I've suspected the rear diff for a while, when i got it, it was noisey on overrun at motorway speeds. That noise has either gone away or i've stopped noticing. I also changed the oil at one point and it was properly black and burnt looking, whereas the oil in the front diff looked nice and clean.

Still, investigation required. In particular the propshafts as if those fail it could get messy!

brake pads i thought about at the time, gently touching the brakes didnt seem to alter the noise though, and braking harder it would go away.

I'll need to get underneath and check the propshafts i guess!

Had the p38 out for a long drive today. At one point in roadworks doing about 40mph I noticed a pretty worrying noise.

Sounded like a rubbing or scraping sound from the rear axle or something around there. Most noticeable when holding the throttle at cruise. Full over run or acceleration seemed to make it go away or at least become much less noticeable. At higher speeds I couldn't really hear it any more.

I also have a clonk noise when changing drive direction, eg shifting from reverse to drive, most noticeable at low speeds, which might be related?

Any ideas where I should be looking?

Not sure if theres an override actually, i'll have a look.

Its fairly standard cable operated drum brakes.

had a look over it this evening, and certainly to the eye, i cant see anything wrong with the wheels.

Bearings all feel fine, no play, no roughness or odd noises. Spun the wheels by hand and theres no obvious flat spots or egg shaped running.

They are dated 2014 though. I bought new wheels and tyres as a package back then, as the original wheels were needing refurbed and it was cheaper to just replace the whole lot.

Thanks, i think they are 13". Hopefully at some point this week i'll get it jacked up and check the tyres and bearings.

Is it worth trying to have the wheels balanced?

Mines on Michelin Pilot Sport 4's and doesn't exhibit any weirdness despite it being a very modern tyre design.

I guess it depends if you actually need an all terrain tyre. Mine spends basically 99% of its life on tarmac, and I'm not up for ruining that handling in exchange for some off-road grip I use once in a blue moon!

I've done some very light offroading with the Michelin's and it was fine, I doubt they'd deal with mud ofcourse.

Thanks for the pointers. The tyres arent ancient, i replaced them all when i bought the trailer, but yeah they could have deformed or something. I'll check the date codes.

The trailer itself doesnt have any branding on it, it appears to have been built probably 25-30 years ago. It all looks fairly DIY, but done properly with solid steel sections, proper 5 stud trailer wheels with load rated tyres and a nice bradley hitch. The original wheel rims were dated 1989. The hitch is dated 1997. I've replaced a few of the steel crossmembers over the years, mostly because it was C channel and had been torn by the previous owner ratchet strapping things to the leading edges.

I wouldnt even say its a progressive change. It was fine, then it wasnt, and its been equally bad the last few times i've had it out. Like i say, its never been nice to tow empty, but this vertical jiggling motion is very much new and moves it from a bit "uncomfortable" to basically being unusuable for anything more than a short local trip.

I guess i'll start with the wheels/tyres and check all the bearings etc. Costs nothing.

Tyre pressures are something that hasnt changed much, they're at about 60psi, sidewall recommends 90 for the full 3 tonnes, but Most inflators wont go that high though. I think i had them around 75 at one point but they've slowly crept downwards over the years and are now around 60, which feels like "enough" for a typical saloon car on the back.

I'm just a bit loathed to spend £300 on a new Bradley HU12 to find its still just as bad afterwards!

One of the P38's useful traits that helps justify me keeping it around is its towing capacity. I have a 3T twin axle car transporter that i use infrequently, which goes nicely behind the P38.

The last few times i've had it out however, towing it has been bloody awful. When unloaded, the trailer seems to transmit some sort of vibration or oscillation into the car, which causes a vertical "jiggling" at a frequency which feels like someones shaking my internal organs to bits. Did 100miles in it on satruday, 80 of those unloaded and i was feeling verging on ill by the time i stopped after 40miles. I was having to sit forwards off the seat back to minimise the vibration. Road surface certainly played a role, with one section of road being incredibly bad, but the vibrations were there the whole time.

Now, i know the trailer hitch itself has some wear in it. The draw tube wiggles up and down inside its bore. I've been meaning to buy a new hitch for a while, but its expensive and hard to justify for something used so infrequently. The part i'm trying to figure out though is why its changed. The draw tube has always had this play in it for as long as i've had the trailer, but its never been that bad to tow with.

In the past, the hitch slack seemed to causes the trailer to sort of "kick" the back of the car when the trailer hit a bump or similar. Uncomfortable, loud and annoying, but not continuous. It would also get unsettled over uneven road and the hitch would kinda rattle and bang around, but again, it would only happen over the bit of rough road, not continuously for 40miles!

With the trailer loaded with a car it gets MUCH better, though its still not the most pleasant thing to tow, and it seems to like "snaking", not violently, but enough to mean that your sat there on red alert the whole time.

Anyway, enough waffling, i'm trying to figure out if ALL of this issue is with the trailer itself, or if the vehicle could be playing a part? Perhaps tired shocks or wear in bushes or something? Anyone experienced anything similar?

I've thought about this a bit with mine.

Getting a motor isnt too hard, though there are some questions around what you'd do with the transmission. Most EV's end up with a single speed reduction of somewhere around 9:1. You could use a manual trans and lock it in 2nd/3rd to get the right reduction, but thats a lot of weight.

I've seen a conversion using a Tesla drive unit mounted sideways where the transfer case would go, with a new set of gears made to replace the built in reduction (because your driving the stock axles). However when i did the sums the resulting gear ratio still wasnt right for a P38, seemed better suited to a 90 with bigger tyres etc. Tesla bits are also mega bucks. A LEAF motor is a grand, Tesla one is 10.

