I've got the MF31-1000 on my car and an MF31-750 on the Ascot, you can't get a better battery for a P38, so unlikely to be that.

Once the BeCM goes to sleep you should be looking at a current drain of no more than 20mA which would take well over 3 months to flatten a good battery. Using a high current clamp on meter isn't going to tell you anything, you need something that can measure much smaller current drain.

From your other thread it seems that your car has lived somewhere very damp and/or salty. All the underside had far more rust on it that any other car I've seen so it makes sense that the sunroof frame would also be rusted. I would think it's lived by the sea for most of it's life.

That's what he did, used the main bearing studs from the old engine. Just curious what the longer ones were there for. This one is definitely a 350 but slightly later than the one that was taken out. Chevy moved the dipstick from one side of the block to the other around 1980 and the sump has a bulge for it to fit so had to find a Corvette sump for a 1980 or later car as it wasn't possible to use the one that was on the 1979 engine that was taken out. At least the pistons go all the way to the top on the new one.

Check the battery voltage while the glow plugs are on and when cranking on the starter. That will tell you if the battery voltage is dropping too low when under load. Also clean the connections under the bolt of the battery terminal. I had a problem once where that connection was bad and by putting the clamp from jump leads on pressed against that connection so making it good.

A slight tangent, well quite a big one actually, but a question for Symes. Mate's son bought a C2 Corvette from the States only to find a busted exhaust valve spring so they pulled the heads. As well as naff all compression on the pot that had the broken spring, all the others seemed a bit low and they found that none of the pistons went all the way to the top so the engine had been put together with the wrong crank, rods or pistons. Rather than mess around with it, they bought a recon 350cu/in short block from a guy in Yorkshire who did marine engines. It came with extended studs on some main bearing caps that looked like they were for a baffle plate or something like that. Far too long to fit inside the sump so the question is, does the marinised small block Chevy have a very deep sump compared with the same engine when used in a car?

More likely it was due to running on Continental gas which is a Propane/Butane mix so you use slightly less and it was through Germany and Holland so decent roads, no hold ups and I was in no hurry so cruising at 65-70 and not my usual 75-80.

How much does it weigh? One of these https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-ces340-340kg-engine-stand/ or one of these https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/clarke-ces680f-680kg-folding-engine-stand/. The fittings adjust so you can make it fit to the bellhousing bolt holes on just about any engine.

My tank takes 65 litres for a full fill and I get anything between 180-190 if used for short runs around town and 220 on a 75mph run. Best I've ever managed was 238.

Jeez, what hit that?

P38 are colour coded too. There's a bit of coloured tape around the cable, Grey on the distribution, Blue on Left and naff all on the Right.

There are odd occasions where there are faults that the Nanocom can read but doesn't bring up the book symbol. You can use the Nanocom to check that the blend motors are using all of their travel in the HEVAC - Utilities menu. You can command them to drive from one extreme to the other and watch them go from 0% to 100% (or 105% as one of mine shows). If they are moving over the full range then maybe you have a restriction or low flow through the heater matrix (LPG vaporiser plumbed in parallel if you have one?) so you are getting as much as it can supply but it doesn't have a lot in the first place. What value is the Nano showing for heater core temperature (HEVAC - Inputs - Values)?

Someone once told me a P38 will always have 3 faults so you should leave them because if you repair one, something else will fail and this time it might be something important.

DSE, being SE spec, should have the wiring, my ex-plod that was supplied with no buttons and no stereo still has the wiring. Yes, you do need an adapter of some sort. The P38 system uses what's called a resistive ladder network so pressing a button puts a resistance to ground on the wire, a different resistance for each one, 4.7k to ground causes the volume to go up, 15k to ground causes it to go down and a dead short to ground changes the mode. Later systems us a crude data system so the adapter converts the varying resistance from the steering wheel to the data that the aftermarket head unit needs, hence different settings for different makes. The adapter input will connect onto the Grey/Orange wire and ground while the output will go to the head unit.

