Modifications to the car

The first thing to add was an Anderson plug. There has been much written about this in various forums.

I decided that the way to go was a single cable run via a 50A breaker and a Kickass voltage sensitive relay (VSR). The idea of a single run of cable was to use the body/chassis as the negative return path in order to reduce any losses in what is a quite long run. The front end of the cable will be connected to the fuse box on the cold side of one of the large fusible links.

The first thing to do was to get hold of a length of 6B&S cable, a 50A breaker and the VSR. Oh and an Anderson plug and mounting hardware.

The next thing to do was to run the cable and what a pain that was. I decided to start from the back of the car so I soldered an Anderson to the end of the wire sa well as a 6B&S wire to the nearest earth point. These went to another Anderson plug in the rear of the car and the +ve cable was run along the chassis, with much cursing, to where I was going to put the VSR. I found a place and mounted the VSR and connected it all up and ran the wire from it to the 50A breaker and then on to the fusible link. Time to check everything and it all worked perfectly. One last check that all of my crimps were good and that job was ticked off.

I’d allowed an hour for the job but it took nearly three. Although you’d reckon that there would be plenty of room under a Land Rover and along the chassis you’d be wrong. Same as doing anything to a Land Rover I ended up with skinned knuckles and a banged head.

After lots of asking around and reading and researching I decided on a Tekonsha P3.

I worked out where I was going to put it and mounted it. Right next to the instrument binnacle and the “A” pillar.

So far so good.

Next came the problem of getting the wires from on top of the dash to under it. The plastic trim comes off the “A” pillar easily enough but getting the wires down past the dash was a real pain. One small space and no room to move. I finally got it done. Phew.

There was a handy power connection under the dash so that was utilised and the wire from the brake light switct was easily tapped into. At least there was an easily reachable earth point under the dash so I used that.

Now came the fun part. Getting the wire from under the dash to under the bonnet and down to the trailer connector. I used a length of 8B&S wire that I had laying around and managed to get it through the main loom grommet and down to the chassis and along the rail to the rats next of wiring behind the RHS tail light.

Why of why did I not run the cable at the same time as I ran the Anderson plug cable.

It took a while and a lot of testing with the multimeter and constant reference to RAVE (Land Rover manual) to find the right cable. All I needed to do was to crimp the two together right. Wrong. About an hour later the job was done after taking out the tail light and the grommet for the wiring and pulling the loom up so I had enough room to wield the crimp tool.

Connected up the camper and took it for a test run and it all worked perfectly. It did expose an issue though. The camper brakes are as week as dishwater which is an issue that I’ll address in the future.

Our camper has a fairly hefty ball weight which caused the rear of the car to sag somewhat so after a lot of research I came up with the idea of airbag helpers for the rear springs. It just so happens that Airbag Man has airbags specifically for a Disco 2 at a pretty good price. I went for the heavy duty ones.

Installing them was a simple operation which required a fair bit of patience and muscle. Running the air pipes was, as ever, a bit of a pain but not hard at all.

The airbags make a huge difference and stop the sag with the weight of the camper on the tow hitch. The rear of the car is nowhere as “bouncy” as it was and it’s a lot more comfortable. With the camper on with over 100kg ball weight I keep the bags at around 30psi and without the camper on board I keep them at around 5psi.

Definately a worthwhile addition to the car and far less traumatic than the Anderson plug and the brake controller to fit.