Aragon

OK I'll re-work the drawings to incorporate experience, although the set worked MK 2 is always better than MK 1, and make them so anyone can understand them. I'll put some application notes in too.
I'll PM you when its done.

Clive

Double post!

So my version of a force screw type front radius arm bush tool worked well enough getting the new bushes in although the standard M12, 1.75 mm pitch, screw in the import universal bush removal kit made rather hard work of the job. If it ever gets another run out it will get modified for a 12 mm fine or extra fine pitch screw. 1.25 mm or 1 mm pitch means more twirling but gets much more push per unit torque. Can do PDF drawings of the kit if anyone wants them. Maybe even make another if you ask real nice!

RAVE says you need to remove the road wheel and disconnect the track rod from the swivel hub before removing the radius arms. Looking under the car it appears that there may be room to ferret the radius arm out with wheel and track rod end still affixed. Is this so?

Whats the best way of going about this when working off axle stands? Unless they give up pretty easy I shall cut the bolts. Life is too short to mess about.

Clive

Think bolt head size depends on whether they are hex or 12 point. Hex came out of mine but Britcar sent 12 point ones as factory replacements.

Given the lack of clearance between socket, extension bar and air line I'd not care to try undoing a possibly stubborn one simply by lifting the car via the EAS. No problem to get in there but its hard to see if everything is straight. Tried that way first on mine. Leant on the breaker bar hard and nothing seemed to want to move. Even with support under the extension I was less than confident that the socket wouldn't cam off the head when heaved mightily. Codged up airlines I could seriously do without.

My shockers were ageing but OK so job got bumped down the queue. By the time I got back to it Mr Lidl had electric rattle guns for £ very reasonable. Got one which pulled the bolts out just like that. So easy that I thought I'd missed the nut first time. After that experience I'd not dream of using a breaker bar, extension and socket.

Clive

Check your earth strap.

Here's why.

Not Range Rover specific I know but had similar issues with the cable on an old style SAAB 900 combi. Which got ignored due to lack of roundtuits. A very bad move. Turned out that the earthing straps between engine and battery were failing so significant potions of the starter motor and other currents were going via the gear change cable. Which got hot in protest and semi-melted the nylon liner. Of course in the initial pull back from park to drive things were still bit soft so it moved pretty free. Going back to reverse or park after a the newly melted into place liner made the cable a bit stiffer but not terminal in feel. Don't recall ever using manual change mode during driving with that car so what it was like when hot and driving I know not.

You know how the story ends!

One day, running late on return schedule, 150 miles from home the cable melted good and proper on start up freezing things in park. We didn't get home in daylight! Subsequent examination showed the earth straps between engine and the rest of the car had both fractured. Still seemed to be hooked up on a casual pull but just the weave holding things together.

Clive

Agree with gordon about doing airbags. Treat as a service item. Anything over 70,000 miles on them means seriously on borrowed time. Personally unless I was sure the bags were less than 7 years and 50,000 miles old I'd replace automatically. But then I'm the guy who changes coolant hoses, belts and similar unless he is sure they are under a year old.

At my age I can't be doing with the hassle of fixing stuff on the fly. If its things I know I'll have to replace then doing it early means I get my moneys worth. But I'm low mileage guy, 3 or 4,000 a year.

Clive

BrianH wrote:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/range-rover-classic-Suffix-B/302703119614

Aha. The rare eco-green paint job with custom mottling.

At least 13 bids so far, up to £820, so several folk are feeling brave. Lord knows what the upholstery is infested with, or smells like, but sit in it for more than couple of minutes and you will be ill.

Clive

Aragorn

Anything but a normal metal cased bush. Plastic case, probably a nylon of some description. Made oversize to the bore its going into so the whole thing needs to be squidged down by about 3 mm on diameter as it goes in. Case is about 3.5 mm thick so you need at least 2 pushers to do the deed. Just to make life harder 23 mm (ish, depending on how much rubber got moulded round it) diameter centre tube projects around 7 mm each side of the case so simple flat plate won't hack it as a pusher. Need a recess.

Starting squint or pushing on the centre will wreck the bush. Might work, sort of, for a while but it isn't gonna last.

Relying on the bore to pull things straight under umpty four tonne press isn't a good idea. Can get away with it if its only a touch out and the press fit isn't too great. But if it goes wrong it goes really wrong. Think concertina banana cross breed. Lord knows how many tons Bubba put on that one but getting it out and sorting the distorted housing was "interesting" but not in good way.

