You got here in the end then. welcome. I'm a bit south of you but Morat is up East Yorkshire way, does that count?

Lift the engine on an engine crane, remove the engine mounts and then lower the engine down as far as it will go. You should then be able to get at the top bellhousing bolts. As Sloth says, do not try to remove the engine with the TC attached, undo the flex plate bolts and leave it in the gearbox.

My drum did have a big Philips head screw holding it on, but a blast up to 70mph to see if my howl had gone soon loosened it off with no rear propshaft attached. Another mile or so and I reckon the screw would have fallen out rapidly followed by the drum making a bid for freedom from under the car.

and make sure you put a couple of nuts on the rear prop mounting on the parking brake drum or it'll fall off.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed the nearside rear brake backplate looked a bit damp. The rear discs didn't look brilliant and I knew it was getting close to needing pads on the back too so ordered a couple of rear discs and an axle oil seal (I already had the pads). Finally found time to do it today. I somehow doubt my nearside rear brake was doing much......

At least everything came undone easily enough though, unlike the other side which hasn't been doused in axle oil. One of the caliper slider pins was seized solid but rather than trying to twist it out and shearing it off as I have done in the past, I decided to get a bit more technical. I drilled a 5mm hole in the caliper carrier behind the pin and tapped it with an M6 thread. Then I filled it with Plus Gas and left it to soak for a while. Screwed an M6 bolt into my tapped hole and it pushed the pin out easily. Once I'd cleaned everything up, I just cut the bolt down and screwed it into my hole to stop any crud getting in there.

Rather than trying to move the gearbox as that would almost certainly involve removing the crossmember which is not a fun job, I'd be inclined to move the engine forwards. If the exhaust downpipes are disconnected from the manifolds, the viscous coupling and fan (and possibly the radiator) taken off, with the aid of an engine crane you should be able to move the engine forward far enough. That is always assuming you need to change it, give it a good check with the plate at the bottom off.

I'd be looking at the rear. Easiest way of checking which end is to drop one or other proshaft off.

You've not heard from him then......

If you've got a problem with the driveline, your first move would be to take a propshaft off and try it then. If it doesn't clonk with the front propshaft removed then you are looking at the front end and the same if you do it on the rear. A clonk on downshifts can be caused by the idle being high but I suspect it's going to be worse than that or you wouldn't really be too concerned.

It's definitely running rich. £42 at 63p a litre works out a 66 litres, on a run I'd expect to get somewhere between 210 and 230 miles on that amount. Like I said before, running rich is safe, it's running lean you need to worry about so you should be OK to drive it home. As already mentioned, it could be a TPS problem and they are cheap and easy to change, crank position sensor is unlikely as that usually just stops the engine from running at all. You've got two, probably unrelated, problems so get the stutter sorted first before thinking about getting the LPG side looked at. As you say, it's been running on gas for quite a while and it's only this new problem that has made you start to look into it.

Simon is a full time LPG installer who spends almost as much time sorting out problems on installs done by others as he does installing from scratch and definitely knows his stuff. If you look here http://www.lpgforum.co.uk/viewforum.php?f=27 you'll see a few of the more complex installations he's done recently.

I've got 9 different versions of Stag software, no idea which one would be needed for the ISA2 though. But that would suggest it's readily available.

Ferryman wrote:

Are you attending in this one
or this one?

Neither, I'm taking the P38 to use as a combined support vehicle and video camera platform. Never owned a series 1 Bagheera (even though the one pictured is the U8, a prototype that used a pair of 4 cylinder engines side by side linked by a Morse chain) but worked on lots, although I have owned 3 series 2 Bagheeras, an M530, a Rancho (but fitted with a 1600 engine and 5 speed box from something else in the Talbot range) and a 2.2 Murena. The Murena has been slumbering in my garage for the last 10 years as, after being used as my everyday car for over 20 years and 400,000 kms, it's a bit tired. I bought it in 1985 and took it off the road in 2007 when I bought something else to use as an everyday car, a Maserati Biturbo Spider....(I've never been one for sensible cars). Plan is to remove the well worn, 2.2 litre, single overhead cam, 4 cylinder engine and fit a VW 2.8 VR6 unit instead but that probably won't happen for at least a couple of years. Fortunately, the galvanised monocoque used on the Murena means it hasn't crumbled into a pile of rust like a Bagheera would have done.

