Budgie tweeting might just be exhaust manifold to head joint, could be worth just nipping the bolts up a bit and seing if that makes a difference. Equally, it could also be a head gasket starting to blow out to the outside world. I did one a while ago that for the best part of a year had sounded just like a manifold blow. Owner had changed the gaskets, filled the manifolds up with water while they were off to see if the flexi joints had cracked and it was only when it started to sound more like a traction engine that we realised it was the head gasket.

This trip is just a short one, 953 miles each way towing a car transporter trailer. Will hardly notice it on the way down as all it will have on it is a motorcycle, but coming back with a 66 Mustang Convertible on the back. Even with ADAC Continental breakdown cover, I'd still rather not have to be towed home.

Mine doesn't weep but I've never taken it off which might have something to do with it. I always use Hylomar blue on gaskets (even the ones they say to fit dry) but if it still leaks, RTV, as it fills the gaps.

I wasn't counting the diesel issue as that seems to have been ongoing for some time rather than being this week. But, I suppose I can count it and relax.......

Be careful. The P38 may have it's foibles but it is by far the best to get. The earlier Classic rusts while you look at it, decent ones are going for very high prices, while cheaper ones will require an awful lot of work to keep them on the road. The later L322 is even more complex than the P38 so consequently even more expensive to maintain.

The diesel P38 uses a BMW engine, a version of the engine fitted to the BMW 325d. After spending a fortune with a French Land Rover specialist, the lady owner near Paris took her car to a BMW specialist who was able to sort out her problems. Not particularly well, but it was at least running reliably and I was able to sort out the numerous other, P38 specific, problems.

OK, as things normally go in threes, can someone else have a problem in the next few days? I've got a run to the South of France and back setting off on Thursday so if someone else can be the third, it would make me feel happier.

I agree Rob, lifting a diff into place, especially when it has the harmonic balance weight attached makes you realise you aren't as strong as you thought you were. They don't balance on a trolley jack that easily either.

Mazz1 wrote:

Right. How in heavens name do you identify a P 38 when looking from a normal RR.

P38 was the codename for the 94-02 model of Range Rover, also known as the Mk2 to differentiate it from the Classic that came before it and the Mk3 (codenamed L322) from 02 onwards. So all Range Rovers between 1994 and 2002 are P38s.

Modern diesels are a bloody nightmare, far too many bits hung on to try to keep the emissions down, whereas the engine in the diesel P38 is old school and pretty basic as they go. As you say though, it needs someone that knows how to set them up to get them running right.

The pump in the tank is purely there to get fuel from the tank to the engine. Even if it wasn't working, it wouldn't generate a fault code and certainly wouldn't affect the fuel quantity adaptation.

If the pump hasn't seized then it looks like it was just one of those random failures that could happen to virtually anyone at any time. Put it down to metal fatigue, dodgy manufacture or a dodgy weld, nothing that you could have foreseen. As for the heater core, I wonder if O rings would have acted as a sort of secondary pressure relief rather than blowing the end out of the Audi core.......

Now I don't know that much about diesels but it's my understanding that the glow plugs are needed for a cold start in cold weather. If two have failed then there's still 4 more to get it to start and, if my bosses diesel Discovery is anything to go by, you don't actually neded them in the summer.

Martyuk wrote:

I wouldn't like to say how long the engine was running without the pump turning or after the heater core let go - It feels like it was an eternity, but it was a hill up the offramp and there was still enough power to get my up that, and I don't remember hearing any nasty noises from under the bonnet before I turned it off - though as soon as I was stopped the key was off!

If you had to turn it off to make it stop, rather than it stopping on it's own, I would say the engine is fine. It's when it starts pinking and cuts out on you, you know that you are looking at a big rebuild.

I think you may have less to do than you seem to think. OK, so the heater core let go with the pressure so you may have an iffy cap, or it may have just been a weak pattern part (do Britpart do bits for Audis?) but it isn't the end of the world. If you rebuilt motor had top hat liners and studs rather than stretch bolts, unless it got so hot it started pinking and was starting to lose power, I doubt you've done any damage to the engine. Simplest thing will be to bypass the heater and run it, hopefully, you will be pleasnatly surprised.

