Or somebody simply put the Westminster badge on the back and the sill plates to make it look more upmarket. Microcat should decode the VIN and give you the original spec/colours, etc when it was built.

Been there, done it. Open the upper tailgate, open the lower tailgate then with a screwdriver, flick the latch over in the top of the lower tailgate that the upper would normally latch into. That will make it think that the tailgate is closed so the suspension will still work and it will also stop the dash from beeping at you and displaying Tailgate Open every time you start to move off.

Ahh, the curse of the ex-Pat, pensions paid in Sterling that are plummeting in value when converted to Euros. There's a glut of property for sale in France currently at knock down prices all being sold by Brits that are moving back for that reason (and fears over what will happen post Brexit). You'd need a similar system to that fitted to yours, whether you chose to go for another Zavoli (or any other AEB based system) or something different is up to you and your wallet. As for removing it, that would depend on how closely the guys that do the test look at it. If you could leave the main bits in place and disconnect a few vital parts then it wouldn't be too difficult but if it needed to appear that there was no LPG system fitted, then it would take almost as long to remove it as to fit it.

I had a look on leboncoin (https://www.leboncoin.fr/) the french equivalent to Autotrader/Gumtree and even a dead P38 is being advertised for that kind of money. Whether they are selling is a different matter but it seems that a doggy left hooker is worth a lot more over there than a decent one here. So 2k would still seem to be a decent price even for one that needs a bit of TLC.

super4 wrote:

And rough cost if I try and LPG it ?

I answered that while you were typing your last.

Just had a look at the two videos. The second one is definitely a Westminster in Bonatti grey but the one you are looking at almost certainly isn't. The Land Rover badge is missing from the tailgate and I suspect someone just stuck a Westminster one on because they could. There isn't a shot that shows the speaker on top of the dash, but the car in the second video doesn't have it either, so maybe the book is wrong and not all of them had it? It'll need a Martrim headlining kit too as well as a bit of TLC here and there.

Now if I was to be devious, I would suggest the way forward for you would be to buy it and get it back to the UK, have an LPG system fitted, register it here (something I'm doing all the time on imports from all over the world), then take it back to Spain and run it around on UK plates.......

super4 wrote:

And feasibility of converting to LPG - and cost if I do it myself ? (have to hide the LPG from Spain MOT each year !)

As it's a Thor (the later Bosch controlled engine), it would need to have a multipoint LPG system similar to that you have fitted on your existing one, you wouldn't get away with fitting a singlepoint. Consequently, removing it wouldn't be simple, there would be the injector blocks to remove, holes in the inlet manifold to blank off as well as the rest of the underbonnet stuff. Then there would be the rewiring of the petrol injectors so it would still run on petrol (you wouldn't simply be able to unbolt the ECU and leave the plugs dangling as they intercept the wiring to the petrol injectors).

Cost of doing it yourself would be in the region of £600-700 if using all new parts. France and Portugal are the same in as much as an LPG system must be fitted by an approved installer so it might be worth finding out what it would cost to have it done legitimately. One member on here moved to Portugal and had his done professionally for much the same reasons.

One other thing that suggests it isn't a Westminster but an HSE with a Westminster badge, is the fact that it has a 4.6 engine and all the Westminsters had either the 4.0 litre petrol or 2.5 diesel. They obviously found a Westminster badge easier to get hold of than a Vogue SE one......

I've no idea but it seems a bit of an odd attitude to me to own a car that you can take off road on the odd occasion and the rest of the time you have to drive around at 50 mph with earplugs in. Last week when I went over to France there was a group of 4 of them on the same ferry and I went past them on the Autoroute just outside Calais like they were standing still. Yet when I did the off road course at Land Rover the guys there where saying that a Range Rover on air will go places a Defender or Disco can only ever dream about but still cruise at 80 mph in perfect comfort.

Someone has fitted a cheap aftermarket exhaust. Some cars had only tailpipe but most had two, but it doesn't make a lot of difference.

The official Land Rover Owner show is happening just down the road from me this weekend so the roads are clogged with Defenders and Discos on big wheels and chunky tyres. One of my neighbours suggested I was setting up in competition with the fleet outside my place. It's a good job I live at the end of a private road.......

Remove the plastic nut that you can see on the inside of the door and then use a plastic trim removal tool to pop them off. I don't normally do cosmetics, just mechanics, but if I can manage it I'm sure you can (although I did cheat and read about it in RAVE first.....).

A bit more work I know, but it isn't difficult to take the trims off. I took mine off when it went in to be resprayed and gave them a coat of bumper black paint while the bodywork was being done. Not only does it make the trims look better but it will allow you to get right into the edges.

Errm, why did you take the whole sunroof cassette out? You only have to take the glass bit off and the sunblind can be removed with everything else in place.

GEMS uses 4 separate double ended coils instead of the Thor which has two blocks, each consisting of a pair of double ended ones in one block. If the GEMS was capable of giving individual misfire codes per cylinder, it would be easy to spot one iffy coil, unfortunately it isn't so it's down to the more traditional methods. The problem with the spark testers is that if the misfire only occurs when under load, you'd need to drive with the bonnet open and someone sitting in the engine bay to look at them.

I found, by experience, that if the battery voltage is dropping while driving (due to not being charged) as well as the multitude of dash warnings that come up (gearbox fault, followed by ABS fault, followed by SRS fault, etc) the system starts to shut things down to conserve power. One of the first it shuts off is the radio.

Clive603 wrote:

Says he has a BRC gas set-up from a P38 for under £400. Grab, look over careful like or run?

Run, at £400 anyway, you could buy new for not much more (and something a little more user friendly than BRC). At half the price it might be worth a punt but bear in mind that a tank will be dated and has a certified life of 10 years. Admittedly, if in the spare wheel well and protected from the elements it should still be fine but if you, or your insurance company, decide it needs to be checked and certified, it'll fail on an out of date tank.

I'd be interested on what sort of a difference you notice as I've got orange poly bushes in mine too.

I wasn't sure if the pipe was 8 or 10mm so didn't reply but Wickes will sell you a pack of olives in both sizes as they are used in microbore plumbing systems.

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

I wonder why there's even the option to disable the EKA.

While everything is working as it should, then all that is needed to turn the alarm off and reset the immobiliser is to unlock with the key. So in that respect it could be considered a good thing. Until a microswitch fails which probably isn't something that the designers even thought about when the system was new. I mean, a decent quality microswitch is good for millions of operations.

Morat wrote:

I dread to think what that would have cost at the dealer.

Well, there would be full retail price for a new door latch (because they wouldn't get a soldering out to the one that is on it), there would be the labour for changing it and at least a couple of hours diagnostic. Or, they'd find they couldn't connect to the BeCM, so they'd probably try and sell me one of those too at a grand plus fitting and 'programming'.

No, it would still need the EKA to be entered. If you were very careful, you could enter it by grounding the same two wires in turn to simulate the turns of the key. You'd need to ground the CDL wire (the green/red wire) while entering turns to lock by grounding the blue/red wire and then for the turns to unlock you'd need to remove the ground from the CDL line and just ground the keyswitch line the required number of times. A bit painful but it should be possible to do it if you were really desperate. Disabling EKA does seem to be a really bad idea. Fine while everything is working as it should but drops you really in it when you've got another problem.

Anyway, latch removed, repaired, refitted (and the wires clipped well out of harms way) and all back fully functioning now.