Sorry for the seperate posts, but its better to keep each issue in its own thread i think.

Another issue i've got is the steering makes a sort of groaning noise when turning to the extremes of travel. It also feels fairly stiff especially at low speeds.

When driving its mostly fine, but navigating a car park for instance where your turning to full lock it makes a weird noise. I guess i should try to record the noise as its hard to explain!

yeh i guess at some point i'll have the calipers off and clean everything up, grease all the sliders and make sure pistons are all free and check the pads while i'm in there. Its not went far in 5 or 6 years so might be a bit siezed.

They dont feel spongey any more, the pedal feels fine, it just requires a lot of pedal effort to generate good retardation.

So when i got the P38 the brake system was broken. The pedal was spongey and brakes were barely effective, one press of the pedal had the pump running and the lights on the dashboard flashing up. It did stop, but the travel was long and the brakes were really weak.

I replaced the brake accumulator, and did a full system bleed, and the problems seemed fixed.

However when driving the brakes dont seem all that powerful.

I've noticed that on startup, the brake pump runs for quite a while, then once driving, every 2 or 3 applications of the brake you hear it start up and run for a few seconds.

Once driving the pedal seems firm, but theres not a huge amount of power unless you really lean on it. Maybe its just an old car thing, and i'm more used to modern stuff. I dont remember my old trooper being quite as bad though.

Any thoughts?

yeh, i should have pulled the exhaust silencer out and had a feel/listen, thats the next job.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/tub1jpsjw518xwp/2017-04-11%2016.18.01.mp4?dl=0

Quick video.

That was first startup after it having sat since saturday evening.

I reversed out the drive after making the video, and drove to the end of the cauldesac and the lights finally went solid.

I'll do that this evening and see what it does.

Soo finally got a spare half hour on saturday evening and took the P38 to collect a carryout.

On return i parked it on the flat driveway, and pulled the EAS relay.

Measured the distance from arch to ground at each corner (i know ideally i'd measure bumpstops, but this was quicker and my dinner was waiting :P) and i got roughly 81cm on the drivers side (front and rear) and 82cm on the passengerside (again front and rear). There was slight differences in the 5mm range but i ignored those.

Left it there a few days and re-measured this morning. Drivers side front is down to 79 and rear is at 80.5, passenger side front is at 80 and rear is at 81.5.

So all four corners have dropped a bit, but none of them are on the bumpstops, so clearly theres no significant leak in the bag circuits, though there are some minor leaks. Oddly the front bags have dropped the most despite looking significantly newer than the rears.

I dont think that level of leakage is anything to worry about at the moment (though i might be wrong?), so i need to move on to looking at the tank side and potentially the NRV.

I guess i could pop a pressure gauge inline with the tank to see whats going on there. Will plan out some diagnostics. I meant to get it levelled off and park it on the flat driveway overnight last night, but apathy set in and i couldnt be bothered :P Will see about doing it tonight.

I've also found a melted hose that runs from the passenger side corner of the bulkhead down under the car. Looks like someones spliced or repaired the original black nylon pipe with something less heat resistant, and its melted on the downpipe. Dont think its EAS related though, Maybe an axle or trans breather line? Need to trace it, and get some new pipe!

Thinking about the operation, i think the flashing LED on startup is indicating the ECU wants to raise some corner, but cant. Which i'm also guessing is because the air tank is empty. Thus you have to wait a few minutes for it to charge up the tank, at which point it then manages to inflate the bags?

That indicates potentially two leaks, one at an airbag itself, and the other between the receiver and the valve block (or maybe even inside the valve block) thats allowing the tank to drain down.

Pulling the relay will potentially show which bag is leaking, but wont show if the air receiver is bleeding down.

Well finally taxed the rangey today and took her out for a spin, only 6 miles over to a nearby cafe then home again, but enough to make sure everything worked.

Theres still an arm-length list of niggles and no doubt some other things will pop up as it starts being used. Some notable things from today:

The steering feels a little wandery, i know these are steering box cars and they arent as direct as racks, but not sure if its normal or showing signs of wear. MOT tester didnt mention any play anywhere in the suspension. Steering also makes a strange groaning noise when manoevering at the extremes of travel, i half suspect the damper for that, but unsure.
Doesnt feel hugely powerful. I guess its a heavy car, but i'd expect a bit more from 220hp. I didnt thrash it, infact only applied full throttle once for a short time, but less urgent than i'd have thought. My old Diesel Trooper i think went just as well and it reportedly only had about 120hp... :/
Theres a whine from the transmission. Again, maybe normal, sounds exactly like a public service bus gearbox. I topped up the oil before i went out, as there was nothing showing on the stick when it was idling, put maybe 1.5L down the dipstick hole, but was really struggling to tell what the level was. Maybe it got quieter after that. I plan to replace the sump strainer anyway and give it some fresh new oil, so maybe that will help.

