Anyone happen to have an underbody shot of the P38?

Something like this (i realise its a model):

https://www.megamo.hk/assets/images/LR/org/d90org_006.jpg

I know the old haynes manuals used to include it, but i dont have one for the P38. Had a good google search but cant find anything!

For your bedroom wall?

How much of the underside do you need to see?

I can put mine up on a ramp at work but i don't think it will go high enough to get the entire underside in one shot.

Likewise, I can put it over a pit too but I still don't think I can get the whole underside.

No, but I have to ask, why? If you want to know what is underneath, crawl under and have a look.

Best I could do:

The ramp didn't quite go high enough/I couldn't get close enough to the ground to get fuller shots. It also didn't occur to me to close the workshop door to improve the lighting in the last shot until after I had taken the car out of the workshop. D'oh!

I tried to take a panorama shot using a creeper but it didn't really work so well.

Shed envy!!

Yeah, it is handy. I get to use it for free any time I want outside of my own working hours.

The only catch is that it's about 40 minutes from my house and my tool box is bloody heavy to lift in and out the car.

Worth it though - proper air lines for tools, proper facilities to drain, catch and dispose of all the fluids. All the fluids on pump at cost price (top spec stuff too, being a main dealer). Massive big skip for throwing away old parts too. Best bit, though, is if something goes wrong or I get stuck there's a bunch of highly trained techs there, many of whom I'm pretty good friends with :D

and as it's at a DAF main dealers, I suspect the lift is, shall we say adequately, rated. Now that's what Marty needs to get before next year........

Thanks those pics are pretty good. No idea how they create the images for the likes of haynes, maybe they lift the car with a crane :P

As for why, mostly curiosity, helps for plotting vapour builds in my head :P

And yes, i could go crawl underneath, but that requires effort when a random "i wonder if part X is in the way of part Y" thought pops into my head.

For instance earlier i wondered if you'd get away with a normal RWD transmission (from say a Jag XJ8) powering the rear axle. Afterall XJ8's are super cheap, have a lovely AJV8 and make decent power. Now i can see the fuel tank is very much in the way.

Great pictures. Thanks. Stolen to help me plan where best to lift car if doing work underneath. Axle stands and ramps don't give enough height for a proper view of where stuff is.

Clive

Looking at the first two images and they're making brain hurt. In the first one the passenger side radius arm looks bent and the driver side looks straight. Then in the second the driver side looks bent and the passenger side looks straight.

What's going on?!

But if you look at the last two, you can see what shape the front radius arms really are. It's just the angle you took the first two from.

First, thanks for the photos RutlandRover; When I crawl underneath it's still all just a foot or so away so it's always helpful to see the big picture.

Yes the Radius Arms are fine: it is just an optical illusion that makes one look bent; I have a photo of an (actually) bent one if you want to compare thanks to a hefty (~25mph Audi A6) wallop - and I needed a new diff./axle (The end of axle was only deflected by about 8mm: These things are tough.....)

You probably don't want to here this, but looking at the optical illusion that makes the front radius arms look bent or straight depending on the angle you look at them from, I've just noticed something else. Your offside rear axle oil seal is starting to leak, you can see the damp patch on the brake backplate. It's a simple enough job to change one and as it happens, I've got a brand new axle oil seal in it's packet here that you can have. I ordered one and paid for next day delivery for the car in France that I went over and changed the rear wheel bearing on, it didn't arrive in time but I managed to get one locally so I now have the one where next day was actually 3 days. My own fault, to make the postage worthwhile I ordered a couple of extra bits but failed to notice that if anything is a non-stock item, LRDirect wait until they have the full order before sending it out even if you do pay for next day delivery.

Yeah, I could see the true shape of them in the later images. It was just weird how they looked completely different in each image.

I hadn't noticed the rear axle seal. Thanks for that. I'd seen that the drain and fill plugs on both diffs look like they're leaking but they felt dry to the touch.

How much for the seal? Is it a case of wheel off brakes off, hub off, new seal and reassemble?

You can have the seal, I blagged the last one he had from Avenger 4x4 and was going to drop it in to him so he'd got one on the shelf. Yes, it's wheel off, caliper off, unplug the ABS sensor and pull the cable out of the clips, 6 bolts on the back of the hub (13mm, 12 point), pull hub and driveshaft out, lever old seal out, tap new one in and put it back together. If you want to be really thorough, you can take the brake disc off and clean the oil from the inside of the disc and backplate while you are at it. Shouldn't take more than an hour start to finish.

Thanks!

Is it OK to pop over tomorrow or Friday night and pick it up after work? I'm doing some more work on the car on Saturday and might as well add it to the job list.

Yup no problem. I'll be working late tonight but Thursday or Friday I'll be here.

Great, I'll pop over tomorrow night and pick it up.