Hi,

New member here, Alan, living in the freezing Norf.

Just bought a P38 with a few issues... found this place via referral by a long time member, Richard, over on RangeRovers.net.

First job to deal with is headlining, along with sunroof cassette replacement (parts on order, hope to get started this weekend).

I've little to no mechanical experience or ability, but my brothers handy, and he's agreed to help me out. With his kind assistance and yours, I'll get there in the end (hopefully) ;)

Bought the car to use over winter, keep the exotica off the road through the worst of the salt, so thinking I'll keep it long-term, if i can get it properly sorted.

PS: Just discovered that my heater doesnt blow much in the cabin. Didnt seem a major issue until I sis a bit of research :)

That'll be me then. I'm Richard_G on there and Gilbertd everywhere else but they banned me for having the audacity to correct the admin's duff information.

Headlining you now know about, sunroof might put up a fight. I found the sunroof on the Ascot didn't work because someone had removed the motor. Put a motor in it and it still didn't work due to broken bits of plastic in the linkages. I bought a set of plastics from eBay and, after spending two days filing and fettling to get everything moving smoothly, they broke the second time I opened the roof. So I just bought a complete unit from a breaker, gave everything a bit of lube and whacked that in.

Heater not blowing much is usually down to one of two things. There's two blowers, one at each end of the dash, and if one stops working then the air gets sucked in on one side but instead of going through the heater matrix, it just blows straight across the car and out the other side. Simple enough to see if they are both working if you take the pollen filters out and look down the hole. It might just be that the pollen filters are clogged solid anyway. The other cause is the plastic trunking is made in pieces which slot together with foam to seal the joints. The foam degrades and falls out so half the air being sucked in blows out the joints before it even gets to the heater. Passengers will complain of a cold draught on their feet too as the air comes out under the glovebox. Simple fix is duct tape over the joints in the ducts (probably the only time duct tape is ever used for what it was designed to be used for).

Welcome Alan :) Sounds like you're having fun already!
What age/model have you got?

Welcome :)

What's the exotica?

Welcome--- As another new P38 owner I can attest to the fact about being the last tag with the last few owners' avoiding repairing anything. I had to replace my O rings the moment it hit my driveway. Repairing all of the broken bits helps you bond quickly with your P38.

Thanks for the warm welcome!

Morat wrote:

Welcome Alan :) Sounds like you're having fun already!
What age/model have you got?

1997 (GEMS) P38 4.6 petrol, Epsom green with tan leather.

RutlandRover wrote:

Welcome :)

What's the exotica?

Aston V8 Vantage. Bought new two and a half years ago. It's my baby :)

Did a few small jobs today:
Swapped the crappy halogens for less crappy xenons (considered LED but they seem a bit of a faff to get the spread right).
Replaced pollen filters
Failed to replace air filter (ordered the wrong part, doh!). Anyone nearby want a free Britpart air filter for post-GEMS P38?
Topped up transmission fluid
Started looking at how to replace the gas strut in the cubby box, but gave up cos it was cold and the light wasnt good.

Headlining kit arrived today, so might get to it this weekend (if the replacement sunroof cassette arrives in time).

Onwards and upwards :)

Edit: I didnt expect much from fuel consumption, but it's even worse than i expected; 12mpg around town, 20mpg on the motorway. Is this in the right ballpark? Anything I can do to improve it? (except LPG lol...)

Sometimes the car hunts when i put it in park; idles around 2k revs rather than 800. Shifting from drive back to park tends to sort it. Anybody know what this means?

Cheers!

alanl wrote:

Aston V8 Vantage. Bought new two and a half years ago. It's my baby :)

Ooh I'm jealous, that is my dream car. Purely for the noise it makes. A couple of Christmas's ago my daughter asked me what I wanted as a present so I told her. So I've got the model one she bought me......

LED headlight bulbs work fine if you get decent ones but the cheapo Chinese ones from eBay just spread light around everywhere and simply cannot be adjusted to get a decent cut off.

Pollen filters are a good call as they've usually been left for years and are clogged solid with dead leaves. Are both blowers working?

Transmission fluid is nice and easy with the GEMS with the dipstick, a real pain on later ones to the point of not even considering it in this weather.

Fuel consumption sounds about right if you are going by the trip computer, although 12mpg does seem a bit low. Might be worth checking to see what the real world figure is and also plugging a code reader in. If you have a duff lambda sensor, it won't bring on the check engine light but will put it into an open loop, rich fuelling strategy.

High idle can be caused by a number of things. A sticky idle air valve (cylindrical one on the front of the throttle body as you look at it) pull that out and give it a good clean with carb cleaner, the stored voltage from the throttle position sensor being too high (that would need the adaptive values resetting but if it was that it would always be high and not just sometimes) or a sticky throttle butterfly that doesn't always close properly.

Gilbertd wrote:

Pollen filters are a good call as they've usually been left for years and are clogged solid with dead leaves. Are both blowers working?

Both blowers were working, in the sense that hot air came out when the vents are opened, but... more like a baby exhaling than what I'd expect.
I need to take it out for a spin. Traffic's been appalling today due to the weather. Tomorrow I drive out to Leeds/Bradford airport, so I'll reassess then and report back.

Gilbertd wrote:

Fuel consumption sounds about right if you are going by the trip computer, although 12mpg does seem a bit low. Might be worth checking to see what the real world figure is and also plugging a code reader in. If you have a duff lambda sensor, it won't bring on the check engine light but will put it into an open loop, rich fuelling strategy.

Interesting. Would that show up through standard obd reader, or do i need to put it on the textbook thing?

High idle can be caused by a number of things. A sticky idle air valve (cylindrical one on the front of the throttle body as you look at it) pull that out and give it a good clean with carb cleaner, the stored voltage from the throttle position sensor being too high (that would need the adaptive values resetting but if it was that it would always be high and not just sometimes) or a sticky throttle butterfly that doesn't always close properly.

Thanks! I'll figure out where the throttle body and butterfly are, and give em a good clean.

Cheers!

Air may have been coming out of the vents but you should have switched it on and had a look down the holes when the pollen filters were out. That way you can see them and if one isn't spinning.....

Standard OBD reader will talk to a P38 without problem. As the pre-99 wasn't 100% OBD compliant some things aren't there (such as showing which cylinder if you have a misfire) but faults can be read and cleared and if the reader can do live data you can see what is happening with it running.