Have you made sure the turn on signal to the aerial amplifiers is connected? If it isn't you've got two aerials feeding into RF attenuators so naff all signal arriving at the radio.

The USB DAB adapters are cheapo software defined radios so not brilliant at the best of times as there is no tuned front end (as they can be made to work from medium wave up to a couple of Ghz with the right software). Very different to an actual DAB radio that has tuned inputs and will only work on DAB frequencies.

Difference between AEB (Leonardo and Millennium) and Tartarini connections

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

As i say, i still suffer from a bit dodgy reception here and there so i tend to just stick the internet on and use the Radioplayer app. Works flawless then.

DAB reception can be iffy if you are out in the sticks but the problem I've got is that DAB hasn't been adopted in much of Europe so my Kenwood DAB radio don't do a lot. However, a 3G/4G tablet allows me to use internet radio and feed that into the line in on the Kenwood. My biggest gripe with internet radio is the drop outs. It'll drop out, then come back but a few seconds before it dropped out until after a couple of hours it's about 5 minutes behind the times. Even worse when, as I did a few days ago, you are moving from one country to another as you're changing networks too so I was losing it for about 5 minutes every time I crossed a border and it had to roam to a different network and then connect again.

Martyuk wrote:

but I would like to try and start dispelling the myth of unreliability, EAS is crap and whatever other stereotypes people want to throw out there.

My thoughts entirely. All cars have their faults but it seems that the P38 has got a bad rap for a couple of fairly minor, easily fixed, problems. With the number of us running LPG we could probably start to dispel a few myths there too.

We wouldn't need another website, we've already got a pub, all we'd need would be somewhere to post any local shows we might be attending and see if anyone else fancies coming along. A pub outing if you like. I live 3 miles from the East of England showground where the LRO show is held every year. Hundreds, if not thousands of Defenders and Discoverys but virtually nothing for the P38 owner. I found a display for the Range Rover Register there a couple of years ago but why would I want to pay £32.50 a year for a magazine and members discounts from places I never use?

All I'm suggesting is we attend a few shows, both ordinary classic car shows and dedicated Land Rover ones, to show that not only do some of us love our P38s but with a little attention they can be reliable too. Between us we've got a wide range from the super shiny ones of Orangebean, BPSM and Robbo (to show that somebody loves them) while I've got the workhorse that started life thrashing up and down the M6 towing dead vehicles off the road and now spends it's life thrashing around Europe more often that not with a couple of tonnes hitched up to the back (to show that they can be reliable). Then we've got Rutland Rover who takes his to off road trials. When I did an off road course at Land Rover a few years ago they reckoned that a P38 with EAS can go to places a Defender can't. So between us I think we can show that they don't actually deserve their reputation.

Huh? How did that happen? Must have something to do with the alcohol.....

Not a premature congratulation, I'm over an hour late as we are 2 hours ahead of UK time here. Here's wishing you all a good one

Not a premature congratulation, I'm over an hour late as we are 2 hours ahead of UK time here. Here's wishing you all a good one

I've just finished reading Ben Fogle's book, Land Rover, The story of the car that conquered the world. It was bought for me by my daughter as a Christmas pressie and was bunged in my bag on Wednesday when we set off. Admittedly, it is about the history of the Series/Defender and written from the perspective of someone who is an owner rather than a historian but other models get a few mentions. The P38 gets one mention where it is referred to as the unreliable, unloved Land Rover that was dropped as soon as possible.

From that point of view, I definitely think we should try to attend as many shows as possible to prove that they really aren't unloved and as unreliable as people think. I'm at Dina's parent's house in Latvia watching mine slowly disappear under a nice layer of snow. We didn't do it in one hit this time but had an overnight stop in Warsaw but even so, it's done 1,520 miles and the trip computer shows an average speed of 64 mpg. It hasn't missed a beat, used no coolant and the oil on the dipstick has dropped by maybe 1mm below the full mark. Pulling into the hotel car park in Warsaw, found the covered VIP parking area and what did I see? A P38, that's what......

On Warsaw plates so local, presumably a V8 from the presence of front fogs, no badge on the back but black leather interior so either an SE or HSE and likely to be a pre 99 from the 16" wheels, amber indicators and lack of factory sat nav. But sitting next to a Bentley and a Porsche is where it really belongs. I doubt the owners of any of these were resident in an ibis budget hotel so suspect that for a fee locals can park their cars in the security of the hotel car park

At one point on the journey I looked at the odo and decided I was getting close to another dash photo opportunity but next time I looked it was showing 345, 722.4 so I'd missed the chance of a picture of it showing 345,678.9, Unloved and unreliable my arse. Dina told me I'll just have to wait until 456,789.0......

If the starter is losing drive then it has to be a problem with either the starter or the ring gear. It's a pre-engaged starter so should stay engaged all the time you keep the key turned not lose drive like the old bendix type.

