Not seen th p38 one specifically, but a lot of cars have the autobox cooler integrated into the rad end tanks.

Petrol p38 have a separate autobox cooler, but perhaps they've integrated it in the diesel to save space or similar.

Left the window open in the rain for the second time in a week...

Drivers side this time, just to even it out
😭

https://i.imgur.com/L9ljrvR.jpg

Could this be the culprit?

I've always just bought whatever was cheapest from a reasonable brand. Stick with the OEMs for best results and avoid unbranded stuff unless your just trying to fix something as cheaply as possible to get shot. Sort by price on eBay or autodoc (other vendors available!) and go from there.

I put drilled disks on the A4 (factory fit on certain models so you can get them from the normal aftermarket suppliers and they cost much the same as plain disks.) but they didn't really make any difference, and over time the drilled holes block up anyway. Grooved disks I've always avoided as they can be noisy and increase pad wear.

making sure the sliders and everything are working and the carriers are cleaned up so the pads can actually move makes a huge difference.

Gilbertd wrote:

Yes. If you open the sunshade and tilt the sunroof up, you will see a plastic cover on either side, this slides out towards the back of the car (it's on keyhole shaped holes with pins in them). This will expose the two Torx screws and a couple of small C clips, remove those and lift the glass out. To get the sunshade out, RAVE says to open the sunroof and remove the wind deflector before taking the glass out (but I don't remember doing that the last time I took one out). Once the glass is out and the wind deflector off, undo the two screws on one side that hold the runners in place, this will allow it to be moved slightly and allow the panel to come out although a bit of brute force will do it just the same.

Did this today.

Glass came out easily, there's a small gutter at the rear that needs to come off too.

Pushed up in the middle and the panel popped out. All four clips came off intact too.

Recovered it and decided to trim the material away from the runner area but wrapped around the front and back.

Reinstalled with a similar bending as removal, helped to have an extra pair of hands steadying it while I fitted the clips back on.

Lubed the front pivots as they were stuck too and then put it all back together. Success!

MOT retest tomorrow then I will refit the actual headliner. I think I'm going to get some PU sealant and seal the sunroof up entirely then disable in the becm. Hopefully stem off any future leaks.

i need to sort that on mine ^

except mine seems to be the passenger side.

Currently have a dehumidifier running inside it trying to pull some of the dampness out, its starting to smell a bit.

Yeah tbh i've not even looked yet to see whats going on. Shocks arrived this morning. Will maybe see if i can pull it into the garage one evening this week and have a look underneath!

Failed its MOT this morning....

One rear shock (apparently loose due to a corroded washer)
Passenger wiper blade (which looks perfectly okay to me)

Not bad for 28 years old!

Ordered a pair of Bilsteins for it, anyone got the bad news on how much of an arse these will be to change?

each engine revolution doesnt burn a fixed amount of fuel. What matters is power. Lower road speeds generally use less power to maintain, and thus should use less fuel. You also spend less time accellerating, and less waste going into the brakes stopping again. There are some losses ofcourse, and those often become a larger % of the total as the average engine power falls.

Its unfortunately all extremely complex with many factors all intermingling together. Different cars will also vary wildly making the same comparison.

Engines are typically maximally efficient at peak torque wide open throttle, but they dont spend much time there.

Futher, is the justification of those 20mph limits purely emissions based? There are many environmental factors which arent solely about emissions. Usually there are a host of proported benefits including safety and noise and whatnot for instance. Even slowing down cars such that people consider alternatives such as walking or cycling for instance is an environmental benefit. Theres more to "environment" than just emissions.

20 limits are also a bit odd. The residential streets round here are all 20, and tbh its fine. you cant realistically do much more than 20 anyway without it being a bit silly, as there are corners and parked cars and the like. But they are all proper residential estates. They seem to be extending them into places where they are less obvious though, like link roads and inner city roads that are long/streight/open where 20 feels like your literally stationary. It almost makes it worse in those places as you end up with a bigger stratifcation of road speeds. You'll get the vast majority doing 27-30ish because 20 feels too slow, a few idiots blasting at 40, and then someone doing 17mph (cos their speedo says 20), and i think if anything just casuses more anger and bad feeling on the roads.

But then they've spent the past 20 years doing the same thing turning NSL roads into 50 limits, so its probably not really a surprise.

The 60d Thor engine I bought from the scrap yard recently also has unc bolts on the exhaust manifolds, not M8.

I guess these engines are 20+ years old, and are known for head (gasket) issues so it's not entirely unlikely that the heads could have been swapped?

I've also got a ut210e. Does the job!

My gems went thru 4 or 5 fake crank sensors. Each time they failed it would idle but not rev past about 1500rpm.

The wiring plug on mine was just dangling, presumably the previous owner!

Eventually sourced a new old stock genuine part from eBay and it's been fine since.

Seems to be a few different options then...

Gilbert you say removing the glass with torx screws, is that done with the cassette still installed?

Kinda losing the weather now to be pulling the whole sunroof assembly out of the car though taping something over the roof might work I guess!