I went through the same thing with mine when I first got it. Bought with a head gasket blowing into the Vee and a burst rear air spring. Fitted a new pair of rear Dunlops, pulled the head off and noticed a nick in it right where the fire ring was, skimmed the head and whacked it back together. Took it for an MoT, gave it a bit of a run and within 80 miles of doing the head gasket, it started blowing into the Vee again. Left it for two weeks in disgust before deciding to have another go at it. Just as I was about to take the same head off, did a compression check and found it was the other head gasket that had gone. Found an identical nick in the other head too.so had to do the whole lot again. Then I started using it and found that just about everythng that can go wrong on a P38 did and for the first two years of ownership I kept the Classic that I'd bought it to replace. I had a trip to Holland planned that was to be the first European run in the P38 but ended up using the Classic as I couldn't trust the P38. I did a run to France and, while sitting in a queue for a motorway toll, it got very hot, far too hot. That really did kill it so I arrived with it running on 6 and drinking 5 litres of water every 50 odd miles. I ended up borrowing a Discovery and putting the P38 and a Harley Davidson on the trailer to get it home again. This time it had got so hot that two of the threads in the block pulled out and had to be helicoiled. But, I knew if I got it sorted, I'd never need to buy another car again. That was in 2011 and, once the head gaskets had been done yet again, as everything else had been sorted, I just used it. Until, after another 60k+ miles, it could only manage 45 mph uphill with an E Type Jag on a trailer behind. It was at that point I decided I had to make a choice. Try to sell an ex-police P38 with almost 300k on the clock and a very tired engine, add some extra money to it and end up with someone else's pile of trouble and start all over again, or use the money to get my engine rebuilt and keep the Devil I knew. I chose to do the latter and now, with 378k on the clock, I'm taking it to the south of France again next week and will continue doing so while I'm still capable of doing it. But I do know that the car will do it.

If you took it in to be repaired and they haven't been able to repair it, how the hell can they charge you a grand for doing sod all? Offer them a token amount for their labour charges and leave it at that. Cost of transporting it wouldn't be a lot. I'm hiring a trailer next week to deliver a motorcycle to the south of France and bring a Ford Mustang back. If I was going to be anywhere near to Portsmouth after I've dropped the Mustang off, I'd have offered to pick it up and at least get it to you, but I'm going to be pushed for time to get the trailer back to the hire place as it is. Trailer hire is £50 a day at the place I use, so all you'd need is someone with something capable of towing it.

They are additive once you get to use them and appreciate their little foibles. I've recently sold one of mine so I'm down to just two. But it at least gives me space for another..... I honestly can't see myself ever not owning a P38.

The reason you are getting so much support is because we do all our own work and if something crops up we don't understand, we know who to ask. So when we see someone apparently being taken for a ride (I say apparently, as we don't know exactly what the problem is and how much knowledge the garage doing the work has), we get slightly annoyed. You are in much the same situation as the woman near Paris who's car I look after. She spent over 3 grand on her car and it still wasn't right. I called in on my way by and spotted the remaining problems immediately. It was cheaper for her to pay my expenses to drive over there a couple of weeks later and do it than it would have been to take it back to the same garage as it had been to before..

To be perfectly honest, I'd be inclined to turn up with a trailer and take it away. At least then anyone that does go to sort it out isn't going to be doing it on their premises (and showing up how little they know).

Don't see why not. Prise the motor up out of the housing and unscrew it. That's the only reason I've kept the one I butchered the other evening, I know the controller was still working so while the motor may be shot, that bit is still worth keeping as a spare.

Not fun at all but you must have driven quite a way with no water pump for it to overheat. I had the bearing in the tensioner break up on mine a few years ago which threw the belt off rather than shredding it. Fortunately it was just after I'd filled up with fuel and was pulling off the filling station forecourt so could stop immediately.

If they aren't contacting you at least they aren't doing anything and making it worse. If they were, they'd be calling you and asking for more money.....

He came over on Saturday to demonstrate his handiwork on the valve block and show me the remains of the innards of the compressor. The Classic valve block and compressor are very slightly different to those on the P38 as it lives in a box under the car. So where we have the outlet silencer screwed into the valve block, he has another hole for an 8mm pipe with O rings and collet so the outlet is mounted remotely. Compressor draws it's air in at the top through another port opposite the outlet, in fact, a P38 one could be modified as the casting has the bit where the hole would be, it just isn't drilled and tapped.

We bench tested the valve block and driver pack and it's all working fine, seems to be holding pressure and opening each valve when triggered (as best we could tell with cobbled together Schrader valves, lengths of pipe and a electric tyre pump) but the same can't be said of the compressor. It appears to have been full of water so it completely destroyed inside so he's got another on it's way and a seal kit to rebuild it. Then we checked the electrical side and found that one of the 4 fuses was missing. Put that in, hung my spare compressor on the cables and that fired into life too. The plan now is that once he has the compressor ready, he's going to refit everything to the car. I'm going to make up the cable so we can run the free EASUnlock software and we can then control it from that. Assuming we get air coming out of the right pipes when we trigger the solenoids, we'll remove the coil springs and fit the air springs in their place and hope it all works.......