Although RAVE bleeding process step 1 should be all you need to do after changing the accumulator, if you need to do it at all. My new accumulator just when straight on and the pedal was solid.

But best practice would be set up with the car lifted and all four wheels off then do the whole darn procedure for bleeding and fluid change. Three hours of your life you won't get back but job will stay done for a few years. When the can says "Heinz 666, Worms, Large" its generally false economy to try a short cut. If the short cut fails it always seems to take far longer to re-set into proper procedure mode than it would have done to set-up right in the first place.

Trying a not quite so short cut partial procedure after the short cut fails is generally a very bad idea. Especially on a P38 which is so brutally intolerant of not to book approaches in many areas. There are some non book ways that work just fine in the right places but you must read up and understand when they are appropriate. Experienced "I don't need no workshop manual" mechanics steaming in and trying to treat a P38 like an Austin 7, or maybe Moggie Thousand, is a major reason for the P38 un-reliability reputation.

Before doing the full bleed procedure print yourself off a couple of check-lists so you and your assistant can tick things off as you go. So easy to get muddled and out of order first time through. If you have RAVE on the computer printing out the relevant pages and sipping them into loose leaf ring binder transparent wallets as a mini manual to take out to the car is a great help. Over the years I've accumulated a number of such mini manuals which have proved very useful when aged memory lets me down.

When it comes to working on a new to you P38 the motto has to be "Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst. Expect to find evidence of sub room temperature IQ mechanics.".

Clive

PS If you've not already got a set do get the proper partial hex brake pipe spanners before you start so you don't round off a bleed nipple or finally wreck a partially rounded one assaulted by Mr Open End Is Fine.

Sorry to hear of your old garage problems. But regrettably unsurprised. No excuse for a properly equipped garage having problems doing the ball joints. But cowboy is so normal with UK garages.

+1 on the hydraulic type joint splitters. Bought a cheap US Pro one when my trusty Churchill screw type couldn't manage the job. Realistically any garage should have one as time is money. Mine cost about 15 minutes at garage rates. Even Snap On (aka Rip-Off) is affordable for a pro.

ABS sensors? If it doesn't come out inside 5 minutes twisting it's cheaper to drill and buy. As any pro garage should know. Same idea as keeping the battery angle grinder with a thin cutting disk handy.

Seized ball joints can't be adjusted? Very funny. Bit of heat, they will shift. Always. That said with mine I used a bit of the DIY savings to just bung a new drag link in and be done with it. At 68 I've finally learned that the only stuff worth fighting with is unobtanium. Induction heater kit coming if I ever have to schedule another big job. With a bit of luck that might be on some desperate mates car and they can pay for it. Clives mates rates are cheap but if tooling is needed mate pays. Before we start.

Agreed you need Irwin or similar type "rounded bolt head" shifters around for the odd bolts that defy you. But any garage taking on older cars must have those. No excuse.

Actually when taking mine down I was very very pleasantly surprised by the condition of the mating threads in bolts and holes. No corrosion on any that were still originally factory. Bloody obvious where "Mr Skilled Mechanic" had been in tho' from the corrosion.

Big tip use the weakest loctite to seal the threads. Especially with import "stainless" bolts and screws as some of the material isn't exactly what you'd expect from the specifications so chemical galling is possible. Party trick if you've got a suitable pair of imported dissimilar stainless threaded components in a reasonable size is to spin them together fast enough to heat gall and lock solid!

If you have the official hydraulic tool (or clone) shifting the ball joints is silly easy. I did three of mine with the G-Clamp style and worked hard. One defied me so I had to clone the official tool and it popped out with three fingers on the hydraulic ram screw. Although teh clamp style usually does the job I shoulda followed my instincts and done a clone in the first place. Easy for me to say as I have the workshop facilities to do so which ordinary guy doesn't.

Agreed that in the UK there is no way the bottom ball adjuster is gonna shift. Mated for eternity. And a good thing too as I wasn't looking forward to reverse engineering the setting gauge on incomplete data.

Glad you've nearly gotten the car done.

Currently waiting for my back to unsieze so I can get a few simple, but hard to reach jobs done. Including a blend motor / flap pair that doesn't like high summer which I've been putting off for years.

