Best to get it properly cleaned out about once a decade.

Had a SAAB 9000 with a non functional air con system due to the fan, duct and sensor being totally closed up by dust bunnies so it basically didn't register any temperature changes. Ex dust bunny is good insulator.

Clive

Yep, mix of speednuts and the expanding square nylon thingies.

If the screws were originally good quality drilling rarely works as the screws spin before the head is fully penetrated but don't get slack enough to lever out through the access holes in the rubber.

Total bastard to shift in one bit as per book. I tried to save mine which were good rubber over corroded steel and, basically, wasted a weekend getting them off in one piece. Binned about a week later under "life is to short to fix 'em" rules.

If there is ever a next time I shall do some careful cutting to remove enough rubber to see WTHIGO before going seriously medieval with added eval. Probably hit the screw heads with a grinder once der rubbered.

Clive

If the kunifer has been run correctly to mate up with the standard lines on the standard brackets there should be adequate room to work.

The original fittings on mine had corroded beyond the point of being undone so I had to cut the kunifer and fit new threaded connectors. All done working under the car with only modest verbal encouragement.

What did miff me is that I had to mix'n match parts from two different toolsets to get the right shape of end. So glad I didn't bin my cheapy "wont hold the brake line securely" device when I upgraded to a proper trade rated kit.

Clive

Problem is that the original Boge quality units don't seem to exist any more. I fitted a set of OEM Boge units with the correct Range Rover part numbers and got maybe 15,000 miles out of them before they clapped out. Rough pull'n push comparisons with the orginal 80,000 odd miles ones off the car, which I'd not got round to binning, revealed a similar lack of damping. In both cases the front end was rolling and pitching around in a scary manner. Bad enough to affect the steering!

I agree that the Bilsteins are a bit on the sporty side and would rather have the originals.

C;ive

Just had look at my "mid-life improvements" spreadsheet which I've been compiling in a rather desultory way to separate running costs spending from replacements.

After subtracting some, in the event misguided, spending that I'd not do next time round I get around £4,000 on parts for the major ticket items viz

Front ball joints & steering arms (Lemfoder), all suspension bushes (factory), all dampers (Bilstien), airbags, EAS compressor and valve block overhaul, height sensors all round (Dunlop, possibly not actually needed), stainless exhaust, new brake callipers all round (TRW), new disks all round, replacement air con condenser and drier, new tyres, new battery and a bunch of smaller stuff.

Obviously the details may be bit different depending on the actual state of the car but, I think my suggestion of being prepared to invest £4,000 to £6,000 in parts if you just want to go out and use it for the next 100,000 miles as if its a decent ex-lease or similar standard 30,000 to 60,000 mile modern car is realistic. The big question being do you invest £2,000 or so in an engine refresh straight out so its done. Assuming its not a well worn mess underneath I'd be unsurprised to cut that investment in half to get 50,000 no worries miles.

Because I got mine with 78,000 or so on the clock doing things as needed with preplanned extra work at service interval time made sense.

Clive

Well I got my costings from what I've spent on mine so far and what it would cost to do what I've not yet done. Basically the engine and an auto transmission refresh, possibly a diff if I'm unlucky, would be left to do if I were shooting for your mileage. Which I'm not.

What I am aiming for is not to have to futz with it as I get older.

Figure I suggested is for setting the lifetime clock back to as close to 20,000 miles as possible in one hit really.

In reality I've done things as and when needed like everyone else.

My spread sheet says around £6,000 in fuel (too many short trips!) and £7,000 for everything else, including tax and insurance, over 9 years and 27,000 odd miles. 20/20 hindsight says chop maybe £500 - £1,000 out of the repair parts list doing it as a one hit wonder fix. Things like going straight to a stainless exhaust rather than an intermediate change to "good brand" steel system and a second centre box. Nanocom is in the list too as well as the shelf queen Lynx & ToughBook. Can't see me hating anybody enough to sell the Lynx to them.

But Chez Clive is an expensive garage. I'm ruthless about changing out whole sub-systems when one part goes. Figure that at 20 years old its mostly age out not wear out so when one thing dies most of the similar things are getting old and cranky too. Getting into anything much beyond routine servicing once in a lifetime is quite enough thank you.

Clive

PS The money the official unofficial kid sister spends (wastes) on getting vehicles fixed makes me look like Scrooge McDuck!

Guide price is fantasy.

