I guess the root cause is umpteen heating and cooling cycles over the years cause the plastic to distort slightly altering the grip of the threads.

Looks like the threads contract a touch so the cap gets relatively tighter and the tube looser hence the not unknown tube comes out instead of the cap coming off scenario. Certainly my cap feels a bit odd when screwing on, rather akin the the tri-lobular and similar out of round distorted thread locking systems. Especially as it comes up to the end. Genuine caps can currently be gotten on E-Bay for £7 ish so maybe worth a punt to see if mine actually has changed so a new one would screw on more easily.

Impressed that Harv was able to lap his with grinding paste. Lapping and grinding plastic surfaces risks the hard abrasive being embedded in the plastic creating surface something like sandpaper. Which is probably not ideal. Back in the day the optical shop at RARDE was experimenting with finish grinding plastic lenses with less than stellar results. Muggins did the testing! They didn't look good and performed worse.

Not brave enough to consider sticking a pair of pliers down the tube to turn the lugs. Although obviously the shorter tube on a GEMS makes it easier to keep under control. The prospect of having to pull the engine and strip it to recover a piece of errant plastic if a lug breaks being less than enticing. Still need to fork out £70 for a new one. OK it should end up safely in the rocker box but ....

Clive

Finally got my oil filler tube screwed back into the rocker box after the darn thing unscrewed and refused to screw back in on Friday when I topped up the oil .

Had to make a special tool for the job to engage in the two lugs at the bottom to get it in.

Usually simple hand turn'n tighten job when its happened before but this time it decided to go in a bit under a turn before jamming. Even under hand tightening pressure it needed a strap wrench to release it. Not good. At £70 a pop I wasn't going to risk breaking the tube by forcing plastic inevitably embrittled by years and heat.

After scraping the thread in the rocker box made made no difference I measured the thread on the tube so I could make a chaser. Thread is 1.640" diameter, 11 tpi with a 60° thread angle. 1 - 1/4 BSP except for the wrong angle. Actually got as far as setting up to make a 60° chaser before realising that a 60° male thread going into a 55° female would usefully tighten the grip on the plastic. So I modded a brass plumbing fitting to make a chaser and screwed that in. Didn't go as free as I'd like so clearly something in the thread. In and out a few times got it clear with some crud collected by the chaser. Felt right for a 55° thread in the box matching the chaser.

Tube still wouldn't co-operate so I set to and made the tool.

If anyone else has to make one the included angle on the lugs is 32°, slots need to be more than 9 mm wide at the outside end, mine are 12 mm, and tool OD no more than 33 mm so it drops down the hole. Other details to taste. I made my slots the full 10 mm depth of the lugs and relieved the centre. My body is 40 mm long, plenty to keep it stable in the tube, with a 65 mm long 12 mm Ø shaft to reach up the tube having a 13 mm hex (Screwfix M8 joining nut) on the top end for a spanner.

When fitting the tube needed what felt like maybe 4 or 5 ft/lb torque to pass the tight spot then screwed in stiffly but freely with maybe 2 and bit ft/lb force. More than easily done by hand for sure. Frankly it was right on the top end of the torque I felt safe when it jumped the tight spot.

If it comes out again I can see a spiffy custom billet alloy replacement happening.

Clive

I also got a UT210E clamp meter ages back for "that one job" (which never happened) for silly low money. Maybe £10 sitting in the drawer so I'm not too worried if it never gets used.

Reviewer here https://www.markhennessy.co.uk/budget_multimeters/unit_ut210e.htm isn't super impressed but it does appear to work well enough with a claimed 1 mA dc resolution that I'd take with a huge pinch of salt. Reliable some or none below 10 mA is doing well for at that price.

Pushing £50 on E-Bay from UK stock. Most of the suppliers are out of China with the usual delay at 2/3 rds the price.

DC current measurement using a clamp is relatively difficult. Most of the other cheap ones can't handle DC current.
Multicomp Pro MP760862 from Farnell for £60 odd appears to do so. As does the DiaLog from TLC at nearly £100. Farnell are suppliers to the professional market so their offerings may be a bit better.

Screwfix will sting you £150 for Fluke that allegedly does DC current but a quick look at the picture shows its AC only.

Very much buyer beware market. If getting a UT210 be very careful with the letter at the end. So far as I can make out the E is the only one that does DC current. Some suppliers have discrepancies between picture and number.

Clive

When it comes to clamps I'm a fan of the Mikalor type. In stainless steel naturally.

For exhausts and solid pipes they seem to generate similar grip pressures to the U bolt "benelli" type without distorting the pipe so things come apart if need be (providing you have remembered to coppaslip the pipe overlap area).

