Isn't it +11 hours time difference? If you posted at 8am on the 7th Dec, the site shows it as 20:56 on the 6th. So 23:06 on the 29th December here would be 10:06 on the 30th for you as you are ahead of us.

Sounds like a plan to me, it'll be like the days of Lockdown when nobody was allowed out so had to entertain themselves somehow.

To be honest I thought it was the previous December. It was July 2014 when I was up in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games and we were sitting in a pub when the idea of a virtual pub came after 5 or 6 pints of a rather nice, locally brewed, Commonwealth Ale as an antidote to RR.net.

But being very sad, I've just gone into my 2015 email inbox and sure enough, there's the email timed at 01:53 on 30/12/2015 with a link and the suggestion of having a play and seeing if I can break it (which I did, a mere 16 hours later).

From that tiny start of half a dozen or so in the first week, the memberlist now shows we are up to almost 10,000 members. A shame a large proportion are spammers or bots. Equally a shame that some of the original members, Orangebean, dave3d and Ferryman to name just a few that I am aware of, are no longer with us.

Got stuck in a stationary queue of traffic on the A1 today after a couple of cars had a coming together. You know how it is, after a couple of minutes sitting in Drive with your foot on the brake, you stick it in Park and just wait. Then the fire engine, ambulance and two police cars thread their way through the queue and you know you are likely to be there for a while. You idly look around at the other poor buggers sitting in the queue around you, wonder if you should open the can of drink in the car and then have a mental argument with yourself that while you might be getting thirsty, if you are going to be there for a while, you'll be bursting for a pee, so decide against it. HEVAC is showing 4 degrees so you keep the engine running and you glance at the dash to make sure the temperature gauge isn't starting to climb, then I noticed the odometer. I always reset it when I fill the LPG tank so I'd managed 33.3 miles of my 45 mile journey (with no exits off the A1 between me and the end on the red line on the satnav) but it was what the main display was showing that made me take a picture.....

gordonjcp wrote:

Do you want a public subforum set up for that? It's no bother...

Nah but as it's a virtual pub it should probably really be in Opening Time. The place for any random topic not specifically P38 related, just like any real pub.

The dipstick tube on my boat engine is fitted into the sump plug. It's on one side but near enough at the bottom of the sump. It's a solid plug with a threaded hole in the centre where the dipstick tube is fitted. So I can either unscrew the tube from the plug or, once I've done that, unscrew the whole plug. I reckon there is enough room under the engine to get a bowl under it which I can slide forwards out from under the engine if I take the bilge pump out (which sits just under the front of the engine. I've seen pictures of an arrangement where there is a tap instead of the drain plug and a length of hose which can be pushed through the drain hole in the transom which seems a much better idea to me.

Not sure about cooler running. My engine is a 4.3 litre Mercruiser V6 which is nothing more exotic than 3/4 of a 5.7 litre V8 small block Chevy and runs at around 170F. No idea what 170F works out to in proper units but as it is in the middle of the gauge, I assume it is correct. According to the engine manual, the oil pressure at 2,000 rpm should be 30-55 psi and more than 4 psi at idle. I'd be seriously worried if I saw oil pressure below 10 psi even at idle and mine sits at around 50 psi when running, dropping to 35 at idle when hot. So it must like the 15W-40 I've put in it.....

That's an odd one, never seen that before, as you say, the BeCM retains its settings when teh battery is disconnected. The only possibility I can think is you had an iffy connection at the OBD port which might explain the rapid relay operation as it connected then reconnected.

If you want the picture to appear in the post, click on the Image icon at the top of the box you are typing in (the one that looks like a picture frame) and a box will pop up asking for the picture hyperlink, paste the photo link in that box (making sure the https/:: already in the box is overwritten) and it will appear in the post. Like this.....

I use 15W-40 semi synthetic in my boat engine but it has roller cam followers rather than the flat tappets you have in yours. As it also have a fully rebuilt engine, there's no sludge in there either (although there was when I stripped it down). I suspect the biggest problem with boat engines is that very few have a sump plug, or anywhere to drain the oil into, so most just suck it out the dipstick tube if they actually bother to change the oil at all. My experience is that boat owners tend to treat an inboard engine as that black lump that lives under a cover in the back and gets totally neglected until it stops working.

For the P38, I have used Castrol 10W-60 synthetic on the advice of Ray at V8 Developments after he rebuilt the engine. The P38 workshop manual gives a list of LR recommended oils depending on ambient temperature.

