No 2 on radius arm bushes to cure wandering. Mine seemed OK just, the odd wander, so I was surprised how much changing the bushes and the big rubber buffer thingies on the back tightened things up. Probably best to do the job with everything jacked up square. I got 4 big axle stands so I could put two under the chassis and two under the axle before undoing anything to be sure everything stayed in line. At least we don't have to deal with that L322 nonsense of dropping it back onto its wheels, letting the bushes settle to their neutral position and then tightening them up.

Might be worth checking the suspension sensor joints. Pins in the radius arms on mine were well corroded so the linkage movement was "less than smooth". I imagine jerky potentiometer outputs could upset suspension action. Especially in roll. Mine got swanky new stainless steel pins. Back end bushes are on this years job list.

Clive.

Almost certainly deep groove ball bearings.

OT techie stuff.

Deep groove bearings are the most common type because they can carry considerable axial, side to side load, as well as the main radial load. See https://www.astbearings.com/single-row-deep-groove.html . Symmetrical so they don't care which way they are mounted.

If you need to carry more axial, end, load you use angular contact bearings which have asymmetrical races with much more contact area on one side than on the other. See https://www.astbearings.com/angular-contact-ball-bearings.html and http://www.skf.com/uk/products/bearings-units-housings/ball-bearings/angular-contact-ball-bearings/index.html which has a useful picture. If you push them the wrong way they can pop apart. Some types easier than others. Generally used in preloaded pairs. Often opposed to take loads in both directions but sometimes both same way round if the main load is in one direction and other arrangements can be made to stop them pulling apart. Usually expensive, especially machine tool spindle types which usually come in matched pairs ground for specific spacings.

Taper rollers take pretty much equal loads in both directions but have to be used in precisely spaced pairs, which can in practice be much harder to arrange reliably than you'd think at first sight.

Thrust bearings just hold stuff apart with negligible control of wobble.

Clive

RAVE confirms that adaptive values are lost when battery power is removed. Presumably that includes TPS but it doesn't actually say.

Another potential issue is low or unstable supply voltage to the pot due to connection issues. Known to be problem on many other system but ours are usually pretty well behaved. Worth a squirt of cleaner on the connector contacts if the problem persists.

Clive

Yup, normally pressed up together, maybe on splines.

New seal probably in the £10 to £20 retail range if it can be got at all. Motorcycle ones are commonly found as spare parts but car ones will take bit more finding. I imagine suppliers are geared to the hundreds and thousands a month trade sale market not individuals.

Hafta change the outer seal too to keep crap out of the bearing. You'd need to be very sure of bearing condition too if you were going to re-use it. The serpentine belt puts hefty side load on it.

Doesn't seem economic when £40 - £60 gets a half decent new unit good for 50,000 + miles. After all changing a pump you put on yourself is only a couple of hours work if you have the tools and took the time to do the extra stuff to make it easy next time round. DIY reconditioning water pumps is another job life has got too short for.

Clive

Engine compression doesn't have much bearing on whether or not you can shock the nut loose. It's the sharpness of the impulse that matters. If you are holding by a serpentine or similar friction belt drive the stretchiness of the belt ultimately takes the edge off the shock setting a limit to the tightness of the nut or bolt that can be removed. The engine doesn't have time to turn during the impulse but the belt does have time to stretch. Doesn't help that whacking a spanner is a very inefficient way of applying a sharp shock. The shaft bends first then applies the wack to the hex.

I usually strangle a 5 lb club (or 10 lb sledge if its really serious) hammer. More of a punch through than a swing. Heavy head means there is still plenty of energy left in the impulse when the elasticity of the shaft is taken up. The impulse is on the stopping end of the hit not the start. Unfortunately that gives time for the belt stretchiness to get in on the act. Proper impact wrenches and drivers put the impulse on the beginning which is much more effective. The impulse is also very fast which is why you can hand hold against 100 fl lb or more when using an impact gun.

The better variety of battery driven impact screwdrivers include a chart as to how long you have to keep it rattling away to reach a given torque setting. Checked my Makita ones against a torque wrench (yup, definitely Mr Anal here) and found the chart surprisingly accurate. Undoing usually took a couple or three seconds more than doing up. Both the drill / driver and impact driver in my 18 V Makita set will casually snap a 5 mm Screwfix wood screw if you get ambitious. But the drill / driver has a darn good try at taking my hand off at the wrist before the screw snaps under pure torque whilst the impact driver literally just sits there and goes rattle-rattle "snap".

Its all in the speed and energy. Dinging away with a piddly little 2 lb engineers ball pin rarely gets you anywhere serious, although the long, fast swing can be a hazard to nearby parts if your aim is off, and a dead blow is largely a waste of time. Dead blows are for pushing things around.

