Great to hear that you are nearly sorted.

Concerning machining the air tank plug to take a screw shank push fit connector I have a a spare air tank so can easily rob the plug from that to modify if the matter becomes urgent for anyone. Back burner job for now.

Under seat connectors are known for loosening off and causing odd warning light issues if the seat is moved. I often push my passenger seat right forward fora bit more load space and have learned to check connectors and warning lights before filling the car up! Never a problem checked before loading but both times I got rush headed and didn't check I got the light show.

Clive

Thanks Clive,

That scenario - putting the front pass seat forward for loading access is exactly what the original owner described.

Fingers crossed it will be that easy.

^^^^ Well, it wasn't that easy. In fact it wasn't even the front passenger seat - it was the driver's seat. "Caveat emptor" and all that - should have been more careful. On the other hand, if I had been, I probably wouldn't have a P38 languishing in the garage.

When it was out of the garage, even briefly, I got the roof bars fitted and then popped the canoe on just for fun. Before anyone mentions it, I know it's not tied on!

As my wife pointed out, they even match vaguely.

Still trying to get to grips with my airbag fault warning. Maybe this evening. MOT booked for 2 days time.

Canoe paintwork looks a bit flat anyway, why not give it a respray so they really do match?

Not so sure about a respray - but I might give it a polish - see if it will go faster!

I actually gave the car a wash not long after I took the pic. It had been covered in 'garage dust'... aka the fine rust particles that came off the axle!

We-no-nah. Nice canoe. I have 2 Clippers. It will polish up nicely.

Looks a big canoe. You would need to tie the ends to the car front and back to stop it sliding I think.

Absolutely Dave, it's an 'Aurora' - 16ft - and I've driven it all over the place over the last few years. On the Defender, because the roof bars are so far apart I think it would be possible to do without fore and aft ropes, but I still use them anyway.

On the RR the towball is obviously a great tie off point at the back. Not sure yet what I'll do at the front. If it's at bumper level, then the rope running over the front of the bonnet would chafe and damage the paintwork, so I might use the towing eye and 'sleeve' the rope somehow. Even a basic 'tube' sewn up from an old 'fleece' jacket would do I think.

I use a ratchet strap on each cross bar, and a bow rope to the factory bush bar, no stern rope. Doesn't move at 140km/h. Without the bush bar up front it would be more difficult. I read about opening the hood and installing a nylon strap, looped back to itself, attached to a screw, one on each side of the hood, to attach 2 bow ropes to in a "vee".

Thanks for the reminder Harv - I'd also seen that done, but had forgotten about it. I imagine you could leave those loops in place, but tuck them away under the bonnet when not needed. I'll have a look for suitable bolts along the wing tops.

Don't know why I said I use a stern line - a brain fart! - I don't actually use one of those at all. I do exactly what you've described - two cambelts on each bar, and a bow line to the A bar on the Def.

Meanwhile I'll not be going anywhere if it doesn't pass its MOT tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

Well! That was ..... interesting!

Phoned the MOT station and was told the car had failed. Oh dear, says I, not entirely surprised. What was the fail, and can I still drive it home? I was told it was a 'major fail: ABS light indicates a fault'...

Hmmmm, says I. Had a wee google and printed off a couple of things that show the car needs to be driven above 5mph for the light to go off, and presented them to the tester. He girned a bit, and took me over to their wall chart which showed..... the vehicle needs to be driven above 5mph.

I left them to change the paperwork, and drove off with a clean MOT pass, and no advisories (which is another big surprise!)

It occurs to me that it's a kind of 'milestone' on my P38 journey. First MOT in my ownership, and from an MOT perspective, the car will never be so bad again as long as I have it, so I feel that this free's me up to start thinking in the longer term.... I do quite fancy some leather seats, but maybe dry carpets should come first.

I know I'll hate it again, and swear at it (lots) when I tackle the back axle, but the only way is up!

Took it for a celebratory spin after the test, and just enjoyed the 'dark' dash - without the SRS/airbag fault lights shining at me.

I've had a tester (not my usual one) who told me he wasn't able to test it as the ABS light was staying on as he drove it very slowly onto the ramp. His boss, my usual tester, then educated him. However, as a P38 is permanent 4 wheel drive, it can't be tested on a rolling road brake tester and has to be done with the deccelerometer in the footwell. So he can't have done much of a brake test if he did it below 5 mph......

