When you put a fuse in position 11, it puts the transfer case into neutral so while being towed, only the transfer case is turning, not the gearbox. The gearbox oil pump is immediately behind the torque converter so is turned all the time the engine is running. So with the engine not running but the car moving, it has no lubrication.

You've got 3 sources of a click. There's a very light click from a relay dropping out in the BeCM (so that will be a click from under the seat), there's a click from the starter motor relay (relay 16) in the underbonnet fusebox and there should be a louder click from the starter solenoid. Fuse 40 supplies the starter relay and the EAS compressor. If the starter solenoid is pulling in but the starter doesn't turn, then it is new starter time.

As for towing without a fuse in 11, how far did you tow it? It won't affect starting but the gearbox won't have liked it as it will have been turning but without the pump running so it will have no lubrication.

That's what I intend to do and if it was local would have done it already. It's just that the 600 mile round trip and Dover-Calais ferry make it expensive to go over and not find the cure.....

My initial thought was earths but I would expect any iffy earth to be good when damp and not when dry and this fault only occurs when it is cold and damp. The fact that when I first looked at it, pulling the RH kick panel connector apart and reconnecting it cured the fault for a while, suggests I disturbed something in that area. It all seems to point towards the most likely cause being a fault in the wiring under the sill plate and damp is either putting a high resistance earth on a wire or two or it is putting a high resistance short between two (or more) of the wires. That would explain it starting to work again once the car interior has warmed up and it doesn't do it during the summer.

It may well have different earth points, even though the ETM doesn't show that much difference. But of course here I am looking at a third alternative, not Bosch, not GEMS but late diesel. Although I can't see them being that different, they used the same bodyshell so you would expect earth points to be in the same places.

Tried mine again this evening. Unplugged it at the BeCM, nothing on the dash. Waited a good 3 minutes and nothing changed, still no lights. So it does seem that pre and post 99 are slightly different.

Thanks Tom, that's interesting. I didn't notice if the lights all came on immediately or slowly. As the car is LHD and I was poking about at the BeCM on the RHS, I only noticed them when the plug had been pulled for a few seconds at least. I've just tried another test with the cluster on the bench. 8 of the 16 wires at the connector at the BeCM carry data. Fortunately the BeCM SID also gives the pin outs for the instrument cluster so I could work out which ones. It uses serial data and there's a clock, a direction signal, data and a data ground. These are doubled up so there is a pair of each. If I ground the data ground pins and turn the power on, nothing happens, no lights, no nothing. If I then disconnect the data grounds with the power still on, the lights all come on, slowly lighting up gradually until all of them are on. So similar to what you are seeing although after about 10-15 seconds or so, they were all lit up.

I'll have another go on my car tomorrow and see if it lights up gradually. That is one thing I didn't do. I pulled the plug at the BeCM, looked at the dash, saw no lights so plugged it in again. If all else fails, I'm going to backprobe the connections at the cluster on mine with the ignition off and with it on and engine running. I've got a cheapo Chinese graphical multimeter that should allow me to see the data on the data lines.

An interesting extra is that the owner of the car has sent me a video. While driving, and before the dash wakes up and starts working, there is a whistle coming from the dash which sounds like it is coming from the speaker. My first thought was that the rpm signal from the engine ECU is somehow getting into the speaker driver. But at an assumed 2,500 rpm (and the diesel ECU supplies 3 pulses per revolution to the rev counter not 4 like the petrol), that would be a 125Hz signal, but it is much higher pitched than that.

Trying to diagnose a fault by long distance so I don't have a wasted 600 mile round trip (as the car is in France) and need someone with a 1999 or later car to do a little test for me. The car in question is a 1999 P38 diesel and the fault first appeared autumn last year. When turning the ignition on, only the SRS light came on and no instruments, warning lights or the message centre worked. After the car had been driven for a couple of miles and the interior was starting to warm up, it all came to life and worked normally. At that time, having a sneaking suspicion in the back of my mind that the connector behind the RH kick panel had something to do with data to the instruments so checked that. Sure enough, a bit green and after giving it a spray of contact cleaner, the dash all came back and worked as it should again. For a few days anyway then it started to do it again and was ignored for a while. Over summer when it was nice and warm and dry it all worked fine but now it has stopped working again.

So, while passing a couple of weeks ago, I called in and chopped the connector out, soldering and heat shrinking all connections. Switched the ignition on and all I got was an SRS light..... Checked the connector at the cluster and gave that a squirt of contact cleaner too. Still the same. Consulted RAVE and found that other than connections to various other systems, all the data connections to the instruments come off one connector at the BeCM, C1280, a white 16 way connector. One of the easier ones to get to as it is under the fuse panel and nothing other than the flap has to be removed. It has a locking tab on the bottom that can be lifted with a screwdriver and the plug pulled out by its wires.

Unplugged that to see if it had any moisture in it and to give it a squirt of contact cleaner only to find that every single warning light on the dash came on. This was with the ignition off and the key not even in the ignition! Plugged it back in and all the lights went out. Turning the ignition on and we were back to SRS light only.

