Yeah stone cold it's still fully pressurised. The head gaskets were in a bad way, but given it's still doing it I guess it has to be a liner leak... I guess water glass is the next option, I don't think I want to spend the money going top hat, I'd rather put another engine in it instead, especially as it also needs camshaft and lifters.

Really need to dig into the plenum and try to figure out what's going on there, is there any photos showing what I'm looking for?

Tailgate seal is really ropey, doesn't fit well and the tailgate rattles when driving. Annoyed with myself that I didn't pull the seal off the vogue that was in upullit, they've had zero p38s since that one went. New ones seem somewhat expensive:(

As some of you will remember, my P38 has been using coolant for a long time. 5+ years. It was also pressurising the cooling system and showing signs of coolant in the cylinders (some of the plugs were stained orange). It has however never actually overheated, so long as you keep it in water.

It seemed to be a multitude of issues, leaks in the engine bay pipework, leaks from the water pump, leaks from the heater core orings as well as dodgy head gaskets.

I took everything apart in the summer, gave it new headgaskets, new water pump, new heatercore orings and replaced every coolant hose on the engine. Removed the horrible T-pieces feeding the LPG and rerouted that to be fed from the throttle heater loop instead. Basically ticked every box in the "fix your P38 v8" hot list...

Except, its still using coolant, and still pressurising the coolant system. The top rad hose is properly solid after the engines warmed up, feels like pressing on a car tyre. I've got a leak on the hose on the inlet manifold that goes to the LPG vaporisor that i cant seem to stop, i've already striped one jubilee clip from tightening it up that much trying to stop it. This morning when i got in i noticed red drips all over the side of the centre console carpet and some contorting later it would appear the new heater core o-rings are leaking.

It seems to be leaking LESS than before, which i guess is something, but i'm getting somewhat pissed off with it now.

The interiors in bits as i didnt want to refit all the plastic trims until i'm sure the leaks are sorted. Its also mouldy and horrible inside as both footwells and the boot are damp... The wife tried to use it yesterday while i was at work to find the child seat was covered in mould-fur. So that had to get stripped down, bleached and put thru the washing machine...

Any ideas beyond getting rid and buying a Toyota?

Still not super clear what's going on with this.

Reset the codes the other week and the light went off. Did a few short runs all fine.

Yesterday I went to the dump, no bother, then when I got back in the car to goto b&q an hour later, abs and TC lights are back on. Tried to reset but I was in a rush and nanocom was being dumb. Reset codes when I got home and again they cleared.

Battery is not in the best of health, so it was full array of error codes after I started it the first time (airbag, gearbox fault etc) and yet the abs was fine. But then the second time there were no battery related errors and that's when the abs flaked out 🤷

I'll need to stick the battery on charge and see what it does.

convert to png?

Theres a microcontroller on the panel which reads all the switch positions and sends them to the BECM over a serial bus connection. If that micro or its supporting circuitry has failed, the whole panel stops working.

Diode should work on a continuity test, but only in one direction, you may need to reverse the meter leads.

i reset the codes as i was planning to swap over the sensor and the light went off and stayed off... I've got a new sensor here now so if it comes back i'll try swapping it out.

Feels like its been broken more than working recently and not getting any better 😒

Maybe its just a bad sensor? I guess that would be the simplest first step and i'm just overthinking it!

Last month i got the car converted over to the newer Wabco D ABS system after the original modulator failed.

Drove the car at the weekend and it seems to have developed a fault in the new system. ABS and TC lights were on and the dash reported ABS Fault message.

Reading the fault codes i get a message saying "Front Right sensor short to Another sensor" which seems very obscure.

Some googlefu suggests this might be related to a faulty ECU, im also wondering if its maybe moisture/damp related? The car does seem to have a small leak into the passenger footwell, so perhaps the ECU has got wet?

Anyone seen this fault before?

I bought some "E" profile draught excluder which seemed to work-ish. ducts still feel a little loose, ideally i think slightly thicker profile would have worked better. They seem to be on there though. I might apply some tape or something as well, though i tried that initally without the foam and found it didnt stick very well to the heaterbox. Will see what other tape is around.

Cheers for the pointers :)

Part of the brake job required me to remove the two ducts that go between the blower motor and heater box on each side.

Getting those ducts in and out was an absolute shitemare, however theres a further issue and thats that they dont seal in anyway. It looks like there used to be some sort of foam sealing on the duct which has long since perished, now the two parts just rattle around loose on the spigots, which will explain why i get a cold draft from the footwell in the winter!!

Anyone got any advice on what i can use to replace this missing foam, and perhaps also any tips on getting the ducts in without mangling the foam.

