My recent NGK plugs came in a plastic blister pack of four, rather than the usual cardboard box. I didnt even consider they could be fake... I should maybe pull one out and inspect the marks on the plugs themselves.

So the P38 likes to use coolant, and i think most of it is actually just leaking out than anything nefarious.

I've fixed a few engine bay leaks, but while working on it changing the plugs the other day, i notice a puddle of coolant on top of the LPG vaporiser... Theres no way coolant could have dripped onto there, it must've come from the vaporiser itself?!

Looking at the vaporiser, it appears to be in three pieces. i guess a coolant loop in the centre, then the two actual gas parts on either side. It seems to be leaking from the seam between them. It also has that sort of red crystally look you get when coolant has been leaking and evaporating away over time...

Anyone heard of this before? fixable? Or new vaporiser time?

It looks very similar to the Bigas RI-21 vaporiser that tinley tech sells.

when the hot engines shut off the coolant system is under pressure, and the cylinder isnt, so some water could leak up and into the cylinder.

That might explain rusty plug and the missfire on startup, and also the high compression test result on that cylinder...

Doesnt explain why theres no signs of compression getting into the coolant system though :/

is it just me, or does it look pitted and rusty round the bottom of the thread?

$165 for two stainless washers? Seems a bit excessive?

Cant we sort a list of parts here in the UK instead of shipping stuff half way around the world?

britcar states its obsolete and island-4x4 says not found, despite the listing appearing in google, suggesting it used to be there and now isnt...

Its also £150 which stings a bit!

104660 seems to have a short flexi section near the PAS box, whereas the older pipe is solid.

I cant find any change to either the steering box, or the PAS pump that coincides with the same chassis cutoff as that hose. The pump changed slightly earlier but the new pump supercedes the old one, so they should be interchangable.

The QEP104660 is also £50 cheaper if i order from island4x4, which means i can replace the other PAS line as well for less money than just buying the one hose. For some reason the return line is available for £35ish as a dunlop branded OEM part.

The HP PAS line from the pump to the box has a weep at the crimped joint, its also very rusty. Clearly i should be looking to replace it.

When looking on LRCat:

http://new.lrcat.com/#!/1234/93085/93086/7406/93109

It suggests ANR3855 for my early car.

However ANR3855 is dealer only and discontinued.

There are two other part numbers listed, for later chassis numbers, QEP104660 and QEP105440.

So i guess my question is, how similar are these later hoses, and will i be able to use one on my early car?

I imagine the box end is the same, the steering box didnt change AFAIK. I also wonder about the interim part... the 105440 part is for '99 onwards cars, which is presumably thor and potentially had potentially different PAS pump placement, but the 104660 part appears to be GEMS age and went from '97 to '98

Was there a GEMS steering pump change around there that means the 104660 hose wont fit my older pump?

well the clips and/or LPG filler are the only thing holding mine on at the moment :D

The problem with the CAT test is if you tweak the mixture enough to get it below 0.3, the "lambda" value fails instead as the mixture is too lean. You might manage to eeke thru with LPG though.

Its quite sensibly designed to be very difficult to pass without working cats.

A healthy petrol engine will run around 0.4-0.5% with no cats fitted, with lambda nailed at 1.00. Fit the cats and it'll come right down to zero if they're working well.

I'm actually quite impressed these cats are working, as they look like cheap aftermarket ones and are well rusted suggesting they're a good age, and have been bathed in unburnt fuel and oil deposits from the engine burning oil, and previous experience with aftermarket cats is that they really dont last that long!

Well for completeness, went for its MOT today with the new used MAF installed.

Only other things i did was replaced the plugs (for good measure) and reset the adaptions on the ECU.

Readings at the last test: 3.75% CO....
Readings at this test: 0% CO

:)

So that suggests that a) its fixed, and b) the cats are actually still working!

yeh, my worry was that its still bolted together, suggesting its broken off the chassis and bumper...

I guess i will need to source another bumper and see.

Interestingly i've noticed a new scrape on the corner of the bumper. I wonder if someones clouted it, and the impact has finished off the rusty mounts!

Another years ticket completed.

Few bits i still need to sort though!

While sitting behind the rangey at the weekend i noticed a rusty protrusion on the rear bumper. Closer inspection showed two rusty protrusions which turned out to be hanging out of the access holes underneath, that are there to let you undo the bumper.

I fished about in the hole, and this fell out:

Looked at the other side and sure enough, the same thing was hanging out of the hole on that side too.

Bumper appears to be very loose, so clearly these mountings have failed. But i'm unsure if its just the bumper itself thats rusted out, or if the chassis is knackered... Does anyone know how the bumper attaches and where those rusty nuts are likely to be from?

I would remove the bumper for a look, but the LPG filler is attached to it which makes it a less trivial task.

yeh it stays up fine. The bags all look pretty new and it generally works well.