On hoses they seem to generate a closer to full circle hold than the worm drive jubilee type with modest tightening torque. Easier to keep a socket spanner on too and they don't seize up in the driver or strip the worm pattern off the band like aged jubilee clips are prone to do. Many of the modern affordable jubilee style seem to lack quality and are best considered one time use. If I'm only gonna use it once might as well go for an Ottiker stepless or double ear crimp type as I have the tools. Undoing either can be a pain tho' so I'd rather not. The stainless Mikalor may be 3 or 4 times the price of a jubilee off Mr Halfords shelf but the saving in frustration a year or three later is worth the extra cost to me.

Clive

Good price on your exhausts Richard.

I forked out £600 odd for a Double S stainless system with centre box some time ago and expect to hit break even late next year going by the 3 years or so a Klarius system from my local tyre and exhaust place lasted before the back boxes started blowing glass fibre out. My Double S has turned down ends to the pipes too. Thought it a bit stingy when the box just had the exhaust in it with no clamps or support rubbers. Naturally the tyre shop didn't have the big clamp for the centre so I had to leave the car there and walk home whilst one was ferried out from the next town. Shoulda reminded them to check before cutting the blown Klarius one off.

Clive

60D is indeed 4.6 litre 1998 to 2003 Thor block with 9.35:1 static CR.

Casting number HRC2411 is the final version of the Rover made block so it matches the engine number.

Correct exhaust manifold bolt thread on all P38 versions is indeed 8 mm.

3/8 unc is earlier, RR Classic et al. If they are all 3/8 UN its got the wrong heads. If only one someone has re-tapped a stripped thread 3/8 UN rather than helicoiled. Bodger central!

Whatever its a FrankenEngine, Bitsa, bodged up. No tellings what else is wrong or how and why it got the wrong heads. Throw it back!

Clive

Well that was a battle.

Changing the sensor went easily enough apart from it being at exactly the wrong height for my arms whilst lying underneath and the fixings being largely invisible.

Its unhooking the connector that needs a health warning. Experience with setting the points and ignition timing on Reliant and Jensen Healy is desirable. Impossible to see and attempts to feel what is going on risks cutting your wrists on the corroded edges of the exhaust pipe shielding. Significant scrapes but not too much blood drawn. Ended up pulling the nearside front wheel off and removing the arch liner. With a deal of contorting and careful shining of my favourite baby LED torch I was eventually able to glimpse enough to work out how the "detach from bracket" bit worked so a bit of careful poking prodding and levering with a screwdriver, mostly blind, got it off. By then we were cooking with gas. Fortunately re-assembly went just like it should.

Lots of oil underneath in that area and the sensor itself was well oiled so I guess I'm in for a rear crankshaft oil seal fix soon.

The airbag didn't look good either so I guess that after 10 years its just aged out. Supplies seem to be a bit limited right now. Island only have rears and there seem to be two breeds of Dunlop on the other supplier listings plain Dunlop and PRDunlop.

Clive

That settles it.

Mine is getting changed as soon as the new Bosch one arrives from Island 4x4. Sent off Thursday so won't be long.

When you have age and heat related failures it can be hard to tell if its the number of cold - hot - cold cycles or heat soak time that does the damage. I'm guessing its cycles rather than soak or Richard would be on a regular change regime.

Clive

Agreed symptoms are pretty much what you'd expect from a failing CPS but in this case the engine never really got hot and never really got cold. Good blast of compressed air or splash of water to cool things down was going to be the next test if the pull and clean contacts hadn't worked.

I guess £80 odd to put a new genuine Bosch one into stock so I can change it when convenient is wise.

Clive

The big red beast stopped running early this afternoon on the way up to the supermarket. Drifting downhill towards the carpark I got a "boing" and he came to a halt. Nothing on the display, all the usual warning lights associated with ignition on but he wouldn't restart. Turning over on the starter over was a bit lumpy as if he might have been getting the odd almost fire. Would have expected it to spin a bit faster given the battery was fully up to charge. Temperature gauge about half way towards normal running. I'd been out earlier and he hadn't fully cooled down before going off again. Petrol tank almost full.

As it seemed almost certain to be electrical I spent five minutes wobbling fuses, pulling out and reseating appropriate relays et al before trying to start up again. Fired up just fine in the usual almost instant manner.

Started fine three more times.

Once to come home and twice whilst doing the Nanocom tests. No fault codes on the Nanocom and outputs seemed reasonable. After reminding myself where Encoder Tooth counts lived on the Nanocom menus I tried one more start.