Clive

Chris

So thats the magic taper thingy that compresses the bush to fit the arm. Think I prefer my version, we shall see how well it works in due course.

$64,000 question is whether an aligner widget is needed to set compressing tube dead in line with the bore or whether its perfectly satisfactory to simply push the bush right through by 0.1" or a couple of mm then lightly tap the protruding part in place before finishing the installation.

For proper tool set you still need something to get the bushes out without damaging the bores in the radius arms.

Has that non return valve turned up yet?

Clive

Yup. Learned from bitter experience that first try with almost anything having push in bushes takes (lots) longer and is much harder than it ought to be! Panhard rods are easy peasy. Rest probably not.

Its not pressing the bushes out thats the issue. Its keeping things lined up for a straight true press thats hard. The arms are long, bent and heavy so holding them just so under a press takes bit of doing. Really the through bolt with "properly shaped" pusher and receiver tube assembly are a much better bet. If things are the right shape they align properly so you get a nice straight push so they come out relatively easily. Straight, dead straight is always the key.

Unfortunately the Laser 6505 Land Rover suspension bush tool omits the "properly shaped" but when it comes to P38 bushes. It also avoids the concept of "fits". With a list price of around £140 you'd have thought they could have at least supplied the right size force screw. Parts book says 12 mm bolt so you expect a 12 mm clearance hole in the bush. A 5/8 " - 16 mm Ø screw don't go through the 12 mm Ø bores in P38 bushes! Mine only cost me £100, outrageous really but figured it was almost worth it to save the effort of designing and making one. I mean the pros would get it right. Wouldn't they. Evidently not. Have had words, well E-Mails actually, with Laser about this. Initial flat out refusal to believe it didn't and couldn't work was slightly toned down given pictorial evidence and a PDF of the relevant parts book pages. Apparently Laser are talking to their suppliers! New labels without P38 on them I guess.

Clive

Aragon

In the middle of re-furbishing a spare set of front radius arms to go on mine. Maybe we could sort something with the ones that are coming off when I've finished. I paid £20 for a used pair so travelling any distance wrecks the economics.

Job delayed because the Laser Tools extraction & refitting tool set doesn't fit! Managed the extraction bit via my workshop press but not a good way to do things on your own. Those arms are heavy and hard to hold in alignment with the press Half way through making a proper set of tools for the job. All takes longer 'cos I decided to repaint the arms. Properly.

Bit scary when you look underneath to see how little there is holding the axles onto a couple of tons of truck! All the textbooks talk about how important it is to have things really rigidly fixed at tree chassis end for good handling. Practice seems to be a bit different.

Clive

Decided on oatmeal colour in the end. Agree its very close to standard despite the Martrim website showing a very much darker grey on my computer. Very fast delivery from Martrim so just a matter of waiting for weather, assistant & spare time to line up to do the job.

Clive

With no data available I guess best thing to do is to set up a comparison experiment to measure the outputs of both SAGEM and Bosch sensors under appropriate conditions.

Nice thing about having Arduino and similar processors around is that you can brute force things by taking comprehensive measurements and similarly brute force the conversions with a look up table.

Best to start with some on the road measurements of a good SAGEM MAF to keep things honest. Simultaneously recording plenum chamber depression would help.

Way I'd tackle things is to fix a complete intake system, including air filter and manifold to a suitably large airtight box. 50 to 100 litres should do it. Fit two decent size pipes to the intake of a Henry or other decently powerful vacuum cleaner. One goes to the box, the other goes to a relief valve thingy allowing the effective plenum chamber depression to be controlled. Valve open essentially no depression in the box and little air flow. Valve shut full depression and full air flow. Probably a plate with various holes in it and suitable close off caps would be easier to handle than a valve. Theoretically need around 1500 litres per minute / 25 litres per second of air to cover maximum demand with reasonable margin. Henry is specced for 42 litres per second so that should do.

Plot TPS output for full close to open and back throttle swings against MAF output for both types over a sensible range of relief valve settings. Compare relevant part of curves and calculate look up table. May need to incorporate a separate plenum chamber depression sensor into the look up table.

If the temperature compensation is going to be an issue I guess you could always butcher a fan heater to warm things up during testing.

Given smooth curves from both sensors it should be possible to get things to work OK. If the curves aren't smooth then there are probably flow issues around the sensor bodies requiring fiddle factors in the ECU to get a true representation of flow. So long as the conversion table for the Bosch gives same output a SAGEM under all conditions the ECU won't care.