Ha ha! Yep, we went there too. "How did you do the brake test?" - "On a deccelerometer." - "Did the lights go out?" - "Yes, but they didn't when I drove slowly into the workshop, and I have to test by the sequence on the wall chart" ... Nonsense!

My usual place up here is booked out a whole month in advance right now. I think it's the wave of folk who had 6 month 'Covid MOt extensions' testing their cars again, so I had to go somewhere different. Maybe there's a reason one place is booked a month in advance, and another has a space at 2 days notice.

Great to hear that your big red beast made it through the MoT so you can enjoy the fruits of all your hard work.

I find it hard to believe that a P38 braking system can get into a state bad enough to fail an MoT whilst still remaining driveable. Even with the seals on one calliper completely blown and those on another being in the process of downing tools in sympathy mine still had plenty of brakes.

Tripped over some very rough notes I made when initially planning to go for braided lines after the calliper failure and subsequent full set replacement with new TRW ones. The brake lines running down the car had previously been replaced with Kunifer so a sensible option seemed to be to replace the frontmost, body mounted, bracket ANR5917 with one holding a through bulkhead fitting set parallel to the chassis and conveniently accessible to both the main Kunifer line and braided hose down to the calliper. A couple or three clips attached to the other bracket mountings would hold the braided hose in a nice smooth, very lazy, S shape run from calliper to bracket. Close to a straight line really.

I don't care for tight clamp supports on braided hoses. Last time I did such a job I found a source of hollow "rubber" sleeve mouldings maybe 3/16" wall thickness about 1 1/4" long with a 1/8" or so ridge at both ends. Bore was nicely sized to take the braided hose with just enough clearance to loosely support it. simple sheet metal bashing to make sone P shape clips to hold the sleeves.

Only significant deviation from straight in my planned pipe run would have been the obligatory anti-vibration curves in the Kunifer as it swung up to the bulkhead connector. Anti vibration curves are probably not needed in Kunifer but are a good idea if your Kunifer turns out to be copper brake pipe. As was supplied to me despite specifying Kunifier. In a practical world either is pretty much as good as the other but copper, even brake pipe copper, can work harden from vibration leading to possible fracture. Eventually.

In the end I decided staying standard was faster and easier. Especially as I wanted the car back quickly.

Clive

Thanks Clive. My wife has just asked me: "Does this mean you can stop swearing at the car for two weeks?" I think she knows it's a little unlikely.....!

There was nothing wrong with the brakes as such, just a tester not familiar with the car - though I do think there must be some air in the system still, as the ABS pump seems to run a little more often. Maybe some swearing will help......

On the brake pipes, now that I don't have to start work on the rear axle immediately, I think I'll do just what you say and enjoy the car for a bit ( we're off work for the next fortnight ) and then start planning that job in a more leisurely fashion. I have a roll of Kunifer, tools and fittings, but I still lean to the braided option just because it seems as near a 'fit and forget' option as I'm likely to get.

You've mentioned an 'anti-vibration curve' - I think I've seen that taken to an extreme on the Defender, a whole circle in the pipe. All I could see there was a perfect 'bubble trap'. It's since been cut out and replaced.

GR8! Congrats, mate!

I ran some, but not all, of my brake lines in copper nickel tubing at the same time as I fitted braided hoses. I did from the modulator down to the back axle and fitted an extra union before it went over the back axle, also replaced a couple of the short connections. I put a loop in below the modulator as an "anti vibration curve", though I didn't know it was called that. I got the tubing from Automec
https://automec.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw28T8BRDbARIsAEOMBczU4ebh0-eJFgF1M90yIErsmaXkEAuc5JSvyiGtjNVzuQt9f106kv0aAvPaEALw_wcB
It was already made up with nuts and the ends flared. I think Kunifer is a proprietary name is it? Pure copper tubing is not a good idea. It is not legal in some markets. One thing I learned was to use the tool for making nice bends. Doing them by hand doesn't look as good.