No go.

Did the pull relays and fuses thing again squirting with contact cleaner before re-installation. Verified that the fuel pump relay was working fine and had low resistance on the contacts when made. Also did the female contact wobble with a screwdriver test for the relay female contacts to, hopefully, verify there was no circuit board problem. All seemed solid. The only issue I found was worn plating on some of the relay male prongs. Shouldn't make any difference but I polished things up.

After retrieving the fuse puller from under the battery where it had hidden after "someone" dropped it I tried starting again. Instant fire up. Temperature still a little shy of normal running level.

So have I fixed it or is there something lurking waiting to be activated by Lawyer Murphy and the Gremlin Squad at a seriously inconvenient time.

Tempted to just replace the fuel pump relay on principle and put a genuine crank position sensor into stock. But he has only done 96,000 miles so it seems a bit early for CPS problems.

Any ideas as to what's really going on.

Clive

Garvin

Is that less than £60 fan OEM as in Original Equipment Manufacturer Land Rover part or OEM as in the brand of aftermarket parts specially chosen to confuse the unwary.

Best I could see for official Land Rover product, which may or may not be actual original spec or just this weeks flavour of aftermarket in box with a green oval sticker, was a bit over £85.

Hafta say I'm surprised at the number of suppliers and different prices for what must be a part with a fairly small market. Although failure is catastrophic it doesn't appear to be all that common. Especially given the age of our vehicles and the known propensity of plastics to get brittle with age and heating / cooling cycles.

I'd be little bit worried about one from a "we put our badge on a Chinese fan" supplier being made from a less than good formulation of plastic and / or suffering from poor process control when moulding. Getting the right injection temperature into a mould at the right temperatures and cooling down at the right rate makes an immense difference to strength. Early die cast motorcycle wheels got an unenviable reputation for spokes cracking away from the hub due to the effect of thermally induced stress locked in by poor cooling control. Seeing a couple with only 3 out of 10 spokes still attached was somewhat sobering. For all practical purposes our fan blades are pretty much mechanically equivalent from the stress point of view with the added bending load imposed by the air being blown through it. Whether the out of balance effects from uneven blade spacing make any difference is beyond me.

Clive

I regard dropping the sump and lifting the rocker boxes as no-brainer inspection jobs on a new-to-you used engine. State of the sludge, crud or oil stains are an excellent clue as to how well the beast has been looked after and whether its been on light duties / short run work (bad for a motor) or had a decent chance to stretch its legs. Arguably inspecting the camshaft makes sense given that they are known to wear.

But my view is that any used engine automatically gets a proper rebuild before swapping in. To me its worth getting another motor to sort in reasonably slow time whilst the one fitted still works rather to be forced into a fast fix. If I'm going to the effort of swopping motors I want my "150,000 miles with only routine servicing" in exchange.

Clive

Finally got round to moving those blocks on Thursday. A pal incautiously offered to help so 35 blocks went in the Rangie and the other 15 in his BMW something or other SUV. Single layer in 3 x 10 pattern on the floor with the 5 extra on top over where the passenger seat goes. So 665 kg / 1463 lb in the load area which was almost up to maximum permitted.

The beast didn't want to come up to normal ride height initially but by 20 yards down the lane over a few umps'n ollows it had lifted up OK. At no more than 25 mph, usually less, all the way I was very aware of all that mass behind and its effects on handling.

I shan't be doing that again. Very much pushing the envelope methinks.

Clive

The cheapy UV torch I got with a water leak detection kit works fine in dark or subdued lighting. Insufficient contrast out in the daylight.

Draping a blanket over the open bonnet to form a makeshift dark tent works OK (ish) daytimes.

The UV filter goggles made to enhance contrast by, mostly, only passing the fluorescence wavelengths may help but I'd always understood that they were primarily made to allow the safe use of higher power UV sources. The ones I had at RARDE were dark enough to make midday twilight. But the UV source I was using was dangerously powerful. I suspect the cheapy UV torch I have now simply wouldn't generate enough fluorescence to be usefully clearer.

The fluorescent stuff hangs around for a fair while so if someone else has used it before things can get confusing.

Clive

Back on topic.

If you went to KwikFit for a re-gas its quite likely that it hasn't been properly filled. The P38 system takes a lot of refrigerant and, as with Halfords, the standard price refill may well only buy you just enough gas to get the system working not a full fill.

Best to go to proper specialist.

