Silicone brake fluids were originally developed in the USA for military vehicles. Primarily to allow vehicles to be taken straight from storage and into battlefield service without a regular fluid change cycle on stored vehicles. En-mass fluid change on a battalions worth of transport before deployment being a right PIA and major league difficult on many AFVs. Lower freezing point is handy on air deployments too. Cargo aircraft get cold inside.

It has absolutely no advantages whatsoever in a normal vehicle. It may not be actively hydroscopic but it still entrains water via temperature cycling and similar drivers. Objectively it should only be used in a sealed or semi sealed system. Preferably in a pump fed system with arrangements to extract any entrained water. Our P38s would be a good candidate if fitted with a motorcycle style fexible diaphragm sealed reservoir. Theoretically motorcycle systems can safely use silicone fluids. In practice temperature cycling seems to cause water ingress through the seals and promote corrosion inside.

The Australian Army had some research done into best ways of changing from the normal issue fluid to silicone fluids. With sometimes worrisome results

"In the case of vehicle 37-971, total loss of braking effect and loss of pedal resistance was noted approximately 15 minutes after the vehicle had been returned to the garage. Next day the brakes had returned to normal with no sign of fluid loss or leakage from the system. All brake assemblies were stripped from this vehicle with the liquid contents intact and taken to MRL for disassembly and inspection. All were found to contain residues of OX(Aust.)8 despite the syringe sampling operation which had resulted in the samples to which Table 1 refers."

Full report is at (https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a159501.pdf). Looks like the experimenters were more careful than an ordinary mechanic.

Clive

The tabs slide. Screwdriver in the opening and carefully ease them back under the trim.

Opening is usually OK but closing can be problematical because there is very little meat on that end. I borke one of mine 10 years (and lot of UV) ago. Careful on the first one wasn't careful enough. Very, very careful on the other three was.

Clive

If you fancy using Thule bars with the standard roof rails, probably the easiest fit as it just buy'n fit, do consider potential height issues.

The tops of the standard Thule bars are almost 2 metres / 78 inches off the deck in standard height setting depending on exactly where your EAS is set. High enough to be a worry with the entry restrictors for car parks round my way. I never actually scraped them but too close for comfort really. Ended up only fitting them when I needed to carry something.

Clive

The "Sports Cross bars" STC50252 mentioned by leolito are indeed very neat but you are still restricted to using as a pair due to the roof curvature. The catalogue pictures (https://knook-jaguarlandrover.nl/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Accessoires_LR_2000_Range_Rover.pdf) show them used in centre and rear positions. Dunno if one has slightly shorter legs to fit in the centre mount letting the load ride level or if both are the same so the load rides with a slight up tilt.

I'd not care to remove and refit on a regular basis as the sliding cover over the bolt holes seems to go brittle with age and is likely to break when moved. One of mine did!

My DIY plan was to make short adapter blocks to fit on Thule bars (well actually the £20 LIDL knock offs!) which could in turn be affixed to black anodised alloy blocks permanently fitted in the standard mount recesses. Easy fitting requires the blocks to be tall enough to take bolts through the side. I didn't care fore the look of tall pimples on the roof. Bolting from the top lets them be made near enough flush with the roof. But then, like Granny Ogg and her giraffe, you need to stand on a stool to manage things.

As ever its hard work being factory neat. Can't abide obvious DIY.

Clive

I assume you don't have the longitudinal roof rails fitted.

The longitudinal rails bolt down via tapped holes attached to the roof structure. Sliding covers over them. If they have not been moved for years its easy to break the tag so good clean and squirt with your favourite "wonder-spray".

The official Land Rover cross bars can be fitted at any point along the rails. But the longitudinal rails follow the roof curvature so you need to set the cross rails roughly equidistant from front and rear if whatever you have on top is going to ride level.

Longitudinal rails are findable from breakers but not cheap. Official cross rails seem to be hens teeth rare and, usually expensive. Found my cross rails at an affordable price mainly because the seller didn't know what they were and I was feeling lucky that week! Dunno if L322 ones will fit. Design is similar but not sure if the clamp end is different.

Before I went factory i looked into making three QD cross rails picking up on small blocks bolted to the official rail mounting point. Three rails is probably better for a canoe which that sort of system will give but you are pretty much stuck with permanent pimples half inch - inch (ish) high on the roof if the system isn't going to be a right pain to fit. If you don't mind fitting from the top it can be done very neatly.

Thule bars will clamp to the longitudinal rails. Might still even have the set I used before I found the right cross rails lying around somewhere. Her-ladyship half inched them for her L322 roof tent project, then we found some proper Land Rover rails and I can't remember if my Thules ever came back. Roof tent idea died after she drove into a car park height restrictor and knocked it off. L322 died soon after in protest at being looked after by a Defender and Jeep specialist! Of somewhat questionable competence.

Clive

Just need to update the drawings to include a version with the taper roller bearing outer as the compression element. Much simpler unless you have a high end toolroom or similar machine with effective taper turning attachment.

Hopefully all done by the weekend. PM me your E-Mail and I shoot it over when finished.