It seems that imgur have had a falling out with the UK regulator so access is no longer available from the UK. Any posts that have an image hosted on imgur now just show a grey box with 'Content not viewable in your Region' in it. Not only that, but if you are in the UK, you can no longer view your own images. A way round it is to connect via a VPN making it look like you are in a different country. That will allow you to download your images at least, although you do lose the date information so you can no longer look at an image and see when you uploaded it.

I've used imgur for many years so had images going back at least 15 years stored on there with the originals scattered around multiple removable drives, my laptop hard drive or have been deleted once uploaded. As this site doesn't have an image upload facility, any pictures in posts need to be hosted somewhere. I've never had any success with linking to images on my Google drive so looked elsewhere and found www.imgbb.com. Works much the same as imgur (but without showing you a load of other peoples uploads before you get to your own).

Using imgbb is much the same as imgur, upload your image, open the image and hit C on your keyboard and a box pops up with embed codes, select Direct Links from the drop down and it gives you a link that you use here. If anything, easier to use than imgur and, like imgur, free to use.

If it is only sticking on one side, check to make sure the cable is pulling it open fully. If not, replace the cable, if it is, all it needs is the two bolts holding the latch slackening off and the position adjusting.

I might be able to get you some if they haven't been thrown away after the door latches were removed from a couple of breakers.

Step-daughter is using hers with an iPhone, initially an elderly iPhone XS and for the last week or so, a brand new 17 Pro without any problem. So not an iPhone problem unless a 15 is even earlier than her XS was and it doesn't like it. Not tried it with my Android phone.

v8vroom wrote:

I did open the bonnet (it actually opened when I assumed it was stuck. Probably got lucky), but I did not know what I was looking at. I know which side it is located, but with the LPG setup in the way, I wasn't sure where exactly to point my eyes at. I'm going to use a bright torch and dig my head deeper down lol.

I posted the pictures from RAVE in your other thread. The steering box is on the end of the steering column so on the RH side of the car (unless your car is LHD for some obscure reason).

You've found a dickhead. A minus figure for toe is toe IN, which is why it is pulling to the left. Taking it somewhere that understands a steering box is far better than KwikFit. It's only taking as much time and energy as it is because you are entrusting it to people that don't know what they are doing (and charging you for the privilege).

A sticky calliper would cause it to pull one way and the easy check for that is to check to see if one front wheel is hotter than the other immediately you stop driving. The hot one is the sticky one.

If the steering box is a long way off centre, then the power steering will cause it to centre incorrectly but it has to be a long way off. With the wheels pointing straight ahead it is simple enough to open the bonnet and look at the pointer on the steering column collar.

Airbag light has nothing to do with an ABS sensor. Do you mean the ABS light?

You can't grease the viscous coupling, it is a sealed unit inside the transfer case.

Why do you think it is the steering box? Was it driving straight before you paid someone that doesn't understand how it works start playing with it? If the problem was tyre wear, then that should have told you what it was. Wearing the inside edges is too much toe out, wearing the outside edges is too much toe in, wearing both inside and outside is too low pressure. Squealing when turning sharply may be low pressure or could also be a seized viscous coupling. As you destroyed a front propshaft, unless it was extremely worn and had never seen a grease gun in the entire life of the car, I would still suspect the viscous.

Also point out that if their machine shows anything but zero on the rear, it hasn't been mounted properly.

Once you have both front wheels pointing in the right direction, set it so it is pointing straight ahead. Then look at the two markers on the steering box body and collar on the input shaft. You might find looking from above and using a mirror will help.

If they line up with the wheels pointing straight ahead, that is it, you don't need to do any more at the steering box. It the steering box is straight but he steering wheel isn't, then take the steering wheel off and move it on the splines. Each spline will move it by 5 degrees so if it needs moving less than that, you adjust it at the drag link. If the steering box marks don't line up showing it isn't central, that also needs doing at the drag link. This is a similar adjuster to that on the tie rod but on the drag link but on the front rod between the steering box output lever and LH front hub. See below only the pic shows a LHD one so it is on the opposite side of the car.

Not sure how you are doing it. You slacken off both clamps and turn the centre hex on the adjuster with both ends of the tie rod attached to the hubs. That causes it to lengthen or shorten the tie rod by moving on the threads at each end of the adjuster. If it is pulling to the left, that means the RH front wheel is pointing to the left compared with the LH front wheel. In other words, too much toe in. So you need to adjust the tie rod by shortening it until it runs straight (although don't forget that with camber on the road in the UK meaning it will drift to the left anyway as the camber will cause it to run towards the kerb). on a flat road surface.