Realistically its too leggy to buy and run unless the buyer is in hobby car mode. Run a few miles to show it off, fiddle around every other weekend fixing bits then run a few more miles to show off.

But if its fundamentally sound, basically unmolested and cheap enough it might be a candidate for the "throw £4,000 to £6,000 and a months work at it to fix everything" then do 100,000 miles before a mid life improvement session to get another 100,000 miles on it. With basically no fiddling along the way. Just routine work as per the book. If it goes for a grand or under be looking at maybe £10,000 spend over 200,000 miles. Could well be less. I'd take that.

But if, like me you just want one to run at relatively low annual miles, about 4,000 for me, it's way too leggy when 100,000 mile (ish) ones can still be found.

Clive

Great to hear that your big red beast made it through the MoT so you can enjoy the fruits of all your hard work.

I find it hard to believe that a P38 braking system can get into a state bad enough to fail an MoT whilst still remaining driveable. Even with the seals on one calliper completely blown and those on another being in the process of downing tools in sympathy mine still had plenty of brakes.

Tripped over some very rough notes I made when initially planning to go for braided lines after the calliper failure and subsequent full set replacement with new TRW ones. The brake lines running down the car had previously been replaced with Kunifer so a sensible option seemed to be to replace the frontmost, body mounted, bracket ANR5917 with one holding a through bulkhead fitting set parallel to the chassis and conveniently accessible to both the main Kunifer line and braided hose down to the calliper. A couple or three clips attached to the other bracket mountings would hold the braided hose in a nice smooth, very lazy, S shape run from calliper to bracket. Close to a straight line really.

I don't care for tight clamp supports on braided hoses. Last time I did such a job I found a source of hollow "rubber" sleeve mouldings maybe 3/16" wall thickness about 1 1/4" long with a 1/8" or so ridge at both ends. Bore was nicely sized to take the braided hose with just enough clearance to loosely support it. simple sheet metal bashing to make sone P shape clips to hold the sleeves.

Only significant deviation from straight in my planned pipe run would have been the obligatory anti-vibration curves in the Kunifer as it swung up to the bulkhead connector. Anti vibration curves are probably not needed in Kunifer but are a good idea if your Kunifer turns out to be copper brake pipe. As was supplied to me despite specifying Kunifier. In a practical world either is pretty much as good as the other but copper, even brake pipe copper, can work harden from vibration leading to possible fracture. Eventually.

In the end I decided staying standard was faster and easier. Especially as I wanted the car back quickly.

Clive

Maybe time to give the connectors for the abs sensors a squirt of contact cleaner. Things stay remarkably clean behind the wheel arch covers but they are under the car so its a pretty hostile environment really.

Clive

12 point bolt on the panhards is to accommodate the locking washer tab thingy. Basically gives 30° of rotation between fitting points which, in conjunction with the slot means it will always fit when the bolt is torqued up. Regardless of the angle the head ends up at. Can do the same with a 6 point if the hex cut out is rotationally offset to the washer centre line so flipping over gives a 30° shift.

Given the dire consequences of loosing a panhard rod bolt its probably sensible to make some serious efforts to ensure things don't come undone. But in comparison relying on a basic nylock nut at t'other end is a bit underwhelming. I try not to contemplate how little holds the car to the axles!

Objectively I think the guys who designed that 12 point head and locker system had been on a "Really Sophisticated Engineering for Pundits" course the week before and wanted to show off.

Clive

Fingers crossed that an update works. Its the sort of silly issue that tends to get left until one is needed.

Anyone know what the current firmware/software versions are and what the latest version needed for full P38 functionality is? Mine is maybe 4 years old and I've never updated it.

Need to find out why my Nanocom won't talk to the HEVAC system as I've had an intermittent book symbol for ages. Usually happens on first start in hot weather.

Clive

If its of use to you I'm quite happy to sell for a very modest number of drinking vouchers. I'll see if I can find it and unearth the vital instructions to find out what it actually does.

As I recall things I got it about 9 years ago wanting to run an iPod through the audio system but the supplier only sent half the kit. Apparently it needs two leads for the Range Rover. By the time I'd sorted out the issue, got the missing bits and dug proper instructions out of Connects2 enthusiasm had waned down to nowt.

I'll PM you soon!

Clive

I have a Connects2 harness that is supposed to do the universal audio deed for the Alpine head unit which I shall never use which really should go someone who will.