There is some corrosion appearing on the roof skin beside the cassette so it probably does want some attention. I really hate sunroofs 🙁

Any tips on getting the sunroof panel out? The headliner is out and retrimmed, but I can't see how the sliding panel comes out of the sunroof cassette to retrim that piece?!

The idea of switching to heat pumps for domestic heat isnt to save money, its to stop burning stuff. Seperate issue really. Nox is a problem in big population centres and domestic boilers produce a vast amount of it, hence the moves to ban them, much like similar moves for automotive applications. Hydrogen only looks good from the viewpoint of how we do in now (a pipey-flamey-burny-heatbox), its a horrible solution when you look at the wider picture. Clearly manufacturers of flameyburneyboxes are going to be championing the thing that keeps them in business. Electricity is great because it comes from many sources. your heat pump can be powered by gas, or solar, or nuclear, or wind, or hydro, or diesel, or coal. A gas burning machine can only use one source. Your electrical machine gets cleaner over time as the grid installs more renewables, Your gas burning machine doesnt.

As for the operating cost, its quite simple. A heat pump operates at a COP between 3 and 4. This means it will move between 3-4kwh of heat for 1kwh electrical input. Thus if we want 15kw output, we need say a 5kw heat pump. But it also means we can easily calculate the cost of 1kwh of heat energy. if the electricity costs 30p/kwh, your 1kwh of heat output costs about 10p at a COP of 3, and ~7.5p if you get nearer 4. The exact operating point depends largely on outdoor temperature and humidity.

Gas currently costs about 7p/kwh. So at first glance gas is cheaper. The gap closes slightly when you consider that the boiler isnt 100% efficient and while manufacturers claim upwards of 95% the reality in a house that needs 70c water might be closer to 80%. the high figures are only achieved if the boiler can condense at maximum efficiency, which only happen when the water temperature is within a tight range. Just like a heat pump, if you retrofit a modern boiler to an old property that requires high flow temps, it wont condense properly and wont be as efficient as it could be.

So at 7p gas, 30p electric, you probably just about break even. At some points when the heatpump is running nearer a COP of 4, it'll be ahead, and at other points when its down near 3, and the boilers operating maximally efficient the gas will be slightly ahead. Its disingenuous to simply state the heat pump will cost £1.80 for every hour its on... My Gas boiler can peak at 38kw, so based on 7p gas it consumes £2.66 for every hour its on. But physics doesnt work like that. The heat input is equal to what comes out the other end. Wether its a gas boiler or a heat pump, the heat required to heat the home is the same. Neither system will run at full power continuously, they'll modulate their output to match what the radiators are extracting from the water. Thus the important figure is what it costs to produce that heat.

One advantage going electric is you can use time of use tarriffs, to shift some of that heating load. A friend of mine has a heat pump and an underfloor heating system. The pump runs over night off peak, consuming electricity at 7.5p/kwh and heats the floor slab. The slab then warms the house throughout the day. Clearly not an easy retrofit, but you can do similar with your hot water heating for example, using the heat pump off peak to heat the water tank. Some installations also have a large buffer tank for the heating, so again you can heat the tank cheaply overnight, and then pump the hot water out to the radiators when you need it.

The big problem i see currently is massively ripoff pricing. Heat pumps arent cheap, granted. A Gas boiler might cost a grand and a heatpumps more like 4-5 grand. The problem is the installers want to rip you off to the tune of 10 grand for an "easy" job, and or closer to 20grand for a "difficult" job. Clearly nonsense, even when compared to the already rip-off price a gas fitter charges to install a boiler.

My personal approach is pragmatic, i have a functioning gas boiler, and an older house thats needing redecorated top to bottom over the next few years. So as i decorate each room, i'll specify a new radiator which will correctly operate at a low flow temp and meet the heat requirements of each room. I'll also adjust any pipework as i go, to remove the microbore sections etc. This has two benefits, one it means i can run the gas boiler at a lower temperature, improving its efficiency, and secondly it means that a few years down the line, the house will be "ready" for a heat pump when the boiler expires.

Even if the bushes look okay, just replace them all. Panhard and radius arms.

yeah i suspect the P38 manifolds are stainless, which expands a lot more than cast iron. The flange is also two piece. Presumably they've done it for fear of expansion causing problems in the manifold itself.

i'll need to see if i can source a replacement weld-in flexi, but super tempted to just sleeve it. I guess i'll need to use a cylinder head as a jig for welding to ensure it all stays in the right place.

No-one seen this before?

I've started stripping the scrapyard V8 with a view to keeping stuff that might be handy and binning anything that isn't.

I've discovered both exhaust manifolds have a small Flexi joint under the heatshield, and on both manifolds they are distorted and split.

Is this a common problem? My car has what sounds like a manifold leak, and my plan had been to clean up the faces on these ones and swap them in when I do the heads...

Is it worth trying to repair them? Anyone just sleeved with solid pipe instead?

yep, nailed it!