Near to me I've got a bit of road that used to be the A1 but has been bypassed so now goes nowhere so I use that. With the clamps just nipped up so the adjuster can't move on it's own but will still move with a spanner on it, drive along, see which way I have to correct the steering for straight ahead, get out tweak the adjuster one way or the other and try again. If it has made it worse, tweak it back the other way and so on until it runs straight. Then the clamps can be aligned as per the book so they won't foul and done up fully.

Only then do you start looking at the steering box centralisation.

It sounds like the drag link and steering wheel were correct but by maladjusting the toe, it has pulled it out. Once you get your head around how the system works and what each adjuster does it becomes clear. The link between the steering wheel and LH wheel won't have changed, so it is only the RH wheel that is pulling the steering one way or another. You can even change a tie rod and reset the alignment simply by doing what you have done. Adjust it a bit one way or the other until the steering wheel is back to how it was. If it was straight before, it should be straight afterwards.

From that printout, he's cocked up fitting the sensors as well as setting it to incorrect settings. It is showing a figure for both castor and toe on the rear but you have a live axle so both can only ever be zero. The computer says that the toe on the front should be -0 degrees 10 minutes to 0 degrees (straight ahead). The minus signifies toe in but it should actually be, from the workshop manual, 0 degrees 5 minutes to 0 degrees 15 minutes toe OUT. So he's set it with too much toe in which means you will wear the outside edge of the tyres. The fact that before adjustment it was showing a different figure for toe side to side also shows the sensors weren't correctly fitted. On a car with rack and pinion steering with an adjuster on each side, it is possible for it to be different side to side. With a steering box such as we have, they will always both be the same if the wheels are pointing straight ahead.

You can ignore the caster and camber angles. Caster will change with the suspension height and the state of your radius arm bushes while camber is fixed but will change as your top and bottom axle ball joints start to wear and develop a bit of slack.

As you can only adjust on one side, you may find that if the toe is adjusted so it is correct, the steering wheel may well become straight or at least straighter. Rather than go back to the mechanic with the correct figures (print the page from RAVE, it's page 15 of General Specification Data) and tell him he is an idiot (and the data on his computer is incorrect), you may as well adjust it yourself. The adjuster is on the rod behind the front wheels that connects the two hubs together. To increase the toe out, you need to shorten the rod at the adjuster which is on the RH end of the tie rod. Slacken off the lock bolts (one needs a 13mm socket and spanner while the other is 17mm) and give it one full turn to shorten it. That will get it from where it is to within the limits it should be at. One end of the adjuster has a left hand thread while the other is a right hand thread so turning the adjuster sleeve one way shortens it, the other way lengthens it. If a full turn is too much and you now have too much toe out, the steering will be reluctant to self centre when coming off a corner, so back it off by half a turn.

Think about it. You have a rod from the steering box to the LH wheel. If the LH wheel is pointing straight ahead but you have too much toe in, the RH wheel won't be pointing straight ahead but will be pointing to the left. Consequently, you will need to turn to the right to keep the car going straight ahead. This may be all it is that is causing the steering wheel to not be centred when travelling straight ahead.

Once the toe is correct, or at least a lot closer to how it currently is, see what the steering wheel position is now. If it is now straight, you don't need to do any more. If it isn't, look at the collar on the input shaft to the steering box (where the lower column connects to it). There is a pointer on it which should be pointing at a similar mark cast into the steering box (you may need to use a mirror to see it). If they line up, then the steering box is centered and the steering wheel will need to be moved on its splines. If the marks don't line up you need to adjust at the drag link on the front rod next to the Pitman Arm (the output lever on the steering box). This is a similar adjuster to that on the tie rod but it may well be seized and will need a bit of brute force to get it to move. If you do it with the key in the ignition so the steering lock is off and the wheels on the ground, the steering wheel and the input shaft will turn as you adjust it. Get it so the marks line up and the steering wheel should, hopefully, also be straight. If it isn't, then again the steering wheel will need to be moved on the splines to get it right.

The whole process is in RAVE, with pictures, but it assumes you are familiar with how the system works so isn't immediately clear.

So he's only done half the job. He's adjusted the wheel alignment, whether it is right or not is another matter (did he give you a printed sheet showing before and after?), but not done the second part of the job which is aligning the steering box and steering wheel. It isn't so much the steering wheel that needs centralising but the steering box. If it isn't, the power steering will try to centre the box which may or may not coincide with the wheels being straight ahead so it will pull to one side if you take your hands off the wheel. Once the steering box is correctly aligned, if the steering wheel isn't centred, that needs moving on the splines so it is.