Clive

Ha! This years resolution was to make an effort to get out and put miles on my Norton Commander (the rotary engined one) and Yamaha GTS100A (the funny front end one).

94,125 miles on the Commander (all mine) so I really intended to do a Richard and photograph the magic 100,000 miles.

The GTS was my me to me 65 th birthday present, sheer indulgence but my "have fun in retirement" fund got diverted and could no longer stretch to a cool low mileage Hass to replace the Bridgeport.

Back issues, heat and waiting for an operation got in the way. But at least they picked up five miles each going for an MoT. Hefty, long legged bikes aren't the thing for popping around town.

Clive

Yup its getting a straight start thats important with the radius arm bushes.

Well worth spending some quality time with a workmate, sawhorses or whatever and packing to support the arm level before you start. Those things are heavy and your arm gets tired pretty quickly when trying to position and hold them just so to start pressing. Its not just taking the weight. the bend means that the darn thing wants to slide sideways out of alignment. Holding against the slide as well as supporting the weight is what really sets the muscles trembling.

One bush on my ownsome with no extra support was quite enough for me thank you!

But 66 is not the new 26 so maybe younger members will manage better than the old farts brigade.

Clive

Pretty sure that one of the inexpensive import universal bush removal sets has the appropriate pusher and receiver for the panhard rod bushes. Not sure about force screw tho'. I'll have a check in the next day or so and verify. I did mine with a home made hydraulic press and stuff to hand.

The radius arm bushes are larger than the holes in the arm so need a tapered compression section in the installer. I can send you drawings in PDF for a comprehensive tooling set for removal and installation that can be made on any half decent lathe, or a Myford if desperate. I bought a set of tools from Laser that were supposed to do the P38 and didn't so I ended up rolling my own. Cutting the compression taper is the only difficult part but since I made mine it has been demonstrated by romanrob, see his You Tube video, that an inexpensive taper roller bearing outer race works fine as a compressor section. Much easier. Hopefully I've updated my drawings.

If you do take a set of drawings to make your own installer odds are that you'd not need to make everything but I made my tooling as a potential loaner set so it had to be complete.

My tooling does exactly the same job as romanrobs method but its neater, doesn't need jubilee clips and incorporates an alignment device so the bush has to go in dead straight. Gotta get some return for all that time spent on a lathe!

If you decide to do the radius arm bushes on a hydraulic press the angle of the arms makes it quite difficult to hold them dead square if working on your own. Especially if its a cheapy type with a bottle jack'n prodder hung on springs. Best done with a helper. Copious cursing doesn't seem sufficient assistance!

If I ever do another set of radius arms I shall make a mini hydraulic press using one of the inexpensive 10 or 12 ton ram assemblies sold as spares for import hydraulic pullers. Which will also work fine for steering balljoints. With 20-20 hindsight thats what I should have done before starting the whole bush'n steering balljoint lark replacement lark. Something like the eyewateringly expensive Land Rover official balljoint tool or similarly wallet hostile Sykes Pickavant 2242 set. £50 for the ram and an afternoon in the workshop being more my speed. Less actually as I have a couple or three rams kicking around already.

Clive

Coming to the conclusion that when it comes to EAS its sensible to do everything in one hit each time airbags are changed. Bags, pump seal, valve block O-rings, dryer and any odd bits that seem to be showing their age.

Airbags seem to be good for around 65,000 - 70,000 miles in UK road use, pump seal and O rings will go further but how much further is in the lap of the gods. Unlikely to make it through till the next bag change. So, given the relatively modest cost and simplicity of the work, early replacement when the air suspension is down anyway seems far less trouble than waiting until you actually have a fault.

On condition rather than scheduled replacement of "system blocks" never seems to work well with the P38.

Clive

I'm at Crowborough in Sussex. Not too far for a quick test to be arranged. Was supposed to be meeting a 7 pm flight at Luton airport this coming Sunday which would have been ideal with an early start for a quick afternoon deviation to Dorking.

I have a Nanocom and a set of suspension setting blocks too. (Memo to me must re-set the standard height as its riding a little high.)

Clive

You really need to try a car with recently fitted dampers to see what the new ones you plan to get are like. I'm on recent Bilsteins so if you're close enough a try is possible. Monroe have the thumbs up from the forum too.

Wouldn't touch adjustable with a barge, let alone the pole. All they ever seem too do its to fiddle with the basic absolute rebound damping setting ignoring the velocity sensitivity. Which is a very bad thing to do on road vehicle as it upsets everything in sight. Especially a big heavy roll prone 4X4. Either, like a lot of motorcycles, the setting does nothing except amuse the owner, or you have serious risks of the suspension pumping down at speed.
If you are being ambitious off road with uprated springs and, possibly, lift tweaking the rebound will stop the suspension crashing too far, too fast downwards when you hit a hole. But you will be compromising a lot of other things which may well bite you in the ass at any sort of speed.

If you want to muck around with suspension characteristics on a road vehicle with a high centre of gravity you have to get into the shim stacks and do it all from first principles to keep things properly balanced and the natural frequency responses front and rear sensible. The odds of any ordinary person finding a better overall set-up than a decent factory are tiny. Competition guys pushing the wrong kit up to the ragged edge may think they are doing better with what is mostly a bodge fix but road car suspension operates in continuous transition regions which is much harder to achieve balance with. Serious natural frequency mismatch whether front to rear pitch, roll or (eek) diagonal is scary.