If you have the headlights switched on and use the windscreen washers, the headlamp wash/wipe operates on every other use of the windscreen washers. Easy enough to test, switch the headlights on, poke the button to wash the screen then run round to the front to see if the headlamp washers and wipers are working. If they aren't, poke the screen wash button again and they should work second time.

karlos01 wrote:

yes London is all to do with emissions

No it isn't, it's all about raising money. If it was about emissions it would be the same as on the Continent, older cars simply can't enter the Cities. I've just paid €4.51 for a replacement French sticker, that means I can drive into the Cities as often as I like. If I had an older diesel and went into the Cities it's a €140 fine the first time and seizure of the vehicle the second.

how many RRs do you think would get the ULEZ charges 🤣🤣

All of them if built before 2006, which discounts the P38 completely. They need to meet Euro 4 if petrol (2006 onwards) or Euro 6 if diesel (2016 onwards) to be exempt from charge. However, it has been found that if you check the registration number for a 2001 or later 4.0 litre V8 P38 on the Transport for London website, it comes up as exempt from charging. It shouldn't, it's a mistake on their database so there's a loophole. A 4.6 comes up as chargeable and they are both Euro 2 so both should be. Before the ULEZ there was the T-Charge and there was a loophole in that one if you had an import. An import doesn't have the emissions standard or limits on the V5 so they didn't charge. When it changed to ULEZ, no information meant they would charge anyway, so that loophole was filled. I suspect the 2001 onwards 4.0 litre loophole will be plugged as soon as someone realises. They are losing out on income after all.....

Before I retired I was involved in a project to work out what the fleet of Kangoos was going to be replaced with. At that time, a further 21 Cities where proposing to introduce low emission zones in some form or another so my recommendation was that we went for petrol (as electric didn't give an acceptable range and nobody makes a self charging hybrid van). Bristol was one of the first places to announce it's proposals and that was to divide the centre into two zones with a total ban on diesels in the inner zone. As the vehicles need to go anywhere there is a problem, any restrictions weren't acceptable. The replacement of the Kangoos has been put back by a further year due to Covid and I've no idea what they are going for now although the last I heard was they were looking at the Citroen Berlingo/Peugeot Partner/Vauxhall Combo (which are all the same van with different badges) as it was the only medium sized van you could get with a petrol engine.

Yeah, before I retired earlier in the year I had to drive into London at least once a week in a 15 plate Renault Kangoo diesel so cost £12.50 a day because it was only Euro 4. Later ones are Euro 6 so are free and they only manage Euro 6 because they inject cow piss into the exhaust. What amused me was when I came to park. You get charged to drive into the zone and they then add extra onto the parking fee because you're running on diesel. I never worked out how what fuel you used when the engine was switched off and the van was parked could make a difference to the air quality.

What is you you send Paul? Customs get upset with certain descriptions and simply putting Car Parts isn't accepted for some reason, you have to put exactly what car parts you are sending.

They use a resistive ladder network with the value on a Grey/Orange wire to pin 3 on C226 . The other side of the resistors is grounded via the rotary coupler on the Purple/Black wire.

Nothing. You could put anti-seize if you like, it might make getting them out easier once the nuts have seized onto the studs so the whole stud unscrews. You could use lengths of M10 threaded rod or even M10 bolts if you wanted. Torque setting is in RAVE, Section 06, page 6, 22 ft/lb (or 30Nm if your torque wrench is in metric).

I've sent 3 of the Direnza alloy radiators to owners in the States. Even with the £105 shipping to the US they still worked out at just over half the price you can get an equivalent over there. If going for export you shouldn't pay the 20% VAT (tax) on the prices but if shipped to a UK address then you'll have to pay that then the carriage on top. US Customs don't charge any import duty on anything with a value of under $500. Customs declarations are pretty straightforward once you've done them a few times. The paperwork involved when I shipped a $90,000 Custom Chevy Camaro was a bit interesting though.

I've actually thought about trying to set something up with sending parts over. The sort of things that we can get here for next to nothing but cost a fortune from the US suppliers although it seems that just recently quite a number of owners over there have realised that ordering from the likes of LRDirect and Island 4x4 isn't difficult.