Clive

Put a bit of coppa-slip on mine when I did the front crankshaft oil seal 3 or 4 years back. Still quite tight enough thank you when I came to change the water pump this year. So used it again.

An alternative if you want to seal the thread but aren't quite sure about anti seize is to use a low strength Loctite which not only seals against corrosion but also prevents galling and similar metallic joining issues. 222 Screwlock adds about 10 ft lb breakaway to a 10 mm thread which isn't going to add up to too much on the fan so long as you don't heave it up. Being in Rikki-Tikki-Tava mode I looked up the others for completeness 243 Nutlock will add about 20 ft lb to a 10 mm thread and 270 Studlock about 30 ft lb. Measuring this stuff gets complicated. Book figures are for around 4 ft/lb tightening torque. Just enough to properly engage the threads on the loaded side. Lean on it and strength is rather higher but how much greater gets complicated. Hafta say that book strength of screw lock is greater than I thought. Probably 'cos I've only used it on itty-bitty things.

Bearing fit 641 adds 940 psi to the retention force on a bearing which isn't too shabby. High strength retainer 638 data sheet says 3,625 psi retention force if properly applied. Translation "Not coming out. So there.". 638 is bit harder to use than the other breeds as it has good gap filling properties and strength varies with clearance. Used it occasionally when stuck with fairly loose slip fits instead of drive or light shrink ones. Found that it holds well, real well. Put the part in wrong and its probably time to break out the blow lamp.

Clive

LRCat is your friend http://new.lrcat.com/#!/1234/90127/90555/7166/90660. Naturally i went out with torch and ruler and tried to measure them first. Darn near impossible in the dark.

Pulley on the right PQR101150 is 80 mm diameter, pulley on the left PQR500060 is 70 mm diameter. Officially upper and lower pulleys respectively but I defy anyone to see the difference in height when installed in the car.

Going off topic Re K series engines.
Lpgc is getting the Leyland K series engine mixed up with the BMW motorcycle K series. BMW motorcycle K is a DOHC fuel injected water cooled 3 (K75) or 4 (K100) pot laid on its side. Crank to right, head to left.

Clive

I've fitted up worse looking gasket faces when driven by necessity so should work out OK with suitable care. Important thing seems to be to make sure there are no raised edges on the dings or damaged edges. Scrape a touch deeper if need be to get a smooth entry to the ding. Had a Klingerite type self adhering gasket supplied when I did mine. I know you aren't supposed to use gasket goo on those but mine got a coat of Welseal, like almost everything does, Welseal never completely hardens much beyond super-tacky so if it ever has to come off again I won't have to scrape half the gasket off the engine casting. My back was seriously unimpressed after scraping off the remains of the old one.

So far as mass production factory "off the machine" quality is concerned a visit to the BMW motorcycle factory in Berlin a couple or three years before the wall came down was illuminating. In a not particularly good way. In particular a pile of imperfect K series heads on the floor awaiting re-work all looked well beyond saving!

Clive.

Well mine was sealed so looks like a new policy.

Delivering a component with flat smooth mating faces is a basic fundamental to anything that bolts on with a gasket. If a company can't get that right it doesn't exactly give confidence in their ability to get the other, less visible, things right too. Looks like Airtex is behaving like another "box brand". Buy in components and take delivery ready packed in boxes branded with their logo. Totally dependant on their supplier. Nearest thing to Quality Control probably the sample product inspection when the production contract is issued or renewed.

Its worrying that Island 4x4 are willing to risk their reputation by dealing with a supplier whose products have to be inspected before delivery. Especially when said inspection is to a lower standard than the original requirements which probably included mating surface roughness and flatness specifications along with a catch all "free from scratches and the objectionable surface defects". OK I don't have access to a Laser Talysurf these days, probably overkill anyway, but everything gets held up to a straight edge and often a quick surface quality comparison against a set of Rubert standards. Excessive, maybe. Anal, yup, we established that ages ago. I have been known to re-machine mating faces on hard to get stuff, not P38 related.

Britpart own label is different of course. 50% savings for "how lucky are you feeling today" risk. The fiscal basis for which I've never really understood. With todays manufacturing methods and volumes on rather old tech, not uber precise, components it would seem cheaper to do a decent job in the first place than resort to the slap dash, haphazard systems associated with poorer work of highly variable quality.

Isn't there some sort of legal requirement that branded stuff sold individually packaged, or at least retail, should have the "makers" address and contact details?

Ah-Hah. Pay-dirt. Looks like Airtex-ASC http://airtexasc.com might be the parent company. Contact link on home page gives phone number and separate E-Mail links for fuel and water pumps. Product finder comes up with our P38 water pumps too. Maybe worth an E-Mail, with picture.