Clive

Short answer to extracting the cable from the firewall is with great difficulty. Took half a day to get mine out. Mostly because I didn't want to go all medieval on it. But needs must in the end.

I were getting one made I'd look into devising a separate bush to go through the firewall and rethinking how it attaches to the pedal so its all much easier to hook up when upside down in the footwell. In retrospect It might have been quicker to do a re-engineered one from scratch rather than fit the NOS one I had! But I still have all the gubbins to make cables from scratch.

If planning on getting one made possibly the folk who make cables for the classic motorcycle world might be able to help.

Clive

+1 for changing ATF and filter. Two or three changes on lightly used car with some decent miles and bit of Italian Tune up in between to get fluids nice and hot so they flow well. Hopefully shifting any odd bits floating around.

Gave the big red beast that treatment the other year after changing the cooler and I'm convinced everything snappier and just working better. First change came out a bit dirty but, realistically was probably fine, second change wasn't quite clean. So being an anal type I gave it another. What I really miss about no dipstick on the Thor cars is not being able to see what the oil actually looks like and how much grumpf its carrying round.

Opinions on a full flush to change all the oil in one go, including that left in the torque converter, seem to be divided. There is school of thought claiming its risky on an older transmission.

Clive

nigelbb wrote:

Clive603 wrote:

Opie Oils sent me Mahle filters the last couple of times.

As its 9+ miles to a factor (or, whisper it, Halfrauds) I switched to Opie kits a couple or three services ago as being decent value and more convenient with everything coming in one box. Bit hit'n miss on drain plug washers, but I stock Dowty seals and use them rather than the usual alloy washers so that matters not. They tend to send two boxes of two pollen filters rather than one box of two. So getting overstocked there.

Clive

I didn't realise that Opie Oils sold service kits. I have bought Valvoline VR1 20w/50 from them previously as they have good value prices. I think that I have enough sump plug washers for my next ten services.

Do you have a link to their service kits? I can't find them on the Opie Oils website. When I enter details of my P38 it lists lots of different oils but no service kit. There is a slick webpage that looks up your registration number to get details of the car but then it lists lots of parts that very clearly aren't for a P38.

Sorry for delay in replying. Up to eyes in finance crap!

Just had a look at the Opie site and it appears to have changed somewhat since last time I used them, well over a year ago I reckon. Don't really recall exactly what I did that time, maybe I just followed a list of suggestions. Just can't remember exactly.

As you say no ready made service kit listed, you have to build it up from the list of service essentials. I always go in via vehicle details not registration number. As you found out using the registration is a bit hit & miss with some non P38 parts coming up.

Sorry.

Clive

New screen finally fitted this afternoon. Only took 5 phone calls and lots of discussion to get a new appointment.

Another pattern one unfortunately so it's not going to last. Fitter was chatty and agreed that an original one was far thicker and far stronger but insurance jobs don't get factory screens unless the car is under three years old. Top trim had been bodged on by fitter of previous screen and was unusable so he fitted a universal soft trim they keep for such jobs. Which actually looks good. Paying for wiper blades on the original booking was a big mistake. The Bosch ones Autoglass keep are too stiff to follow the screen. Reckon the chances of a refund are zilch.

The fitter told me that the original cancellation notice was issued by Autoglass central after he asked where the trims were as only the screen had been delivered. Autoglass central told him that they would contact me and sort things out.

What interesting news!

With 20/20 hindsight I should have ignored the cancellation notice and just turned up. Fitter said that he'd have been perfectly happy to fit the screen with the old trims if I'd personally given the go-ahead there and then. Fitter completely unsurprised that Autoglass central didn't have a clue about trims not being available from Land Rover.

Got well and truly rained on wandering around Tonbridge whilst job was being done to see what had changed in the 30 odd years since I last went there. Horrified to see they still have a Wimpy Bar in the High Street. I thought Wimpy went extinct last century!

Clive

Could well just be in need of a good go through and service. Basically clean up all the innards, new brushes on the motor if needed, grease and lubricate as required before putting back on the car.

Seems too be absolutely no rhyme nor reason as to how long this sort of thing lasts but my attitude is anythings over 10 years old always gets a go through if there are no obvious "its dead, its an ex-motor" reasons. Mostly seems to work.

As ever some soldier on happily for 20 - 30 years and starship miles without issue. Others need regular stroking and petting.