Anyway the thing that stuck me as "i should really fix that" was the air compressor. It was replaced not long before i bought the car, as the old broken one was in the boot. I've noticed it acting oddly after its been parked up, and i'll do my best to describe what it does. When you start the car after its been sitting a while (despite it having been parked in "normal" mode) the Access mode light is on, and the normal mode is flashing. It sits like this for ages, several minutes, before eventually the light goes solid normal. As i was planning to drain the trans oil, i then put it in high mode, and it raised up just fine without any delay. It started lashing down, so instead of draining it i decided to simply top it up. Left the engine running and went under the bonnet to pour oil in the dipstick hole. Noticed that the compressor seemed to run for the whole time i was under there, though no clicking of valves, and obviously got quite hot.

I figured it might just be due to me jacking it up from high, so went out for a drive and decided to keep an eye on it. When we got home, the compressor was properly toasty-hot. I'm not convinced its a leaking bag. I've parked it with the EAS relay removed for a week, and it didnt really seem to "deflate" itself. though its parked on a bit of wonky gravel so maybe one of the rears was deflating.

Any words of wisdom?

Cheers
Kev

not sure about the other two, but pretty sure they arent holes into the manifold.

Well i ignored this for most of the winter. Couldnt be arsed. Finally got a mate round for the weekend and we decided to pull it apart and sort the inlet manifold.

Stripped it down this weekend, removed inlet manifold, replaced the valley gasket, put it back together, fired it up.

Exactly the fecking same. Spraying brake cleaner on/around the injectors on the passenger side caused revs to shoot up. Wont idle at all with the MAF connected. Will only idle with the MAF disconnected once its warmed up a bit and the lambdas come online.

Pulled the thing apart again, stripped the injectors out again, checked everything again and reassembled. No change.

I have a inlet pressure tester i use on my other turbocharged cars, It connects to the intake, and lets you pressurise all the boost pipework etc to test for leaks, so in desperation nailed that on the thottle body and tried to find the leak (why i didnt do this before stripping the manifold off i've no fecking idea!), which discovered air pissing out from underside of the throttle body....

Pulled the plenum off, and stared with disbelief at the cause. My mate called me a knob, i called myself a knob, and stared some more.

Pic:

I removed the heater plate off the bottom of the plenum when i removed it the first time. Completely pointless modification, but the pipes annoyed me and it doesnt really do anything anyway. Unfortunately, i completely missed the fact that three of those four holes are drilled straight thru into the plenum. So theres 3 fecking huge holes in the underside of the manifold.

Total fanny.

I'd also thrown the plate and bolts in the bin, and they're some nonsense imperial thread, so ended up having to drill them out and tap to M8, before threadlocking in some short bolts.

It was late, but put it back together and turned the key. Fired up and dropped straight down to a perfect idle. Not taken it out for a drive yet though, but fingers crossed its sorted.

i suspect, the wobble is something loose, and your new damper has simply masked the issue.

The loose things still there, its just no longer able to setup a resonance and start wobbling.

Given all the heater faults, have you checked the heater supply is actually live and working?

Another thing to check is compare the heater resistance with the original lambdas.

I recently bought a new bosch lambda sensor for my track car. Installed it and up popped the heater fault code. Was a bit pissed off, thinking the new sensor was fake or faulty, even though it all looked right. Measured the heater resistance, and the new one was something like 9ohms and the orignal one was 4ohms, thus the new heater was drawing less power than the ECU expected and created the fault code.

Do it once, do it right...

Given the work involved in changing them on a P38, i couldnt face fitting used ones.

The one that powers the heater matrix blend door went wonky on my Audi A4, however on that, its accessible just by removing a bit of the centre console and contorting yourself in the footwell for an eternity. Audi wanted about 200quid for one, so i took a punt on a used one, and touch wood, its been fine. However even the used one for the Audi was 20odd quid, and given you can buy all three, new, for £160 i think i'd be just doing the lot!

I've got a pair of nearly-new Britpart front shocks from my P38.

When i bought it, i thought the front shocks were blown, so ordered some new ones. When i went to install them i realised the bottom mounting for one of them had come undone, and there wasnt anything wrong with the shocks, they just werent attached.

I fitted my new ones anyway, and when i removed them realised the shocks were almost new looking.

They're cheapy britpart ones, but i figured they'd do someone to get thru an MOT or whatever. I've had them on ebay for 99p and they didnt sell, twice. So before i chuck them in the bin, does anyone want them? Just cover the postage and they're yours.

This is something i need to investigate for mine.

Anyone fancy posting some pics of "tidy" installs?

Ferryman: Sure, makes sense. A lot of the hoses on this engine are a bit knackered though, and a loose fitting/perished hose on a gas injector would potentially cause a vacuum leak. I've been running it solely on petrol, as the LPG system needs attention but i want it working right on petrol before adding the additional variations of the gas system.

Gordon: ah right, yes those are definitely connected up. I had to fit a new bit of hose to the FPR and the evap one has some sort of quick-disconnect fitting. The two breathers i've also replaced as the hoses were split.

hmm passing thought, i should probably check the gas lines are snug and not leaking before ripping the manifold off.

for the gas injectors? or for something else?

The gas injectors are all still connected up.