Clive

Send it back, not fit for purpose with marks on the mating faces.

Mine came in a sealed box with some packing, not much but enough.

Island are usually good but I've had one or two items a bit close to the bone packing wise. Drag link came down in just its own blue bag as supplied by Lemfoder with my address label wrapped on the end in a less than flat manner. Fortunately flat enough to read but it was fairly obvious the thing had not been handled that well. Fortunately I'm on a short delivery run with minimal handling.

One of my TRW brake calipers came in an unbranded, apparently second time round, box. But it had the paperwork and was un-molested so it went on after a forensic level examination. Helped that I had its mate from a factory sealed TRW box to compare it to as there was no TRW identification on the calliper itself.

Clive

Thing against the whacking with a hammer method is that its very easy to damage the hex on the nut.

The spanner felt unhappy on mine first time through but, taking that as evidence it had been off before and probably wasn't uber tight, it got a couple of whacks at the best fitting position. Which didn't work. So I sorted the tools and discovered it was uber tight! Continued whacking would have destroyed the nut before the fan shifted. In retrospect I'm surprised that the BritPart spanner didn't spread its jaws.

Which was about where I realised that a previous mechanic had a tool box heavy on hammers but light on spanners. Now everything gets a carefully jaundiced look before I put a tool on it for the first time. Fortunately he hadn't done much work on the car.

My nut got welded up and carefully re-machined back to a clean hexagon before it went back on.

In my book some of the savings on labour costs doing DIY should be invested in the proper tools so you can do the job fast and easy. When you have a job, home life and family to run playtime is in short supply!

Clive

Yeah fan does need to come off.

Best to get, or make the proper tools. Putting a spanner on the nut and whacking it often works. But when it doesn't you look a right lemon and have to put things back together until the tool arrives. Its been over 30 years since I was young enough for that sort of malarky. Pretty much falls off with the right tools. Every time.

I bought a BritPart spanner, even they couldn't mess that up, so cheap that making would have been a criminal waste of time. Made the holding tool tho'. Dimensions and drawings for both somewhere if anyone needs them.

Printed version of RAVE suffers from the "see this section" jumping around. Wouldn't be so bad if there were page number references so you could find it fast on a printed version. Great on a computer with the hot links working tho'. I usually skim through the one on the computer and put markers in my printed out version. Before I printed the whole thing out I'd do job specific sets and pop them in loose leaf folder wallets in the right order. If I needed torque settings from the main list I'd print that too and highlight the ones I needed for the job.

OK so I'm anal about things. But an hour of indoor desk prep work the evening before gets you in the mood and gives a walkthrough of what needs to be done. Hafta say that since printing out the complete RAVE I've dropped the odd clanger or gone round Robin Hoods barn by ASSuming I knew exactly how things went. Nowt serious in the big scheme but adds up to a few hours I'll never see again.

Clive

No 2 for Airtex water pump. Fitted one earlier this year. Quality of manufacture looked good and no issues. Can't remember if it came with a gasket in the box tho'.

Clive

Island are a bit cheaper at around £140 but LR Direct have "Original Equipment in plain box" at just under £100 : https://www.lrdirect.com/STC8535-Mudflap-Kit-New-Rr-Front/?keep_https=yes . Not quite so bad.

I sucked it up and paid the Land Rover tax when I did mine 4 years back. Metal work was rusted, broken and detached so I figured anything used probably wouldn't be seriously better. Considered re-making the metalwork to re-use my still good rubber but sanity set in "life is too short" so I bought a new set following my usual "do it once" philosophy.

Clive

Congratulations. Glad you got it all sorted and working well.

Clive

Not done an injection throttle body but have fixed a few carburettors over the years. As Richard said getting the butterfly screws out is a right pain. especially if no parts are available so the old spindle has to be reused after machining down restoring it to truly round for new bushes or sleeving the worn spindle. As I recall it spindle usually shows more wear than body on carbs. Main issue seems to be the force from return springs et al wearing things oval so the spindle is turning lopsided. On a modern injection system the idle system should compensate just fine until wear reaches lunatic levels. Carbs are lots more sensitive if you want half decent idle and low throttle behaviour.

Also need to be very sure that the butterfly screws are going to say put when you put it back together. A fully floating butterfly sans screws tends to have "interesting" effects!

Sort of work I've not done for a fair number of years now. Finally got old and wise enough to turn down (some) major grief jobs!

Clive

Been steadily replacing all the front end joints and bushes over the year. Also did all shock absorbers, OEM rather than genuine which may have been a mild error. Only panhard rod bushes and (maybe) steering damper left to do. Nothing was objectively that bad but all clearly getting old. General feel of the car has become lighter and more responsive as parts were replaced. With almost 90,000 miles up I suspect the steering damper is getting to its sell by date too.