Hi folks,

The car's been sitting in the garage drying out for a couple of weeks. We had a big dump of rain a while back, and when I came out to the car there was a huge puddle of water on the passenger footwell, and the roof lining in the front left corner was soaked. There was even a couple of drops of water on the outside of the passenger-side 'face-level' vent - as if it had been dripping down there from the roof lining above. Bummer.

So, with the battery disconnected, and the doors open, things have more or less dried out. With a couple of hours to spare this afternoon I thought I'd see if I could find the leak.

I'd read about a leak which can develop in the roof seam/weld just above the windscreen, so that was my 'target'. I took off the roof finishing strip on the passenger's side, and...... no real sign of a leak there.

Then, as you can see, I removed the windscreen side trim, and the upper windscreen finisher. There was nothing immediately obvious until I investigated the windscreen itself. Ahhh.... says I, closely followed by f**k.

The windscreen is no longer even vaguely attached to whatever sealant was used.

What you're looking at is actually the inside of the windscreen. I think it's possible this was leaking a bit!!

I wonder if, in use, the force of air against the screen is pressing it against the seal, so it doesn't leak much. Sitting stationary = lots of water...

So, on the plus side, I got this far without damaging anything except for a couple of the upper finishing strip clips, and I've found where the leak is most likely coming from.

On the downside I now have to decide what to do about this. At some stage I think the windscreen's been replaced as it's not a heated one, though I do have the heated screen button. I reckon this also meant the screws under the side trim were not nasty lumps of rust.

I'll now need to remove the windscreen plenum chamber to check if the heated wiring is (still?) in place, and perhaps when it's all stripped down to that level, maybe take it to the glazing guys and get them to bond it in.

Ho hum. At least I've found a leak, though that's not to say that there aren't others......

Edited just to ask.... is there any way to check for sure if the car should have a heated windscreen, of if this one is original? I've been deciphering my VIN no. and came up with something that looked like a build sheet. This said "no htd seats/screen" - which seems conclusive - but as I say, it does have the switch for one on the HEVAC panel. Would they have fitted the wiring and switch on the production line, and then fitted a non-heated screen??

Thanks as always.

Its had a cheapy replacement screen job.

Went to a local independent supplier when my original screen had to be changed due to stone damage as the insurance company I was then with worked on the find your on supplier and we will pay basis. Not the best idea in the world as the "We're super good and know everything technicians" struggled and clearly didn't know what they were doing. Came that close to chucking them off the job halfway through but paying for two screens rather than just the excess on insurance was gonna be painful.

Put the impulse down to standard Clive being unreasonable and sucked it up.

But it never seemed dry inside afterwards.

Three years down the line a stone chip straight in front of me killed that one and Direct Line set everything bar the date up with National Windscreens. The technician knew what he was doing, had the proper gear and put the screen in in a quarter the time. Very uncomplimentary about the previous fitting job. But a lot more polite than I was when I saw how badly it had been done. I'm surprised it didn't fall out! So little sealant so badly applied.

Apparently crap screen change jobs aren't that uncommon on a P38. The National technician said screen changes are actually quick and easy if you have the gear and do it by the book. But if you are short on gear and scratch around bodging it takes longer and rarely lasts. Just like every job on P38 I guess.

Clive

Microcat with the VIN for your vehicle should show the correct screen type. Can have a look if you want to PM me your vin across and don't have Microcat. Otherwise best best is either ask your windscreen repair place as they should be able to tell you, or have a look for the wiring and see if it comes on when you press the switch. You might be able to have a heated screen fitted if you speak to them anyway if you decide to go that way.

Can't say conclusively that its the case, but the Disco I've got has extra plugs for bits it doesn't have fitted (Sunroof controls have the wiring there even with manual sunroof fitted, just no switches). Its possible someone fitted the switch in place, though I can't see a good reason for doing so if it didn't have a heated screen in the first place, More likely someone has gone with a cheaper screen for some reason (not covered by their insurance being the likely reason I can think of)

I've had a windscreen replaced (not on a p38) by Autoglass, and they seemed to know what they were doing. Unfortunately its only lasted just over a year before falling victim to another flying stone on the m4 and needs replacing again (both incidents down to stones thrown up from vehicles in front whilst doing motorway speeds so neither screen really had a chance)