Superflex, poly bushes and the rest don't last on a P38 because roll puts considerable plunge and tilt forces into the bush. Which they aren't able to cope with. All these polybush systems are basically poor boys rose joints with a little flex over relatively short movements to handle the minor geometrical infelicities that prevent you from using proper rose joints. Fine on something like a TVR with fairly pure geometry, short movements and hard springing to keep movements pretty close to the proper geometry range.

A P38 has long link / radius arms both ends with the axles well located on the arms so the geometry is anything but pure. Long travels too. When it rolls either the bushes have to take up serious plunge and tilt force or the arms and axle have to twist and bend. The glass fibre arms at the rear do twist and bend. If you look back into the history of the GKN glass fibre leaf spring and suspension arm design its precisely what they were developed to do.
Good luck on twisting the front radius arms. The axle to arm bushes have to handle it all. A rose jointed P38 front suspension is pretty much locked solid. Despite its apparent simplicity its actually a very sophisticated design.
Big, fast, 4 x 4 suspension is hard to do. Which is why most of the more modern incarnations with apparently more up to date designs fall apart with monotonous regularity over any sort of mileage.

Clive

Seems likely that the solid floor over the fuel tank without an access hatch for the pump may have been due to a proposed regulation or regulation interpretation thing floating around when the P38 was designed.

Having direct access to the fuel tank from inside the car, especially a plastic one, is the sort of thing that would be seriously frowned upon by more modern regulatory authorities so designing with the tank outside of a solid floor might well have been the safe option. With quick detachable connections and everything pretty accessible if the car is up on a ramp only draining the fuel would seem to be a major downside from the design staff viewpoint. Realistically its not as if things need frequent attention.

(Often wondered how Bristol got away with their layout. A whacking great alloy tank immediately behind the backseat with a (very) thin alloy sheet self tapper screwed on between tank and seat. Glass fibre parcel shelf above, no metal. Couple of simple straps to keep it in place. Seems to work but ... The strong steel panel is between the tank and the boot. Structurally essential because the chassis ends about there with the back axle and Watt links overhung out back.)

Clive

Now he says.

Got 8 left out of a 10 bag of non return valves with correct Land Rover part number on the shelf. Blue Britpart bag so how OEM or how good may be open to question but I can't see me using them all.

Easy to send but apparently just too thick for letter post.

Clive

Might be worth looking to see if its a "standard" section that can be got from the likes of COH Bains https://coh-baines.co.uk .

COH Bains are just up the road from me so if anyone has a sample I can easily take it in for them to look at.

These seals seem to be becoming an age out item.

Clive

Heat shrink quality seems to be somewhat variable these days. Back in my lab rat days, usually using whatever RS were selling, it would just shrink enough and excess heat did nothing noticeable. Quite practical to work it nicely over lumps

In the last couple or three years I've had it split almost immediately after its gotten down to size. Had one on an admittedly really lumpy joint that split before it came down onto the wire proper despite using the localised heating and aiming tricks to produce uneven shrinkage.

Clive

Allegedly simple heat or sunshine is pretty ineffective and slow at drying the foam. Was told that laying something on it to draw or wick the water out works better.

Certainly seems to be working on the 'orrible silver 1.1 Corsa sat on my drive awaiting disposal as a bereavement sale. Carpets were super squishy but after a couple of weeks of having newspaper laid over them most of the water seems to have been pulled out. Half a Daily Telegraph opened out and held down over the carpet with some suitable paving slab offcuts seems to work well. Certainly when changing the paper its about ready to fall apart.

Clive

Generally a straightforward job but best with three pairs of hands to keep the new headlining under control as you roll it onto the adhesive. Two of us managed mine but the result isn't perfect. I know exactly where we ran out of hands, probably due to inadequate technique!

Shifting all the old foam off the backing is "messy".

Crowborough to Dorking isn't far so if you want another pair of hands I can easily slide over for the day but mine has a solid roof so I've no experience of pulling a sunroof out. I imagine that, like everything P38, third times the charm.

Clive

Pity there isn't quite enough room to slot the spare wheel in one rear quarter almost tight up against the outer skin after removing the trim panel and shelf. Need to re-work the parcel shelf of course.

If memory serves me right I reckoned 2" more behind the seat would have been plenty!

Clive

Isn't there a design for an external spare wheel carrier on a hinged and quick detachable bracket floating around on the internet. As I recall it the originator said he was only going to fit the bracket and carry a spare wheel on longer trips as it might get in the way on shopping runs et al where full boot space isn't needed.

Assuming you go all modern and dump the CD player for a tablet or memory based music player I guess something could be crafted to fit in place of the rear quarter trim panels for storage. Doesn't seem impossible to make one side capable of holding the spare wheel upright as Gordon plans.

That two pronged strategy was more or less my plan when I looked into going LPG but I don't do the miles to justify it and nearest supplier is 12 miles away so it never got any further than concept sketches.

Clive