At the beginning of the year I was inclined to agree with road tester and other comments about the P38 having 4x4 handling. Good 4x4 handling but a touch ponderous and not having the road manners of a modern car. Now road manners are well up to modern car standards in any sane use. Any deficiency being due to the inevitable physical dynamics of a tall, two ton, car rather than suspension and steering underpinnings.

Current view on the sometimes derogatory comments about P38 handling is that they have the same source as motorcycling journalists complaining about the Yamaha GTS "funny front end" bike. Too lazy to evaluate how it works and exploit the advantages of its particular dynamics. A P38 will never handle like a V8 Bristol. Polar moments of inertia guarantee that. But it doesn't stop it being very good in practice for all sane use. Whatever the tech types may say rigid axles both ends aren't all bad.

Getting back to tooling the big distinction is whether you need a hydraulic press or whether the tool is self contained with a force screw. I believe the factory ones need a press. I made mine with a force screw. I actually took my bushes out with a press using adapters out of an affordable "universal" bush removal kit. Worked but those radius arms are 'kin heavy and, being bent, awkward to hold dead square on the press with one hand whilst pumping with the other.

Didn't help that my press is the hydraulic bottle jack with a prodder underneath type. Despite being up-engineered compared to the usual affordable import type with a much better prodder guide system its still not really as stable on the push as one would desire. If I were ever to use mine again on radius arm bushes I'd round up an assistant to hold the arm in place and make up a pusher with a central pin to align things properly.

Need to make a receiver tube for my force screw set to take the bush being extracted to make it complete set. Will be done in due course as will arranging a ball race under the the force screw nut. Or maybe just buy a screw, nut and ball race set off E-Bay. Cheap enough.

If you have a "universal" bush kit with a 12 mm force screw all you need is the compression tube for bush insertion. Something I can easily make should folk want one. Best to do batch of 10 or so to use up minimum order quantity of materials and amortise set-up time on manual lathe.

That said if I ever make another tool set for me it will use a 12 ton puller ram and be part of a comprehensive outfit including the tooling to shift steering joints et al too.

Clive

Apart from shifting the front bolts if they are corroded in the job is pretty straight forward provided you can support both car and axle solidly with enough height to swing (big) spanners, breaker bars, ratchets and torque wrenches. I had 6 ton ratchet type axle stands at full extension under the axle and a second set further back under the car taking most of the weight so the axle was close to full droop. Do-able but a bit more room wouldn't have come amiss.

I think I'd have found it much easier if I'd got my scissors type car lift up'n running. Can't reach full height in my garage but could have put axle a couple of foot or so higher if suitable supports were arranged.

Little gotcha is the pivot pin for the height sensors. Mine where, ahem, somewhat corroded. Not available separately, have to buy complete link STC2763. Pause job whilst new stainless steel replicas were made. As I now have drawings its no great problem to make more if need be.

Clive

Guilty as charged.

No problems with loaning out the bush changing tools. Just hafta number them up and write the how to use them notes.

Or I still have my old radius arms about the place so could clean them up, paint and re-bush to do a service exchange job. Like all such jobs its easier second time through.

Hard part is getting the front bolts out. Two of mine came out with a bit of welly two weren't ever coming so had to be cut. If I ever do another set on t'floor I'll set up to cut the bolts "just like that" and job done. Makes getting the bush out harder as the remains of the bolts need drilling out. Not good for a Black'n Decker guy but I have a full blown industrial size pillar drill in the workshop which would cope just fine.

Clive

If there is 12 V power at the connector its worth applying power direct to the unit and seeing if it tries to move, buzzes or gives other signs of life. As the fuse hasn't blown its probably not failed dead short so it should be safe to apply 12 V direct to the unit to see if there are signs of life. Prudent to use battery charger on trickle setting first tho'. Might even start moving if you help it.

Known good used is probably best, economical, fix as new is over £200. Fixing nuts are known to seize which makes removal hard. Start early by regular anointing with plus gas or similar a few days before you intend to do the job and make sure all visible threads are clean before you start removal.

Problems are frequently due to the arm spindle seizing in the long bearing. No provision for lubrication so eventually it all dries out and gets too stiff for the motor to turn. Exactly where it gets too stiff and stops is in the lap of the gods. On one I investigated the park switch had gone daft and stopped it at part travel too. Not done a P38 one but I have opened several of other breeds and fixed them. All of them were very stiff in the bearing. Basic strip, clean, re-lubricate job. As I recall it not exceptionally difficult. As usual when there is no manual to help taking it steady and thinking about how things come apart gets the job done.

Clive.