Kodiak Installation

The newly refurbished Kodiak heater arrived from 3 Bros. yesterday, and they've done a really nice job. The new intake is magnificent. Hard to believe it's the same heater that left here! Haven't had a lot of time, but installed the main heater body and the connected part of the in-cabin distributor. Looking forward to starting it up once the Land Rover is running!

Wiring the Land Rover has, as usual, meant new parts to order, such as bullet connectors and crimper, and the project will have to wait until all those are here before the wiring can be completed, and that means other things down the line have to wait as well.

Below, the main heater body. The original orange wires are very long, and for now have attached them to the duct intake door cable. These wires may get shortened. Hoses attach to the two gray pipes just above the blower housing.

The original cable for the intake door is also extremely long, and will be shortened for a neater fit. Ducting from the fresh air intake opening on the front wing, near the headlights, attaches to the intake at lower left.

Below, the connected part of the hot-air distribution box. There's a second part to this, to which the in-cabin hoses attach, and these in turn go the to the windscreen demister vents. The white knob on the sub-panel is the heater control; turning it clockwise turns on the two-speed blower, in two increments, and pulling opens the intake door.

Getting the heater box and the in-cabin air distributor bolted to the footwell is an extreme challenge, as the forward bolt holes are very, very awkwardly placed, especially on the top side under the heater box. This may explain why only the rear-most bolts were used when I first saw the original installation, and may also perhaps explain why the Mk.II version of the Kodiak was only in production for just two years, being replaced by the Mk.III.

If you're interested to learn more about Kodia heaters, there's an excellent web page here.

 

Wiring Through Chassis

Just a small update, as the wiring is now through to the rear. Purchased 9 feet of 5/8" (inner diameter) flexible conduit, threaded the loom into it leaving a space at the end, drilled a hole through which a wire was tied and used to pull the conduit/wiring through from the front to the rear. After that, the last few inches of the conduit was cut off and the wiring itself was pulled the rest of the way out.

This should prevent chaffing of the wire loom on any sharp galvanizing edges inside the chassis, if any. I also drilled holes through the conduit every foot or so, before introducing the wiring, so that moisture in the tubing can drain or dry out. I've left the rear end of the conduit protruding from the chassis hole, so that it can be pulled out again if necessary. The front end is lying flat inside the chassis, just under the loom entry hole there, so that moisture, if there's enough, can run out, seeing as that end is 'downhill'.

My only worry was that the tape measure, being flat, could have passed under the bolts that hold the shaft for the hand brake relay lever to the chassis, preventing the conduit from moving through the chassis, but this wasn't the case.

In this view, the conduit containing the loom has been pulled through.

The end result. I've since drilled a small hole through the conduit and used a tie-wrap to fasten the end of the conduit to the end of the grey panel brace, to make sure it doesn't slide back in.

More Small Things

Still waiting for a few more small items to arrive, namely the new colour-coded braided wire from Autosparks for the turn-signal, the Stabilant 22 for the connections overall, a new green indicator warning light cover for the flasher panel, and new lightbulbs for the wing lights. The actual connectors have arrived, plus the boots for the battery cable ends. Once all's here, the wiring should be quick to finish up.

The inner wings are temporarily on as the locations of the wire harness clips are determined, and measurements for the new mudguard brackets are made (one mudguard is lying on the tire). Side lights have been cleaned and are waiting for their new bulbs; turn-signal lights are on the radiator waiting their turn. Glass light lenses are elsewhere so they don't get dropped. Cable hanging over the windscreen is the one that goes rearwards through the frame to power the rear lights. That can go in once some flex tubing is purchased in which to house it within the chassis, as others have reported that galvanized chassis can leave small sharp edges inside the frame which can wear through the wire fairly quickly.

Also a good time to test fit the apron panel, as the rub strips have to be installed. The thing that looks like a hat with a green band on the bumper is the inlet flange that attaches at the front of the right wing, which has been de-rusted and will be cut down to the green tape. The ducting that goes back to the Kodiak heater attaches to this.

Thanks to the good folks at the Series 2 Club in the UK, knowing how to thread the wiring loom through the chassis was easy: use a metal tape measure, threaded from the rear, which is then hooked out at the front opening. Then it's just a matter of attaching a soft wire or string and pullling it back through, and then the wiring will just be pulled through the chassis. Easy to do, even with the tub on.

Kodiak Mk.II Heater

3 Bros.sent some work-in-progress photos of the Kodiak heater tonight. It looks just amazing.

Original heater core, hoses and fittings, not shown below, have been refurbished and are fully useable.