Far as I can see its supposed to piggy back everything onto the CD input. I'll need to dig out the instructions to find out exactly what it does. If I'm going to mess with audio I shall put a tablet in or at least a modern radio.

Clive

As another old fashioned grumpy old guy type I'm slowly assembling my own paper printout version of lrcat files in MS Word format. The parts catalogue drawings are also a great resource when you want to know where parts are in relation to each other.

I'm untrusting as to the ability of t'net to be a safe repository of such data. Besides the lrcat one part at a time number retrieval system drives me nuts sometimes, especially when I'm not sure exactly which parts I need.

I use a Mac so its not stupidly difficult to transcribe. Just slow. My process is to pull the diagram over from Safari (the native browser) to TextEdit ( the standard text editing app, albeit well souped up) then copy and paste the individual part picture ID reference numbers, part numbers and descriptors below the drawing.

I have a standard basic Word file with appropriate header, footer and page number slots ready to populate for each section. I throw the picture across from TextEdit then save that file in text format, rather than the native rtf, which strips all the gumph. Copy & paste the text into Word then reformat from lines to a table.

I knock off a few pages when I'm preparing a parts order or when I don't want to do nowt but don't want to tackle the "everything to do" list. Prolly be done in about a year or 18 months. Which is about what it took to do RAVE but that was just a PDF print job.

Clive

From an engineering viewpoint the early car hose routing basically follows a common practice for a beam axle rear suspension car. Hard pipe down the vehicle, intermediate flexi to an axle mount to take suspension articulation, hard pipe across the axle and short flexi to each calliper so you can service brake pads et al without disturbing connections.

Sensible if you only have one front to back line as in pre ABS days. At best inelegant when you have independent lines to each calliper.

Basic routing on the later cars is much more logical with independent hard pipe to calliper routing on each side with a single body side cross pipe. The hard pipe ends at a body mounted bracket with with the short flexi jump hoses going to the first chassis mounted bracket. Presumably these cover any possible movement between body and chassis.

Surely they can’t move that much?

Even if there is movement to handle the extra flexi and short hard pipe each side seem way overkill. Far as I can see there is no reason why the hard pipe couldn't run down onto the chassis or onto a longer body mount bracket close by and pick up a longer flexi from the calliper. Maybe an intermediate fixing for a clip to hold the longer flexi in the right run.

If I were to modify the system thats what I'd do, Kunifer down to a re-engineered version of the body bracket then braided stainless covered hose to the calliper. The braided hose would be rather longer than the standard flexi one, which seems quite short given the amount of suspension articulation it needs to cover. Or maybe ignore any possible body to chassis movement issues and do an "inverted" version of the lower jump hose bracket and pick up there. Inverted to give more spanner swing room. But still need something to tie the ABS wheel sensor cable too. Bulkhead fittings on the bracket of course. I’d rather poke Kunifer all the way up a car than braided flexi.

The anti rotation "banjo with a lump" fitting on the calliper is needed because there is only a short length of hose between the calliper banjo and the first clamp. Low end mechanics don’t unbolt hose clamps! Without the lump it would be easy for low end mechanics twist the banjo loose when removing the calliper. If you have a loose guide rather than tight clamp there is no problem.

I’m usually not shy about modifying things but elected to keep mine standard due to not understanding why things were done that way. To me the P38 falls into the same category as Soviet weapons systems in that there is usually a very good reason for “WTF did they do that!” so jumping in and changing for something apparently more logical can dump you in a world of grief.

The only reason I can think of for all the flexi pipes is to control ABS and ETC resonance effects There seems to be fairly extensive literature and respectable number of patents floating around this subject. Sharp hydraulic fluctuations can resonate up to very high localised pressures if there is no damping in the lines. Flexi pipes will provide damping, even without expansion.

The big weakness of braided hoses is that the join between hose and fitting is relatively weak in tension. The crush collet doesn’t get a particularly good grip on the slippery teflon core. It’s frequently quite easy to simply pull the hose out by hand. Especially when home made.

Clive

Great to hear that you are nearly sorted.

Concerning machining the air tank plug to take a screw shank push fit connector I have a a spare air tank so can easily rob the plug from that to modify if the matter becomes urgent for anyone. Back burner job for now.

Under seat connectors are known for loosening off and causing odd warning light issues if the seat is moved. I often push my passenger seat right forward fora bit more load space and have learned to check connectors and warning lights before filling the car up! Never a problem checked before loading but both times I got rush headed and didn't check I got the light show.