I think it's more a case of parallel will work on any car, irrespective of how the heater plumbing is arranged but series will only work on a limited number of cars that have a full flow heater system..For an installer doing a number of different cars it's going to be safer to stick with parallel on everything then he knows it's going to work.

All I can say is that with mine having the flow going via the vaporiser before the heater, Nanocom reports my heater temperature as around 65 degrees with a coolant temperature of just under 90, quite hot enough for a decent heater output. We normally use the analogy of water flowing through pipes when trying to explain electricity but to turn it on its head, it's just the same as resistors in parallel, whichever has the lowest resistance will flow the most current......

I like the way the main picture shows the nearside of the car with no scrape on the bumper and a complete rubbing strip on the front door yet the close ups show the scrape (or crake) and at least the chrome strip, if not the whole rubbing strip, missing.

Seems to be missing the viscous fan and cowl too but does have what appears to be a Kenlowe thermostat on top of the rad. As for the way the AC pipes have been snapped off......

I've only seen Britpart propshaft bolts being sold and as I would rather not have my props held on with something made from case hardened Plasticine, I've kept the originals and used a dob of Loctite on them. Not come loose in 140,000 miles.

With no rear prop the wheels will be turning but there will be no drive through the crown wheel and pinion so if it doesn't go away completely the noise will be dramatically reduced. As an electronics man you could do what I did and gaffer tape a mic insert to the diff casing and run that into something to record it. All you need do then is move the mic from one suspect component to the other.

Problem I found with LRDirect is that if you order a number of things and one isn't in stock, everything waits until they have the full order even if you do pay the extra. I've ordered stuff I've needed the following day but added a couple of extra bits onto the order only to find they weren't in stock so the stuff I really needed didn't arrive when I needed it. Their website does make this clear but who reads the small print? Although they are a bit more expensive than LRDirect, Island, etc, I've found Rimmer Bros to be the best if you need something really urgently.

no10chris wrote:

I’ve done the heads on a few with l322 front ends, they’ve all been minus the ac condenser, so obviously if you change the front you can’t have ac !

Not sure why as it appears to still have the P38 bonnet and wings so it can't be a clearance thing.

Put the front prop back on, take the rear one off and drive it. Don't forget to put a couple of nuts on the rear prop flange to stop the parking brake drum making a bid for freedom but that will tell you if it is in the axle or the transfer case. If you do change the transfer case, make sure you replace the gearbox output shaft oil seal as RAVE says. It's a real pain to have to take it off again just to replace that seal. A transfer box from a 4.0 litre would be a good one to go for, those from a 4.6 or a diesel will have had more torque through them so will be more likely to have a stretched chain.

My preference for series plumbing came from experience. I had a Classic running a single point (so can run on gas from the word go) plumbed in parallel when I got it and on a cold morning it would freeze the vaporiser within 400 yards. Changed that one to series and it never did it again. The P38 was also fitted with a single point and parallel plumbing when I got it and at idle on a cold day the heater would drop to lukewarm. Again, changing to series cured that too. It depends on how much restriction each puts in the coolant flow. If the vaporiser has more resistance, the bulk of the coolant will flow through the heater allowing the vaporiser to freeze. If the heater has more resistance, then there's plenty of flow through the vaporiser but not enough through the heater. Series equals the flow and I've never had any problems with dropping from 19mm down to 16mm and back again but I will admit that if a vaporiser has very small coolant connections it could cause too much of a restriction. In saying that though, with them plumbed in parallel I would have thought the bulk of the coolant would go through the heater with the risk of freezing the vaporiser?

It would be interesting to see what the relative temperatures of the vaporiser and heater matrix are. A Nano will tell you what the heater temperature is and an infra red thermometer will give a good idea what the vaporiser temperature is.

I would hope, on a 2002 Thor, it would be sequential, anything earlier would be a nightmare on something that age.

No need to remove the ABS sensors, or even the brake calipers, to change a rear diff. Undo the 6 bolts that hold the hub in place, pull it out a couple of inches so it clears the diff splines and pull the diff. I've found that if you sit the wheels next to the hubs, you can rest them on those so they are not resting on the oil seals. Hardest part is getting the new diff into place, it's heavy and not the ideal shape to sit on a trolley jack.

Errm, now I'm not fully conversant with the underbonnet layout on a Thor but hasn't somebody stolen the AC compressor?

I'm confused, or maybe at 62 I'm not the dinosaur I though I was and have embraced the paperless society. Why would you want to spend £70 on a parts catalogue when there's Microcat, lrcat.com and Allbrit.de with the same thing online? As for a manual, I print off the odd page when I'm doing a job (head and inlet manifold torque sequences for example) and then throw it away when the job is finished. I can always print another copy if I need it again in the future.