Clive

Opie Oils sent me Mahle filters the last couple of times.

As its 9+ miles to a factor (or, whisper it, Halfrauds) I switched to Opie kits a couple or three services ago as being decent value and more convenient with everything coming in one box. Bit hit'n miss on drain plug washers, but I stock Dowty seals and use them rather than the usual alloy washers so that matters not. They tend to send two boxes of two pollen filters rather than one box of two. So getting overstocked there.

Clive

I think it sensible to pull the air spring out rather than try the job with it all fitted.

Not done the collets and seals on our air springs but I have had previous form on similar fittings.

It's important to get the O rings settled properly and free of strain in the recesses. Any twist or not quite straightness and they will leak or, worse, be pushed out of position by the pipe when you slide it in to the collet. Hopefully ours have well made, good quality, collets but some of the inexpensive variety don't retain the O rings all that well leading to trouble if the pipe isn't in line when you push it in. You really need to see exactly what you are doing whilst remaining cool calm and collected during the execution of the task.

If the floating air suspension tables and similar devices I had to deal with in the past are any guide leaky O rings are almost invariably due to poor seating rather than O ring trouble per se. If the end of the pipe isn't carefully trimmed and smoothed off with touch of taper as per book its far too easy to push the O ring out off its ideal seating position. Theoretically when the pressure comes on everything shuffles around to seal as per book so long as the pipe entry is straight and parallel to the collet bore. Any offset push or odd angles and it's all in the lap of the gods. Sometimes Mr Careless gets away with very poor technique and sometimes even Inspector Meticulous has to go all anal (terrifying thought) to make things come right.

Usually common sense and ordinary care is ample but if Lawyer Murphy has decided it's your turn to be target of the day for one of his crack Gremlin Assault Squads ........

Clive

Good point about sliding the bottom trim off. Might take a look when it stops raining and warms up a bit to see how many clips are actually broken on both trims. Like pretty much everything to do with ageing plastic clips I reckon third time is the charm. First couple of goes odds are one or more gets broken.
Another skill to learn.
Guess next step is to bike over to Autoglass next week and talk to the fitter direct.

Far as bottom clips are concerned I found a couple of places claiming to have them a week or so back but everyone says no longer available. Heritage claim 8 to 12 weeks delivery tho'. At £ 6 a pop. Yikes!

Clive

Trotting back from Manchester the middle of last month the windscreen was hit by a stone about an inch and a bit from the bottom and pretty much under the parked position of the driver wiper blade close to the drive shaft. Crack started out about 6 inches long on the outer screen and spread steadily. By now it's pretty much all the way across the screen on both sides of the glass. Presumably the recent freezing weather didn't help.

So it needed fixing pronto.

Doing the usual insurance company route AXA directed me to the Autoglass portal and I got an appointment for January 25th at Tonbridge around 13 miles away. Was about 10 day wait which is annoying but I guess acceptable.

Half way to the appointment I got a phone call saying they couldn't do the job then and that they would be back in touch to re-arrange.

Total silence from Autoglass since.

Managed to dig out the semi-secret phone number to speak to a human but two calls haven't gotten me much beyond "An e-mail has been set to our technical help desk." So far as I can see the semi-secret phone number goes to a trained petting and feather smoothing person who isn't really authorised to do anything. First time round I did get the pleasure of 20 minutes on hold listening to "music!" that was crappy even before being wrecked by the on hold filters. Small reward was being able to tease out a suggestion that the issues were due to some of the external trim being obsolete and no longer available from Land Rover. Second call was less helpful.

So tell me something I didn't know.

Looks like that as of now the lower trim is un-obtanium new, pattern upper trims can be got and trim clips for both can be found but it's unclear whether or not they are factory or pattern. So whats the next move given that I've already started the insurance company route.

Ultimate fall back is I buy a screen, find trims, accepting used but good for the lower, and pay an independent fitter to do the deed. Approaching £1,000 I fear. Ouch!

Last time round Direct Line got National Windscreens on the job. Fitted a pattern, un-tinted screen with iffy heating, re-used the old trim and dislodged the rubber finisher between screen and dashboard. Also managed to damage the bottom trim and, I suspect, some of the clips. Not going there again.

Clive

No idea.