The event is an open day at the factory and museum to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Rancho, the car that was the first 7 seat MPV. It's proposed replacement was turned down by Talbot as they didn't think it would sell only to be taken on by Renault and renamed the Espace. All the first and second generation Espaces were made by Matra but with Renault mechanicals and badges.

Orangebean wrote:

I've seen a few reports where using K Steel or other variants on the P38 where it happily seals up the bleed pipe hole back into expansion tank.

It does. When I bought the SE (with a blown headgasket), the bleed pipe hole was clogged with the coppery deposits that K Seal leaves and the rest of the cooling system seemed to be filled with Steel Seal. Neither is going to do much when the blown gasket was between two cylinders though. I still managed to drive it home from West London on 6 cylinders.

It'll only show warnings on the dash if it's an electronic problem, if it's something mechanical, then you won't get a warning except when the mechanical side and electronic side are doing different things. So if it's something that's come loose inside the gearbox, for instance, you won't get a warning message. For what you paid for that gearbox rebuild I'd be taking it back for a refund and getting a known good one from Ashcrofts.

It's the exact same stuff but without the fluorescent dye in it and about a quarter the price........

Steel seal is Sodium Silicate with a dye in it to make it look worth the money. You an buy Sodium Silicate without the dye for a lot less http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/140726670858. I agree with you, it does seem to work if the leak isn't too bad.

The biggest problem with stretch bolts is the inconsistency. A stretch bolt from one supplier may start to stretch at 30 lbft while another from a different manufacturer may not start until 40 lbft. Then there is the amount of elasticity in the bolt once it starts to stretch. A softer bolt will stretch a lot and not apply much pressure while one that is a bit harder will apply far more pressure. I have been told (by a Land Rover independent) that some of the cheaper stretch bolts have been known to snap before you get the second 90 degree turn on them. At least when you do an ARP stud up to a certain torque you know that the pressure it is exerting is going to be the same every time.

Running rich isn't going to harm anything, it's if it's running lean you need to worry as it will run hotter and we all know excess heat is not a good idea on a P38 (or anything else with an LR V8 for that matter). Running it on petrol will force the short term trims to the extreme so the long term will slowly correct themselves to get the short term trims back to centre. How quickly it will happen will depend on how it is driven, it will take longer on a constant speed on the motorway than on a journey with mixed speed, acceleration, deceleration, etc. But as soon as you go back to running on gas it will pull the trims out again.

You've got a couple of LPG installers in your area although neither of them appear to specialise in Stag so you best bet would be to give them a call and see if they can do anything for you. There's New Farm Motor Services Ltd, New Farm Road, Alresford, Hampshire, SO24 9QE and Hants Auto Fuels Ltd, Unit 5/6 Hammond Industrial Park, Stubbington Lane, Fareham Hampshire , PO14 2PT (although they appear to specialise in Prins). Your nearest Stag specialist appears to be Oxford Autogas (http://www.oxfordautogas.com/).

Only LPG place I know anything about in East Anglia are a fair bit further north, that's Jaymic near Cromer. The Zavoli importers are in Essex so most other installers around there are geared up more to dealing with Zavoli (or similar re-badged AEB) installs. When Stag first appeared on the market it was really cheap to appeal to the DIY installer and soon got picked as the system of choice for the done in a day merchants because it was cheap. Problem with that is if you've spent the day installing it, you've no time left to calibrate it properly so it may well have been out since day one. Once the Stag got established they put the prices up as people had got used to installing it. It's not a bad system, just that many installs using it are not really up to standard.

Where's home?

When I put my engine back together, I put the block in first and then fitted the heads once it was in place so much the same situation as you. I tried putting the studs in first then found there was too much other stuff in the way to allow me to lift the heads high enough to drop them over the studs. So I put the heads on without any studs, the same as if I was using bolts. I then put the studs in and tightened them with an Allen key. No idea how much torque I put on them, just until they didn't want to go in any further. I put the nuts on and did them all up hand tight then did a 3 stage at 30, 50 and 65 lbft as that is what most other engines with alloy heads are tightened to and I'd also seen the arguments that the recommended 80 lbft was too high (it seemed too high to me too). I don't think stud wind up is too much of a problem as the threads into the block are much courser than those on the nuts so the turning force is going to be concentrated on the finer thread particularly with the lube on the underside of the nuts.

My engine went in at 287,500 miles and I'm now showing 329,200 so 65 lbft is good enough for 41,700 miles at least with Elring gaskets.