of my Jetta's tank.
The needle did not move. As if it was insulted by this puny amount of fuel.
So, once I was test-driving it, I decided to fill it up. 114 litres it took. Not a typo, folks. One hundred and fourteen litres of unleaded petrol, after putting in the twenty litres and just idling around a little.
So, I am guessing that the tank holds 130 litres. At 8km/litre, she should have a reach of almost 1000km, and 8km/litre is what my mechanic is getting on his Lexus V8, driving around in town.
I can't wait for this car to start working. No really, it's way overdue!
It sucks when travel sucks out 20% of your holidays.
Anyways... back to the Land-Rover. The Land Cruiser 2H gearbox arrived just before me. When I went to look at it, it was clear that this would also not fit my Lexus V8 engine. So, back to square 1. Don't pass go, don't collect anything.
Apart from not fitting, it's an amazing gearbox, and I would have used it in a heartbeat, if I could. The power outputs are in the right place, and it's an automatic, and it's quite a beefy beast. So beefy, in fact, that it's bigger than the Lexus V8 engine's mounting places, where the problem of it not fitting comes in. So, the muppets at JapanAuto screwed me again. I did ask on the phone and in an email whether this gearbox would fit the Lexus V8.
So... what to do? I decided to just bolt a Lexus V8 auto box to the engine, since they were designed for each other, and there is a glut of these auto boxes around here. I am currently the proud owner of two, and know where to get a few more, should I need one.
And then I just had a propshaft and adaptors made up for the lexus box so that I can test the stuff we have in the car in 2x4 mode.
Good news is that this path seems to have worked in part. I found another failed bit. The gearbox computer that was ordered with the engine computer is faulty. We tested the hell out of everything else, and found quite a few small and easily fixed problems.
Bad news is that it's the end of my holiday, and these custom gearbox controllers are not commonly available, so the one I ordered is going back to it's manufacturer to be checked out and repaired.
Hopefully, by the time I am back in the country, I will have a working gearbox controller unit, and a Land-Rover that can drive long gravel roads, but not sand... yet.
The second part of my brilliant plan was to buy another Discovery's transfer case, and have an engineering shop in Walvis Bay make me the adapter. As it happens, Walvis Bay is a harbour town, and we have a glut of engineering shops. I picked one that looked like they have the right tools and experience, and am hoping for the best.
This route is the route originally suggested by Adaptor and Conversion Centre in Johannesburg, and if they made the adapter and returned me the transfer case like agreed, I would have been mobile last year this time. I still cannot fathom why the boss of the place acted like such a dick.
From all this adventure, there are a few points that stand out clearly.
1. If you have a Land-Rover with a broken engine/ECU, put a Land-Rover engine in it. It's more expensive than the engines around it, but cheaper than modifying a Land-Rover. Aftermarket ECU's can be used, but your mileage may vary.
2. Should you _still_ decide to modify your Land-Rover, get the Lexus V8 engine with a rear sump. It fits better in the engine bay. There is a Toyota Surf gearbox out there that does bolt on to the Lexus UFZE1 engine, but I have still to see this mythical beast. This option also leaves you without a Handbrake or speed sensor.
3. If at all possible, go to the place where you are getting your spares from, and check that you have everything you need and that it all fits together before you start. This way, you don't close the door on option 1.
:)
So, here's to hoping that there will be a shiney new gearbox controller installed in my very clean Landy when I come back in five weeks. I cleaned the thing waiting for a mechanic one day before test driving it. Also, that the engineering shop makes a spline adapter shaft and adapter housing that I will not manage to break, in time for my eventual return.
All that should then be left to do, would be to sort out the linkages and 4x4 lever in the cab, the adaptor mountings, rear propshaft, if a standard one won't fit. ( measured the adapter to place the transfer case approximately where the Land-Rover one used to be. )
Then, I have to assemble the handbrake, as the transfer case that I bought is about as bare as you can imagine and still be called a working transfer case.
And then patching the hole around the gearbox/transfer levers and sound-proofing the cab.
One very nice touch was that we were able to make the exhaust on this break. It silences the engine quite nicely, but I had to re-seal the manifold flanges.
Luckily, all the other cars have been behaving themselves quite nicely.
Lastly... When we first wanted to start up the Landy, we saw that the tank was about as empty as you can get. So, we put in 20L from a jerry can. The reserve light was still showing, and the needle did not move. 20l is half a tank for a normal road car, or about 1/3 of my Jetta's tank.
The needle did not move. As if it was insulted by this puny amount of fuel.
So, once I was test-driving it, I decided to fill it up. 114 litres it took. Not a typo, folks. One hundred and fourteen litres of unleaded petrol, after putting in the twenty litres and just idling around a little.
So, I am guessing that the tank holds 130 litres. At 8km/litre, she should have a reach of almost 1000km, and 8km/litre is what my mechanic is getting on his Lexus V8, driving around in town.
I can't wait for this car to start working. No really, it's way overdue!
Monday, May 9, 2011
Sorcerer is amazing...
Hmm, I'm back at work, and the car saga is on hold... for now.
I'm trying what I can from the other end of the world, but so far it's just an excersize in frustration.
The wrongly delivered gearbox I sent back to Johannesburg in South Africa, but I got a message from my courier that it's stuck on the border, in need of some paperwork only JapanAuto can provide. So far I am not too impressed with their service... first in sending me the wrong part, then in their lacklustre attitude in fixing the mistake.
*sigh*
So, I rather play with the things I have more direct control over. I am messing with the Operating System on my laptop. It's my favorite... Sorcerer, a sources-only flavor of Linux. I'm halfway through an update of KDE now. The entire download was 14mb... and 12 of those were for the graphics!
There is no binary that can beat Sorcerer on lightness of network traffic.
There is no other distro that can beat Sorcerer on configure-ability.
Keeping up to date is also quite easy, but not so painless for nVidia users. So far every time I had a kernel update I had to spend some time in the command line more.
So, yeah, I am impressed again on just how light Sorcerer is on the network... Good job, Kyle.
I'm trying what I can from the other end of the world, but so far it's just an excersize in frustration.
The wrongly delivered gearbox I sent back to Johannesburg in South Africa, but I got a message from my courier that it's stuck on the border, in need of some paperwork only JapanAuto can provide. So far I am not too impressed with their service... first in sending me the wrong part, then in their lacklustre attitude in fixing the mistake.
*sigh*
So, I rather play with the things I have more direct control over. I am messing with the Operating System on my laptop. It's my favorite... Sorcerer, a sources-only flavor of Linux. I'm halfway through an update of KDE now. The entire download was 14mb... and 12 of those were for the graphics!
There is no binary that can beat Sorcerer on lightness of network traffic.
There is no other distro that can beat Sorcerer on configure-ability.
Keeping up to date is also quite easy, but not so painless for nVidia users. So far every time I had a kernel update I had to spend some time in the command line more.
So, yeah, I am impressed again on just how light Sorcerer is on the network... Good job, Kyle.
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