That's up to date with the current options in 2025?
I know marty was the man but no longer able because of work I believe.
There was a guy on hear who claimed to make or made a printed adaptor to take readily available micro switches but went awol .
I've seen a guy called rezremaps based in Portugal iirc, anybody used him?
I haven't really got an issue at the moment just an occasional sticky switch for the interior light drivers side and a non functioning same switch passenger side .

I've not seen one anywhere but hadn't looked previously as I've taken quite a few apart and know how to do it. So I've just done a Google search and found a Youtube video entitled, P38 door latch repair and test from, you guessed it, Rezremaps. What that shows is how he tests the switches and motors and not how he takes it apart and changes the switches when he finds they don't work. Testing as he does is OK up to a point but usually when they start to fail they are intermittent so may appear fine until you fit them only to find the fault has come back. So not a repair at all.

This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0PEU_6J7QE shows how to take the latch apart but it is a passenger latch so only has 2 rather than 3 microswitches and rather than the fault being the standard one of a worn out keyswitch caused by using the key in the door rather than the remote, he had a problem with the CDL switch so he was able to resolder the wire (although quite how a wire encased in epoxy can break I've no idea, I suspect the heat just caused it to start to work temporarily but it is likely that it will fail again after a while).

Although Marty isn't advertising door latches at the moment (in fact, since he managed to break his own website, he isn't advertising anything at the moment) and has also returned to live in New Zealand, he's still about. Last time I spoke to him about latches (and gave him a couple of faulty ones) he said his biggest problem was getting ones to refurbish. He would sell them on exchange basis but found that many people, despite having paid a surcharge, never bothered to send him their old ones. He was working on a 3D printed carrier that would hold 3 off the shelf microswitches and supply that with a link to the correct switches needed and a how to guide on replacing them yourself in the same way as when he supplies a zebra strip for the HEVAC screen repair. Whether he is in a position to supply these or the file so anyone with a 3D printer can produce them, I've no idea but I haven't had a chat with him recently so will give him a call and find out.

As it's been too cold to play outside I've actually had a session on the bench in the warm today. First I replaced bulbs in some dash switch lamps, replaced the feedback pots in a couple of blend motors, then I fixed the flash switch in an indicator/light switch stalk so you can flash the lights when they are on without switching to main beam and then turned my attention to a pair of door latches. Both of these had been taken off cars where the keyswitch didn't operate on a key turn to unlock resulting in the immobiliser kicking in and it not being possible to enter the EKA with the key (as it uses a combination of the CDL and keyswitches being operated in a certain sequence). Before starting I tested them both as in the first video above and both worked perfectly. I've noticed in the past that sometimes the keyswitch will work in warm weather but not in the cold and I've put that down to a combination of wear and a tiny amount of thermal expansion which takes up the wear so they will work when warm. As both of these have been laying on the bench in the house for months, they are nice and warm, so to confirm the theory, they are now outside in the cold and I'll test them again in another couple of days but I'm pretty sure they will fail then. Then I will need to decide which one of the two I fit the replacement microswitch cluster into.....

That's confirmed it. After a couple of days sitting outside at -2 degrees, just checked both iffy latches again. Using the tests as shown in that video, both still operate the keyswitch when the lever is moved but one was intermittent and the other only operated when the lever was right at the very end of the travel. So cold weather and a tiny bit of slack in the connection to the rod is enough for the keyswitch to not operate reliably.

Interesting!
How did you manage to repair the hi-beam vs flash problem?

Any cheap option of dash switches bulbs? I see hefty prices ....

Like this https://rangerovers.pub/topic/152-dodgy-main-beam-headlight-flasher-stalk-modification?page=1#pid18390. The white nylon part wears away with putting the indicators on so instead of having a gentle curve to it that the lever bears against, it wears flat.

The dash switch bulbs are stupidly expensive but are just a plastic housing with a wire ended bulb. The bulbs can be bought from CPC (https://cpc.farnell.com/sli-ebt/7219-004/wire-ended-3mm-12v-1-9-lumens/dp/SC00339) at under £4 for a pack of 5 or Mouser (https://www.mouser.co.uk/ProductDetail/606-CM7219) at roughly the same price but sold singly. All you need do is unwrap the wire on the original bulb from the housing and pull it out, carefully remove the coloured cover, fit that to the new bulb and fit it into the holder, wrap the wire around and then then snip off the excess wire. The only one that is different is the one for the Hazard light switch as it doesn't have the coloured 'condom' on it, just plain white.