I have the usual yellow, red, grey, blue wires for the motors. A green and black pair for the heater. Another green and a blue with black trace doing ... . Something to do with the optional electro-chromatic glasses perhaps?

I guess I can get a 6 pin mirror and re-use my wiring. That will be second time round as I hauled the motor and adjuster link assemblies out of some NOS Arabic market unpainted mirrors years ago when the original mechanics broke. Still got everything left over in stock complete with a pair of nice tinted glasses with Arabic script on the bottom.

Looking around E-Bay there seem to be a few NOS mirror units, both single and pairs, floating around so I'll probably go that way and sort the case colours out later. Far as I can see the connector on my car wiring will match 10 pin and 12 pin mirrors, just not fully populated. Presumably the mirror itself doesn't care if the memory bits aren't connected.

Clive

Mine has 8 wires going into the socket and 8 coming out of the plug. Non memory with heated glass.

Also skeptical as to the strength of new Chinese gears and actuating racks compared to the originals.

Clive

A high speed lorry stole my drivers door mirror Wednesday night so I'm looking for a replacement in Alveston Red with an 8 pin plug. Which might take bit of finding.

It looks like new aftermarket mirrors in primer can be found for around £150, about 2 or 3 times decent used price, but if they are well made there is certain attraction in getting nice new operating gears and racks rather than hoping these fragile components aren't coming to the end of their lives in a used mirror. Has anyone ever seen one and have views on the quality. Changing the plug for my old one shouldn't be an issue if they aren't 8 pin.

Clive

Bolt wrote:

Ahhhh..... So that does indeed clear up the issue....It's not an issue, just another interesting "feature"
of these beasties!
Still trying to work out just why you would need to shut off the compressor before activating the valves?

Most likely done to ensure the system can't suffer "logic race" type problems if a functional but not in absolutely perfect condition gets its inputs in the wrong order under some unspecified set of conditions.

If I recall correctly from a, thankfully exceedingly brief, encounter with pneumatic logic controls its considered best to do one thing at a time because hysteresis and operating times have inherent variability due to the system having to be able to work over a certain pressure range. An issue that can only get worse as components age.

Clive

Mine is clearly toast. Impossible to get it all working with the zebra strip. So I gave up and got a used working one. Which will do the deed.
For now!
Hopefully when the ribbon ins that one dies it will accept a zebra.

Clive

Aragon
Interesting to hear that the E section profile is little on the loose side. Far as I can see the overall thickness dimension is, for all practical purposes, the same as the three rib W section I have which is a very nice fit. Stiff enough to be stable but not so stiff that the adhesive doesn't hold it when pushing on. I never managed to get the foam stuff to work. Usually either tore for pushed off part way round.

I guess the shallower central rib of the E section doesn't really get squidged so only the outer ones provide support.

I imagine it's made that way to provide bit more tolerance or "squidge range" when used as a draught excluder. My 3 rib W has, probably, about a mm or so of useful squidge range before it's effectively solid. Many naughty words when I had to re-work a door frame to use it for its intended purpose!

Clive

Make sure the thread is clean and use something to stop corrosion or galling so you can get them out if you ever need to. Thinned down, or plate spanners aren't very strong. Don't want to have to resort to making extra long jaws with provision for a keeper across the end so they don't spread. I usually use the weakest form of loctite for that sort of thing.

If you are thinning a spanner start with a decent one. Last time I tried that with a "don't know where it came from cheapy" out of the bottom of the toolbox it turned out to have a crack inside the jaw forging. So I made a plate one.

Usually the simple approach works just fine but sometimes the Head Gremlin turns up with a full squad and, metaphorically, says "hold my beer!".

Clive

W profile draught excluder strip is somewhat more resistant to mangling, or being pushed off, when fitting as the ribs that do the sealing are stronger than simple foam but still able to deflect as you push things together. Looks rather like a multi-Vee (serpentine) ancillary drive belt. Always seems to be made as a double width that can be split down the middle if its too wide.

I bought a lifetime supply from LiDL some years back under the Powerfix branding. Current version, branded Parkside, has dual strips of 4 ribs rather than the 3 ribs on the ones I bought but I imagine it would work as well. Around £6 or £7 off E-Bay.

I imagine there are other brands of similar stuff. E section has a shorter central rib but may well work just as well.

Clive

Thanks for that info. Ordered one.

Clive