Clive

Aragorn wrote:

I was trying to find someone who could provide the MAF translation table from the ECU. If we know the voltage vs airflow curve, it would be very possible to engineer a replacement using a common modern MAF sensor. Unfortunately i found nothing.

Something from the dark side covering this issue : http://www.rangerovers.net/forum/7-range-rover-mark-ii-p38/41999-info-mystery-bosch-maf.html

Dunno what idiot thought feeding a low range, high sensitivity, control / feedback signal as a DC voltage down best part of a yard of wire to an under-bonnet ECU was a good idea. But whoever it was deserves a good kick in the fork. Absolutely not the way to do it. If you must go DC current loop is the solid way. Better an AC frequency modulated system of some kind. There are some very elegant and inexpensive methods of implementing such on wheatstone bridge type sensors.

In principle its a simple data logging exercise of volts and rpm. In practice you'd need to know both mass airflow and velocity over the sensor to be sure you were comparing like with like. Which means a test bed and good deal of knowing WTHIGO. I imagine the cheapy crap aftermarket types are crap because the test bed side of things wasn't properly done. My experience is its easy to get sort of close some of the time on this type of measurement exercise (albeit in very different fields) but getting it dead right all the time is a whole n'other ball game. But I would say that as demonstrating the getting it right part after some semi-demented scientists handwaving had attracted managerial attention was what I used to get paid for.

I'd be very unsurprised to discover that a substantial improvement in mpg could be got if the MAF, ECU and Fueling / Ignition maps were properly re-engineered with a more sensible airflow sensor.

Clive

Art with shocking things is to get something really solid underneath so nothing bounces and plenty of hand speed on a heavy hammer for a really sharp rap. Thump away all day with big swings with too light a hitter and get nowhere. Although theoretically the energy is the same half of it seems to bounce back.

Those C shape extractors look the part but are very weak. That spindly screw tend to run ways from under the load. Once you have a bend on it its doing 3/8 of nothing at all. Hope you've left it under tension as overnight temperature changes might just let it pop out.

If I have to do mine a copy of the hydraulic Sykes Picavant tool : https://www.chrometrader.co.uk/sykes-pickavant-18771100-swivel-ball-joint-tool-d2-p38-c-w-press-frame-ram.html will get made tout de suite. Almost £600 drinking vouchers is a joke in bad taste. Especially as I already have a ram, well two actually. Probably nearly as effective to substitute a fat bolt for the ram and put an impact drive on it. I guess the thread will be something like 1 1/2" x 18 so that aint gonna bend!

Clive

Sooo glad I haven't got a sunroof aperture to worry about.

Are braces optional or a vital evidence that the gremlin toll has been paid so the evil critters don't interfere.

Clive

Thanks for the advice. Looks like I shall be getting the lightest grey that Martrim do.

Then I need some sensible weather to actually do the job. Assistance lined up too. Just hafta remember to charge up the digital-cam for factory fold over the edge pictures. Picture guide in the files on t'other place looks helpful too. Thought I'd seen a YouTube but darned if I can find it. Done motorcycle seats before, both factory and reshaped, the headliner material looks much more forgiving to handle although the glue clearly takes no prisoners. Guess the important "easy to forget" detail is arranging suitable support for the material so it lies flat whilst being carefully fed onto the backing board and stuck down. Plan A is to use my motorcycle lift as a walk round bench with the material draped round a suitably supported "broomstick". Bike lift is one of the fancy Souriou air - hydraulic ram ones as per Honda race teams et al and makes for a sweet adjustable bench.

Clive

Interesting. Mine is a model year 2000 HSE with black (Ash Grey) interior, no sunroof if that makes any difference. Far as I know all standard. Says Paint code 696, Trim U on the info panel.
Guess I'd better haunt the local car parks until I see another one to verify colours. Or get Martrim to send me one of their colour card packs.

Clive

Thanks for the information. hafta say that Oatmeal looks way too dark on my computer screen. But comparing colours via computer is less than reliable at the best of times.
Actual colour on mine is about as light a grey as you can get whilst still being grey.

Clive

Just rang Martrim to order a headliner kit and the guy I spoke to wasn't sure as what colour and type of headliner was needed as a direct replacement for standard.

If anyone can remember what you bought for Summer Camp I'd be grateful for details. Otherwise I'll have to send a sample.

Whist I'm getting stuff in are there any "known to break" trim fixings et al that should be bought. Or is it more sensible just to get a complete set?

Thanks

Clive