Well finally got some time on the rangey today.

Driveshaft in, hub on and bolted up, then i realised the ABS sensor wouldnt fit....

Lets just hope those levels of quality control dont extend to the bearing itself :( I marked out where the hole should be, took it all back off and ground it into a slot:

After that things went smoothly enough. Brake disk cleaned up and refitted. Caliper carrier inspected and found a siezed slider. Luckily it freed off in the vice, and i cleaned out the hole and cleaned and regreased the pin and it all went back together nicely. It really needs a pair of front calipers as the dust boots on them are ruined.

Then i set about the drop link. The way they were fitted seems really peculiar and i cant decide which way round they're supposed to be. They were both fitted on the outboard side of the roll bar, which means the upper balljoint sits inside the little cup bit on the chassis. This means you cant easily get a spanner onto the flats to hold the balljoint still while removing it... When i reinstalled it, i put it on the other way. Makes far more sense, means you can get the impact gun in the wheel arch to whizz the nuts on (and off if needed!) and the spanner easily fits on both balljoints.

The one i replaced last year, which i refitted the way it came off:

Then the one i replaced today, which i refitted "backwards", but which seems a much better orientation:

With that lot done, it was back on its wheels. Tightend the axle nuts to 150lbft (thats as high as my torque wrench went) then gave them a "wee bit more" with the breaker bar, as they're supposed to be done up to 200lbft.

And with all of that done, its hopefully ready for its MOT! :)

Well i had another go today. Used my garage compressor with a blowgun on the end, removed the line from the top of the dryer, stuffed it into the end of the blowgun and blasted away. It filled the tank in about 30 seconds lol. And ofcourse having the NRV between the dryer and tank means it doesnt all try to escape out the end when i removed the blow gun.

Got the nanocom, opened the valves and up she went :)

I guess either i wasnt giving the compressor long enough, or, more likely, running at 12v it just doesnt have enough grunt.

But the drier is behind NRV1, which i think means while i could fill the tank from there, i couldnt fit a pressure gauge to that position to view tank pressure?

A gauge would have to go in the line actually going to the tank right?

New bearing arrived today.
I did lots of peering in the automotive crystal ball trying to decide the best course of action.

Island4x4 had an unbranded hub with "timken bearing" for £210.
LRDirect had britpart for £200, "OEM" for £230 or genuine for £600 (ahahaha)

Various places selling bearings for £40-50, or timken bearings for 80ish, but lots of horror stories of getting the bearings out... Theres a big press at work, which i'm sure would have managed, but it would have meant waiting all week to be able to take the hub in on friday to see if the old parts would come out, and having the car sat for another week in an annoyingly awkward posistion on the driveway. I didnt want to order a bearing then find out it didnt want to come apart as then i'm wasting even more time!

However i stumbled across a "Blueprint" brand hub on ebay for £125... Blueprint are part of the bilstein group, and their stuff is generally OK mid range quality that i've used in the past on other cars, so i decided to take a punt on it given it was nearly half price of the other options. Cant be worse than britpart :P

Might see if i can find an hour tonight to get it fitted :)

I guess it depends what actually fails.

My EAS all works pretty well, but the tank seems to empty itself if its left sitting. The car generally stays up, so its not usually an issue (i guess bar giving the pump a hard time having to refill the tank every time its used), but now and then it will do the EAS dance when parked and lower itself down. I dont want to go down the route of manual valves on all the bags etc. It would just have been handy to be able to see tank pressure with a guage, so i can figure out whats going on, and obviously being able to fill the tank with my big compressor would have helped at the weekend.

I asked a while ago about figuring out the tank leak, but from memory it was suggested it was likely a leaking NRV in the valve block that isnt repairable, so i just left it.

It would just have been kinda useful to get the thing lifted up into offroad mode as i need to sort a drop-link and its sat on axle stands at the front as the axle isnt back together, and the stands dont seem to like me jacking the chassis (they seem to creak and groan if i jack the chassis up)

On the points above, i have a question... AFAIK line 6 goes to the tank? So why would i connect the fill valve to the dryer line instead? I guess i need to get a diagram of the system.

It totally fouled the plugs running with the old MAF. I've reset everything and fitted new plugs, but I don't want to ruin them by running it with no MAF and the fuelling all over the place again. I guess it'll just have to wait.

Not sure if it's a pump issue or just lack of voltage. I have a twin piston tyre inflator that's significantly faster on 14v than 12v, so maybe thats the issue. I'd just leave the pump running but I've no idea if it will actually stop when it gets full...

The pump was replaced shortly before I bought the car and hasn't done much more than about 5k, but it was potentially a britpart unit 😂 it's never given me any troubles in normal use, bar the tank deflating. It usually isn't a problem as the bags hold air and it stays at normal height most of the time.