Clive

Worth remembering that, even if the pipe is carefully cut and chamfered, those push in connectors are only rated for a limited number of connection-disconnection cycles if full pressure rating is to be maintained. The O rings do get old and loose flexibility over the years too. Fine until you disturb them but old O rings may simply not manage to seal if you are unlucky.

Personally I'd not mess around with the innards of the connector. Too easy to damage the collet if you are having a a bad day. The slightest sniff of trouble on my air tank one and it gets drilled out, tapped BSP and a brand new high end connector goes on. At around a £5 for an 80 MPa rated all metal one its not worth futzing.

But I'm set up to do this. Given the plug unit seems to be no longer available mayhap I should do a couple or three for service exchange stock.

Apologies for any confusion over the types and rating of the ordinary connectors. I was thinking in terms of folk needing to do a repair somewhere on the air harness and spluttering over the £15 odd cost of the official connector, STC8580, when E-Bay offers look-a-likes for a quid or so.

Those China cheapies are rated at 0.8 MegaPascals (0.8 MPa) sounds like a lot but thats only 115 psi in real money. Too many suppliers round that up to 150 psi which they may or may not hold. For a while. Good breeds are usually 8 or 14 MP, call it 1000 or 2000 psi, which is a bit more like it. You also see them rated at 80 bar which is 1000 psi too.

Clive

I swear they bolted the air tank to that top rear mount first then built the chassis around it!

If the pipe blew out of the tank either the connector is damaged, most likely O rings inside, or the pipe is. Decent breeds of push in connectors are rated for 14 or 20 bar and won't blow out.

The cheap crappy ones, usually black body with baby blue release collars, are only rated for 150 psi. (On a clear sunny day designed for deckchair and beer.) They will blow. Heck I've had them pop on the floating air legs of an optical table at, probably 30 psi max. (£20,000 + worth of table and legs at 1996 prices and they cheap out on the connectors.) Confusingly Festo do decent 14 bar black plastic connectors with turquoise blue collars. Guess thats what the cheapies are copying. Never get caught out if you know but Joe Ordinary won't.

Wouldn't call the P38 brake bleeding procedure complicated. Follow the checklist for about an hour, job done, and remember to be gentle the first time you test the brakes. Jump on them at a sedate for first test speed and its "Ooof, clonk. Hello steering wheel, hello windscreen!". It settles a bit after the first few times, but not much. P38 brakes do sag off over the years and its easy to forget just how formidably powerful they actually are.

Thing with the P38 is that you have about 6 systems to clear. Hybrid pure hydraulic / power boosted front, power boost only rear and independent ABS on all the wheels. The ABS pump also does double duty to pressurise the power boost system. So its never going to be super simple. But it is straightforward and always works.

Clive

Having got myself back up to speed on the braking system I'd say you pretty much have to do the whole thing.

If only hydrostatic bleeding is needed the rears could be considered isolated and done on their own. Needs fluid flowing freely though so its going to be messy and you have to be pretty quick. StrageRover managed it but I reckon he was somewhat lucky.

The procedure looks a lot worse than it is. Basically painting by numbers and ticking boxes off the check list as you go. Best thing is that it works "Just like That".

Hardest part is getting at the front and rear, especially the rear, booster bleed nipples. Nice thick bit of sound deadening lying all over the top on my car. I lie on top of the engine and try to convince myself I'm left handed!

The two things I always forget is to arrange a decently bottom heavy container to take the bled fluid so it doesn't fall over and decently long length of nice soft tube to to go from nipple to jar. You will use at least a litre of fluid!

I have a slightly improved version of the factory write up on the computer somewhere and pdf of my checklist. I'll shoot them up when I've finished this pontificate.

Clive

dave3D
Yep, found the Craddock listing after I'd made mine. But I've not had much joy in trying to get stuff out of them in the past so not on my preferred suppliers list.

Two hours and a litre of DoT4 this morning got the whole system bled with excellent results. Usual hour to do the job, hour to scare up all the bits and bobs of "tools", find the cheat sheet and revise the method. Looking at my checklist sheet last time (first time actually) I did this was on 12 th October 2018. No wonder I couldn't remember how to do the job.

Brakes are better than before, and they were pretty darn good but I had done an accumulator change without bleeding afterwards. Clearly not necessary but I suspect you do loose a bit of ultimate braking oomph.

Couldn't get any flow through the pipes when I uncapped them so the StrangeRover method wasn't gonna fly.

Clive