When i had a duff crank sensor on my GEMS, i would get "Gearbox Fault" when it went started acting up.

okay paying attention to it when its stationary, with the ignition off and system depressurised, i can push the pedal almost all the way to the floor, its like pressing on a big spring.

If i turn the ignition on and let the system come up to pressure, the pedal moves about half as far then comes up hard.

My feeling is that its probably still got air in it somewhere... Maybe the master cylinder section.

I've had 80's cars that used full flow heater matrices and a mechanical blend door. Seemed to be a bit of a mixture back then, but everything has gone that way now. Engines need coolant flow even when the thermostat is shut. Everyone eventually realised that pumping it thru the matrix was the easiest way to achieve this and keeps the coolant circuit nice and simple.

I've run a dehumidifier in mine quite a bit, the cable just squishes into the seal if you place it carefully at a corner. Part of the problem though is coolant doesnt evaporate very readily at low temperatures, which you'll notice if you spill some on the garage floor. Which means extracting it with a dehumidifier will probably take eons.

It would seem i was worrying unneccesarily, once i drove it up the road all the lights went out and it seems happy.

I do have a question mark on the brake pedal feel though. Perhaps others can chip in with how theirs feels?

Previously the pedal was very "hard", there was a bit of initial travel, then it would come up kinda solid and it felt like brake modulation was simply via pressure on the pedal.

Now the pedal is much softer. I would hesistate to say spongey but certainly very much softer than before. Brakes come on immediately at light effort like you would expect, but it no longer has the same solid feeling, the pedal moves down as the braking force increases, more like a typical car.

I'm fairly sure its always had the "solid" feel to the pedal the whole time i've had the car, so this differnce has me questioning what it should be doing.

I may well go back thru the whole bleeding routine again, its just a faff and takes about and hour and requires an assistant.

Spend the weekend wiring in the 99 spec wabco ECU and corresponding modulator to replace my broken one.

Finally got everything together, brakes bled, ECU powered, everything looks good....

Except the dashboard says Traction Failure

I've not actually driven it yet as i need to put the coolant tank and stuff back in. Scanned for fault codes and none are found. Is this perhaps normal for a WabcoD after the battery has been removed? Or do I have a problem somewhere in the wiring 🤔

I think calling it CVT is actually a bit of a disservice, as that name has been applied to a range of pretty crap mechanical gearboxes, originally developed by DAF and used by Volvo and Audi amongst others, which are nothing like the Toyota box.

The Toyota/Lexus hybrid transmission is really very clever in comparison, with the CVT ratio being created by a planetary gearset and electric motor working together.

Awesome thanks.

I managed to get it apart with bruteforce, couldnt actually see anything wrong with it, my suspicion is one of the ABS solenoids has stuck.

Guide is super handly though incase i need to replace seals etc.

Philip wrote:

Luton fire was started by an early diesel L494 RR Sport, wasn’t a hybrid.

Statistics show that EV's are much less likely to go on fire than ICE vehicles. Not really a surprise given one contains heat and flammable liquids... The medias anti-EV crusade ofcourse likes to highlight every fire caused by an EV, giving people the false impression that they're exploding all over the shop.

Interestingly diesel is amongst the worst. Because its difficult to set alight, it tends to move around. A petrol fire will go kaboom and burn off quickly, a diesel fire will instead create a nice river of burning diesel on the ground which flows across the car park, setting fire to other cars as it goes. It also enables the fire to travel between floors as the burning liquid fuel can enter drainage pipes and whatnot.

The 300h box has a mechanical/cable linkage from the shifter to the box, whos entire purpose pretty much is engaging the parking pawl in "P".

The gearbox otherwise is entirely electronically controlled, infact its not really a gearbox at all, its a pair of electric motors.

Ordered up another Wabco unit from the bay and started the swap procedure today.

Removing the modulator is fairly straightforwards if a little awkward, however i got hit with a bit of a snag... The top bolt that holds the modulator to the bulkhead was properly stuck. After heaving on it i got it moving and eventually it worked its way out of the nut, but wouldnt move any further. Corrosion between the ally housing and steel bolt.

I ended up managing to remove the L bracket between the modulator and bulkhead, which was a proper pig as the bracket goes in before the steering column, so getting at the two nuts requires lots of creativity...

With that off, the modulator came out and i managed to free the bolt off with a punch and big hammer. Oddly the bolt actually appears to be slightly bent (possibly due to me beating on it...), so i'll need to sort another one.

Then it got dark so i gave up for the evening.

I did discover something odd, with all the brake lines removed, the pedal on the old modulator still wouldnt depress... It moved about 1cm then went solid. I would sort of expect to have got a long spongy pedal with all the lines removed?

When i got it on the bench and prodded it some more, eventually i opened the bleeder for the master cylinder. When i did that and pushed the pedal fork, fluid shot out of the bleeder and the rod now moves.