Man this is gold ... sometimes I wish I hadn't such a stupid car, but at the same time I rejoice there is so much wealth of info about it! :-)

I wish I had more time for P38 projects again.... Sadly work keeps me too busy to spend any real time on P38 bits and pieces... I try to make some RF Filters every now and again as they're still in demand, but sadly door latches need a lot more time and TLC to refurbish.

I have 3D printed a bunch of the microswitch holders, but found they need quite a bit of filing and fettling to get 3 switches (for a RHD/RHF drivers latch) to fit in there nicely, and line up inside the latch.

I did manage to get a few of them tweaked, and switches mounted - but then they ended up in a box somewhere in my garage as I got busy and haven't had time to do anything more with them.

I did get one into a latch which went to an owner in NZ - but it required a bunch of work to get the switches to sit properly, and ended up needing to put an extra lever (a normal accessory for microswitches) on the central locking switch for it to be triggered properly, as the replacement microswitches you can get all don't have quite as long button on them as the original ones did. So even with the 3D printed holder lining up with the mounting holes in the latch shell (which the holes in standard microswitches don't - thanks Land Rover), the CDL switch wasn't triggering quite properly all the time, and if I tried to slightly move that switch, it would end up jamming as the actuator in the latch would scrape across the switch housing.

So unfortunately there still isn't a 'drop in' replacement microswitch unit, and my guess is that because the tolerances in there are so tight, not many people tackle the refurb of latches on any kind of commercial scale as they do require a fair amount of time and fiddling to get them working properly.

I used to do them in bulk batches, but drill out the housings and use threaded rod to pin the new switches in - which I did have good success with, but again, was quite time consuming and as Richard mentioned, a lot of the time I wouldn't get old latches returned, so I'd run out of usable units to rebuild. Also I got a lot of them back where the CDL motors had burnt out, and (I don't know about now) these motors were unable to be found as a new replacement - so the number of latches I was able to be rebuilt also ended up being limited by the number of working motors I had aswell.

One day I might be able to get some time to look at microswitches again, and hopefully find a way of making a microswitch block which is a drop in replacement but I don't know exactly when that will be unfortunately!

Marty

This thread prompted me to contemplate doing a video for Youtube on how the latches actually work and why they fail. I agree, I've got replacement microswitches but the button on them doesn't protrude from the body as far as the original ones, so they would need to be mounted slightly higher. But, as you say, the tolerances are pretty tight to get them to operate reliably. One thing I have noticed though is that the keyswitch only operates right at the end of the travel when unlocking (being pushed down) but reliably when locking. This is what causes the problem with people being stuck with the immobiliser when always locking and unlocking with the key. A lot of this could also be down to wear in the nylon insert in the lever so when the lever is being pulled up (to lock), it moves the full amount and operates the switch, but when being pushed down, it doesn't move quite far enough for the switch to operate. My thought on this is that if the lever was very slightly shorter, it would move further and stand a far better chance of causing the switch to operate. I suspect making a replacement, shorter, lever would be easier than trying to line up replacement microswitches.

I'll happily wave a flag of support for a YouTube video!
My switches are notably troublesome as the temp drops too. Around freezing, non of my interior lights work when either front door is opened, around +2 degrees the front passenger still doesn't work but the drivers one sometimes does but is sluggish.
+5 degrees passenger still no go but drivers is instant. Only on a hot day does the passenger light work and even then not always. Almost like they just want a clean to fix but it's never as easy as that I suspect!

It's possible that there's moisture in the switches and as they freeze up, it stops them from working properly.

A lot of the latches I used to pull apart had signs of moisture/corrosion around the switches - even though they're sealed and supposed to be waterproof - I guess over years and years of actuations and use, the moisture finds a way to get in.

Cleaning the latch and maybe giving the switches a blast of some electrical cleaner might help in the short term, but ultimately will probably need replacing at some point...