Way back in my beginner P38 days I had a couple of Halfords re-fills that only lasted 6 months or so. Pimple faced Halfords youth said no faults on the car "they re all like that and need to be done every few months". Third time I collared a very knowledgable young lady from National AirCon who was doing my neighbours car on his drive. Hardly managed to get past Halfords before she said it had only been about half filled. Which proved to be the case.

She reckoned KwikFit and the other chains that do air conditioning as a side business were about as bad.

Mind you all that gas is expensive, my bill was about twice next doors! Must be 5 or 6 years since its last fill and it was plenty cold enough over the last couple of weeks.

Clive

Yep the whole weight thing is a bit puzzling which is why I asked. Must admit that I didn't check the difference between gross vehicle weight and EEC kerb weight, just assumed that the maximum rear axle weight would be available when driven solo.

When pushing towards the maximum I think the key comment, in my handbook at least (year 2000 4.0l petrol) is below the data tables:-

Note :- Axle weights are non-additive. The individual maximum axle weights and gross vehicle weights must not be exceeded.

So my book says the same as yours:-

Maximum front axle weight 1320 kg / 2910 lb, maximum rear axle weight 1840 kg / 4056 lb, gross vehicle weight 2780 kg / 6129 lb.

Loading both axles to maximum gives 3160 kg / 6966 lb which exceeds the given maximum gross vehicle weight by 380 kg / 837 lb so obviously some sensible balance is needed.

The EEC kerb weight gives 1100 kg / 2425 lb on the front axle and 1000 kg / 2204 lb on the rear axle for 2100 kg / 4629 lb gross.

Subtracting the EEC kerb weight from the gross vehicle weight gives 680 kg / 1500 lb for payload for my 4.0.

So the 840 kg / 1852 lb loadspace capacity implied by the difference between EEC kerb weight and maximum rear axle weight is purely theoretical. No way to get near it without exceeding gross vehicle weight, even when driven solo.

Bottom line I'm on two trips with 25 blocks each run at 475 kg load. Which, frankly, sounds a lot more like a sensible loading for the car.

The 120 kg difference in EEC kerb weights between the 4.0 and 4.6 petrol its very odd and inexplicable. It does make you wonder about the accuracy of other figures.

I'm glad I asked and thanks for everyones help and patience. I'm now a bit clearer on what you can and can't do with vehicle loading in practice.

Clive

No trailer so Plan A was two trips. Tyres are about 1,000 miles old and bags good, albeit a few years old, so no great worries there.

Heavy loads being very much not my thing I thought "better check the weight limits to make sure thats OK". Running the numbers it looked like doing it in one was possible, making life much easier at the builders merchants.

Seemed a heck of a lot to me so it was clearly time to ask folk who understand the practical side of such things.

Daves reference to 450 bottles of plonk reminds me of seeing a couple of guys loading up a Montego estate at a Dunkirk hypermarket back when I was doing the lifting and shifting for one of her ladyships cigarette runs. I swear they flattened the back springs. The thing was totally full. Following it up the long hill towards Lewes on the A27 the headlamps were clearly a major hazard to aircraft navigation! I can only imagine the driver knew the road.

Clive

Thanks for the re-assurance. Weather seems to have turned so I guess I'll give it a go later this week or early next.

Nice thing with blocks on a flat surface is that they will spread the load cleanly so the boot floor should be fine. Probably use a modded pallet or two tho'.

Clive

Brian
Only two deep and will be packed most carefully so they don't slide. With plenty of padding on the doors and loadspace sides. The windows should be safe.
All downhill and drive time will be carefully timed for a nice clear slow run to minimise any chance of shifting. No way would I contemplate this over any sort of distance or well used road.

Clive

So I have 50 high density concrete blocks left over from raising my garage floor so it is flush with the car and bike lift platforms which the local builders merchant will refund the cost of if I take them back. 50 at 19 kg each is 950 kg / 2094 lb, just shy of a ton.

Handbook says max rear axle weight is 1840 kg / 4056 lb. The EEC defined kerb weight with full fuel tank and 75 kg / 12 stone (near enough) driver is 2100 kg / 4629 lb gross with 1000 kg / 2204 lb on the rear axle.

By my maths that implies I can load 840 kg / 1852 lb in the back. Probably a bit more as the tank is down to 1/4 full and I'm 10 stone dripping wet at most.

Looks like 46 in the back and 4 in the passenger footwell will do it.

Only 2 miles down a twisty hill but its still seems a scary load for a passenger car. The £75 refund on my flexible friend will be nice but I'm not inclined to risk popping the airbags. Cleaning out all the dust afterwards is quite bad enough a prospect thank you (quietly ignoring the slog of manually loading and unloading).

Clive