My theory at this point was that a wire or two had chaffed the insulation (or a mouse has been in there nibbling at it) and with some damp one of the wires has been getting a high resistance short to ground. But as it was late at night, dark, below freezing and dinner was being dished up, gave up at that point. As I had a ferry to catch the following morning I concluded that a bit more research and thought had to go into this.

So I acquired an instrument cluster from a 2000 car and did some tests. From the ETM, the instruments have permanent power on pins 4 and 14 with permanent ground on 7 and 17. My idea was to power it up and then ground various other connections one at a time to identify which one was causing all the lights to come on. So I powered it up from my bench supply with nothing other than these 4 pins connected and guess what......

Wondering if this is normal behaviour and is some sort of undocumented bulb check feature, I went outside earlier and tried it on both of my cars. With the plug at the BeCM unplugged, the dash just sits there and looks at me and doesn't light up every warning light.

Now both my cars are 1998 and the ETM is different for a 1999. The fault is on a 1999 and I'm using an instrument cluster from a 2000. As far as I was aware, a later instrument cluster can be fitted to an earlier car and has almost certainly been done by someone because they want the posh green faces even though the parts listing shows loads of different part numbers for the instrument cluster. So can someone with a 99 or later unplug C1280 with the ignition off and tell me if all the warning lights come on or not?

I'm determined to get this fixed as it has become a personal challenge but the owner needs to sell the car and a French registered, diesel, P38 will fetch 4-5,000 Euros in France whereas a French registered, diesel, P38 with an electrical problem is virtually worthless.

Living in a village,mine never goes less than 20 miles if I'm going anywhere but I've found that it gets better the further it goes on a long run. It settles to a happy cruising speed of 70-75 on a run to Dover but once off the ferry, for what seems like the same throttle opening and its at 75-80. Although that might be due to the lack of traffic and the billiard table smooth roads on the other side of the Channel.....

That's where the mattress went, strapped to the roof with the straps going in through the windows. Then put an old door on top of it and another strap from front to back attached to the towing eye on the front and towbar at the back. The idea was that this should stop it from lifting if the wind got under it. It did until a double decker bus went past in the opposite direction at about 60mph. I was following and though the car was going to take off!

Clive603 wrote:

Plan A is to run mine until I get too old to drive. As I'm 71 now that should take me past 2035.

I hit 70 earlier this year, so I can look forward to renewing my driving licence at least another 5 times.....

being able to load in a an 8 x 4 sheet of ply would be nice but thats about it.

But it can, I've done it when we were refurbishing a house a couple of years ago. If you drop the rear seats and open the top and bottom tailgates, it will slide in on the diagonal until it sits on top of the front headrests. Then you can push it in and the edges will sit on the bits either side of the boot and at the front it will be level with the sun visors. Rear view mirror is completely useless but if you have the electric seats you can raise the headrests up so it isn't resting on the top of your head. If you don't, in my case Dina drove that one as she isn't as tall as me and I drove mine with all the smaller bits and tools in it.

You can fit an Ikea sofa in one too as long as it is in bits but I failed with a king size double mattress......

More like he's wondering how many of us will put up with the little quirks and foibles of a P38 for another 10 years. I know I certainly will. At my current rate of usage, in 10 years time I'll still be about 200k short of the million mile mark and it isn't going to be retired until I reach that at least.

Not too fussed about the French increasing parking charges as although I go to France quite a lot, the only place I park is at my mates house or in the underground multi-storey car parks and they charge a fortune anyway.

Lpgc wrote:

Who plans on still running a P38 in 2035?

My daughter reckons they will probably bury me in mine when the time comes.....

and then there's those that have two usernames of course......

Swapping the leads wouldn't be a bad idea to see if it moves.

For the MAF, if you are using a Nanocom, it reads in kg/hr so 26 is a bit high but not by a huge amount. Spec says it should be 20 +- 3kg/hr.

The noise suggests it is running on 7, which you already knew, and it is the mechanical bits moving but not as a result of combustion. I've heard it before and it does sound nasty but will go away when all cylinders are firing.

It could be a failing coil pack. Although each coil fires 2 plugs, I've known one car that was misfiring on only 1 of the two. Coil packs are easy to change on a GEMS but a bit of a pain on a Thor, you need small hands and a 1/4" drive socket unless you fancy taking the upper manifold off to get to them.

EAS pump can't be too tight and if slack will be even noisier but it must have the correct dished washers. Bottom ones concave side down, top ones, concave side up

But the V8, if running properly, is as smooth as you can get. Anything else will be somewhere in the drivetrain.

Quite possibly. It's a 24 year old car so it is very likely to have slack in the top and bottom axle ball joints (not detected on an MoT unless done by someone that knows how to check them), Panhard rod bushes and radius arm bushes. Any of which can cause the steering to pull one way or the other. £1,000 is about right for top and bottom ball joints as even experienced LR mechanics don't like doing them as they can be a real pig to get the old ones out.

A noisy diff is also a sign that it is getting worn and will need to be replaced sooner or later. You may well have damaged it when the front propshaft let go.

Only EAS goes through the one behind the LHS kick panel so that won't affect any of the other systems. The ABS relay is a strange dual contact one that can handle the high current but IIRC the has a different in layout so can't be swapped with a standard relay.