The most appealing setup I've come across recently was using the hybrid gearbox from an GS450h... With some simple mods it can be run as a standalone motor, is pretty powerful, and costs about a grand. Theres also a 4wd version with a transfer case on the back, though those are significantly rarer!

The big sticking point for me is batteries. My LEAF has 30kwh pack, about 25kwh usable and that gets me 75miles or so on a decent day (faster motorway driving etc) i suspect 25kwh in a P38 is going to get 50miles, or maybe even less, just with the relative inefficacy. Thus for it to be a useful vehicle i recon it'd want 60-70kwh minimum.

a 30kwh LEAF battery costs around 3 grand. a 60kwh LEAF pack is more like 10. 75kwh Tesla packs are 13+ which feels like a lot of money to be pouring into an old landrover.

Maybe in a few years battery prices will come down a bit and it'll look more sensible!

Thanks, i'll take a look around there.

Not surprising the recent weather might have caused some water ingress, but i'd quite like to fix it before it turns into a hole in the floor.

I've noticed the car was generally "damp" recently, but it doesnt get used frequently so i had just put it down to usual condensation etc. However i'd noticed it was really steamed up after a drive last week, and it didnt clear even sitting with the windows open all day in the sun.... Happened to reach into the front passenger footwell to grab some gloves when i went to the dump the other day and realised the gloves were soaking, as was the carpet...

So, anyone got a list of the likely culprits? It seemed most wet right on the front left corner near the kickplate.

i find the lights on the rangey pretty reasonable, and given my other cars all have HID/LED systems thats decent praise.

As mentioned above, might be worth inspecting the reflector chrome. It can become tarnished and blackened with age, which really kills the light output.

Is this the "silver can" style ECU, or the later black one?

If its the silver can, its very likely dead. I chased around trying to fix mine, following all the steps in the RAVE etc. In the end the fix was to replace it with the later black plastic cased unit instead and its been flawless ever since.

Oddly enough, about 10 years back i had exactly the same issue with exactly the same cruise control unit in an old Audi. Chased around for months trying to find a good silver unit, and eventually did find one after going thru about 3 or 4 from ebay. You definitely get to that point thinking "it cant be the ECU, i've tried three!"

Given the Autobox output shows the same voltage as the Cruise, you can conclude that either a) they're both dead, or b) they're both working. Given the autobox isnt complaining about missing road speed, i would personally be suspecting that B is the case, and your meter for whatever reason is giving a weird reading.

Given my previous experience with these Hella units, once i'd gone thru the rave instructions and found nothing obvious, i just went directly to replacing it.

Buy a genuine crank sensor. I went thru 4 shite ones before i realised my folly. I managed to find a new-old-stock sensor listed for an LDV van which worked.

i suspect thats a "danger will robinson" moment, most of those hoses and fittings arent rated highly enough for PAS use.

Working range of the 200 series goodridge hose is a bit under 1000psi. The PRV on the P38 pump is set at 1500psi

I'm sure hose will exist thats highly enough rated, but something to be careful of!

Additionally, the PAS hard lines are used as radiators to cool the fluid, and i'm not sure how that will be affected using a braided line instead?

Its also expensive stuff, by the time you've bought the hose, the fittings and the adaptors you inevitably need to fit the ends, i suspect you've pretty much spent the cost of a new OEM hose anyway...

In quantity, sure. But a single drip wiped onto my slightly grubby paw, it simply appeared transparent.
Whereas the same single drip from the engine oil was immediately black.

did the oil cooler today, wasnt too bad a job. The fittings were solid as expected. so i just hacksawed them off just after the union and pulled the cooler out.
New cooler in along with new lines all went fine just a bit awkward getting at the engine fittings and everything under the front of it was dripping with oil too...

Having done that job though, i think i need to change the gearbox cooler as well, the gearbox cooler was covered with oil and there were concentrated patches on the radiator where its presumably been dropping off while driving. The end of the radiator was clearly covered in engine oil (black when rubbed with a finger) but the drips in the middle of the rad were all "clear" so i presume ATF.

The engine cooler was mostly leaking from a rusted out line at the cooler, so glad i bought new lines. I guess i'll need to do the same with the gearbox cooler, replacing both the cooler and the pipework.

I also really need to buy a new PAS line, its very rusty and i dont like the look of it... And ofcourse, its the HP line thats dealer only thats the worst of the two :(

i was thinking about changing the condenser anyway, as it would be nice to have the AC working again, but its good to know i can swap the oil cooler without touching it.

I was also half wondering if i should do the Auto-box cooler at the same time? I guess i need to have a good look over all the pipework and see what needs refreshed. I know the PAS lines are extremely rusty and i've been meaning to do those for a while.

i have a similar early model. I bought a stainless "straight thru" rear box for it, used from ebay. Someone presumably had it made at a local exhaust shop. It was just a piece of 2.5" stainless pipe bent up to fit the bottom of the car. I wanted a silencer, and happened to have a small one from a BMW knocking around, so i cut the pipe, welded in the small box, and then instead of the streight outlet, i tacked on a polished stainless 45 degree turn-down tailpipe from an Audi diesel.

Looks neat and tidy and suitably OEM without being shouty. I'll snap a photo tomorrow for you if you like.

I guess the take-away is, find a local exhaust fabricator and get them to make one. I've had a few systems made (my local guy made the mid section for the rangey after it rotted away) and actually, its more or less just as cheap as buying from DoubleS, and you dont have to crawl underneath it.