Inlet before:

Inlet after (new), before primer and paint. I'm willing to bet it's better made than the original unit.

Blower and heater core box, in primer:

Vent control box and windscreen vents in their final paint, with the refurbished blower motor and fan behind (looking like new):

'Before' again, to give a fuller view of what they had to work with:

Update Oct.28: photo from Peter of all parts, ready for shipping. Looks like new!

And the blower box assembled:

Panel Wiring

Today's after work project was to wire the panel. Quite straight forward, except for the ignition switch having 5 contact points and all the diagrams just showing 4. Still trying to find info here.

Will have to wait for the remaining wires, connectors, grommets and a replacement light bulb before the turn-signal/flasher panel can be wired up, and the panel in general completed, plus wiper motors connected.

Wiring (so far)

The Autosparks loom has been a pleasure to work with. Some wires appear to be longer than needed here, but only by a little, and may well be due to the particularities of this vehicle, but I'm happy as  I'd rather have wires too long then too short!

This Land Rover had flashing turn signals, the panel switch for which is not accounted for in the loom, and the necessary wires (braided) have now been ordered. A thorough examination of the loom shows that I'll be needing another 17 single (two-way) and 3 dual (4-way) connectors, plus four of the loop connectors are too small for the bolts on the attach points here (eg. dynamo and oil pressure connections) and will need to be replaced. The fork connectors for the headlight dimmer switch are not the right type for the unit installed, and so three spade connectors will need to replace them.

First challenge was to get the panel wires through the bulkhead. However, by taking the grommets off the loom, inserting them into the holes in the bulkhead, and then pushing the individual wires through, it went quickly, only taking about 10 minutes. Everything else starts from there.

The silver unit lying down in the gauge compartment is the flasher regulator. Oil pressure and water temp gauge is now hooked up. Flasher panel is just installed while waiting for new wires. Will have to be careful to take into account the need to pass the heater tubes through there.

A look from the other side. Just about everything here is done, just a couple of grounds and a replacement wire from distributor to coil are needed, and have to tidy some things up. Haven't connected the wires yet that extend to the back of the vehicle. The Kodiak heater will have it's own setup.

Just some connectors salvaged from the original loom. Appear to be in good shape with hardly any corrosion, but will be cleaning them throughly anyway.

Main panel underway. Key switch and panel lights are to the right. Very happy I took lots and lots of photos before taking everything apart.

Rear Lights; Wiring Start

There was a choice of rear lights to install, and I wanted to be as authentic as possible to this Land Rover. Photos of the rear of the Land Rover as it was when it arrived didn't give many clues, as it had different lights everywhere. In the end, the flashers for the overseas "America Dollar Area" were chosen, as this was an export model (and they look nice), and as for the red stop lights, at first it was going to be those that match the flashers, as they are listed in the parts catalogue as also being on the export vehicles, but then I realised that they do not have reflectors built in, in which case there would have been holes in the rear surface of the tub for the seperate reflectors. The more-or-less standard stop lights DO have the reflectors - and so I went with those, as this is what the Land Rover would have to have had.

Had to drill some new holes in the capping for the rear lights in any case, as it proved the best way.

At right, the aftermarket plastic license plate illuminator. The plastic cover is held on to the light body by a drive screw only, and the bracket inside is itself quite soft: very easy to strip the drive screw hole by tightening the screw too firmly. The original light is presently being restored, and will take back it's original spot at some point.

Finally a Land Rover again!

What was there before. I believe the left stop light was the only original light left.

Have also made a start on the wiring. First step: Understand what Autosparks had sent, as, like most aftermarket parts, there are no instructions/illustrations to help. You end up with a number of smaller wiring subsets, and no idea what goes where.

At first, I went to the excellent diagram here, very kindly provided by the Series 2 Club. This is helpful for the colours and how the parts connect, but is still visually very different from what you see when first unwrapping the Autosparks loom. However, using the illustration from the parts catalogue soon showed how Autosparks had laid things out, and from there, combined with the above diagram, it's relatively easy.

Noted that some extra connectors will be needed, but will catalogue those once everything else is in place.

Below: looks chaotic, but just laying the looms out loosely, and then labelling all the ends, soon provided order out of the confusion (so far!).

The diagram from the parts catalogue. Depending on your vehicle, it won't look exactly like this (for example, ths illustration does not include flashers and has only one wiper motor, plus LHD has some differences), but the essential layout of the individual loom sections is like this.