Is it a faff getting the latches out? I've got a back up vehicle, 110 defender, but have to use the 38 quite a lot as my father in law is poorly, sort of nearly end of life poorly and I regularly have to take him for scans etc, he can't get into the 110, p38 is ideal on access and the leg room. It'll be a job for the warmer weather anyway, just trying to get an idea of how long it would take to remove the latch , clean it up a bit and reinstall. I'm handy with the tools , keen amature if you like!

Once you've done it a couple of times, it's a 20 minute job but if you've never done it before, it'll probably take a couple of hours. Once it is unbolted and the rods and cable disconnected, the hardest part then is getting it out of the door. They have a spurious lump of steel on them that does absolutely nothing other than get caught on the window runners so it may be loose but won't come out unless you get it at exactly the right angle. I always cut it off which at least makes getting it back in easier (and out of it has to come out again).

From the top. Take the door panel off and fight your way through the membrane to get to it. The rod from the door handle disconnects easily enough, you twist the green plastic clip and that releases the rod so it just pulls out. Undo the bolt holding the door handle in place (the steel block between the inner and outer door skin will probably drop into the bottom of the door so you'll need a magnet on a stick to fish it out and put it back into place when you come to put things back together) and slide it towards the front of the car which will release the rear of the handle so, if you pull on the handle as if opening the door that will allow it to be pulled out of the door enough that you can get to the rod that attaches to the back of the door lock. Very carefully unclip the rod from the back of the lock barrel lever (the lever is only mazak and easy to break). Lever the outer of the interior door handle cable from the fixing and twist the cable so it unclips from the latch. Unscrew the button from the end of the sill locking rod, unplug the cable(s) to the latch and remove the 3 screws that hold the latch in place. Then it will be floating around inside the door and it needs to be lowered and twisted as you do so to get it out of the door. The first time I did it, I must have spent the best part of half an hour trying to work out how it came out until suddenly, it just dropped out of the door.

As they say in all the best books, reassembly is the reverse of the above (although I've never worked out how you unhammer something back on...)..

I've taken the exterior door handles off before to fit new cam kits and door cards to replace speakers so that part is familiar at least. Thanks. I think I need a couple of spare latches to have a go at fixing first so I don't end up stuck. Am I right in thinking all LH and RH latches are the same on all years except, I think, connector blocks , which is easily sorted. Might be thinking about door mirrors though!

Yes, they are all the same except for the connectors. Very early cars have a socket on the latch itself, from around early 97 they have a flying lead with two connectors on it, a 6 way and a 1 way, while later ones have a flying lead with a single 8 way socket with only 7 ways used but if you have one type and need to fit to a car with the other type, the sockets can be swapped.

Driver's door latches have 3 microswitches while passenger latches only have 2. A driver's door latch from an MGTF (FQJ102262PMA) is identical to the 6+1 P38 door latch except it has an extra grey wire (so has 6+2) which can be chopped off an ignored. Chances of finding a used one of these that has had far less use than a used one from a P38 is better but make sure you get the correct part number as some versions of MG didn't have central locking so they don't have the microswitches.

One not to add to his very useful topic is how to actually "adjust" them after putting them back in ... I mean I did the refurb of both my front ones, but they stick somewhat and are very hard to open, you need to pull with a certain firmness and I am sure this will break them earlier, especially when my passengers are ... what they are.
Rear ones are light touch and click open, so it must be a problem of adjustment ... I looked - poorly - into the manual but I did not find how you do it.

There is no adjustment other than on the striker plate. If you mean the door handles are stiff, that is due to wear (see the sticky on repairing stiff door handles) although you may find that a bit of lube inside the handle helps.

The handles are not stiff like they were before I refurb 'em, I even found new right side which is driver's UK side which now is NLA.
You tug and it comes out fast and nice, not stiff, it just takes a lot of effort to "pull" the door open. Can't explain it, but next time I pass to some friend with a bodyshop will ask.

Probably the striker plate it is, it would not suprise me.

The door hinges can wear and drop which causes binding on the door striker.

Ah ah ... I am planning to go down your road in an inverted course ... looking to replace all the 'toys' with an 88/110 combo and ... call it a day :-)