A pair of JBL Stage 600C speakers arrived and were fitted today and I can confirm they are worlds apart from the originals. Fitting was fairly straightforward, the old ones are held into the plastic mounts with bent tabs and I drilled the mounts to use the supplied self tappers to fit the new ones. I tried the JBL tweeters that came in the box and, they didn't sound any different to the originals so I didn't use them although once out of heir plastic housings could have been fitted if I'd wanted to. Bass response is a definite improvement, I can use bass boost on the DSP settings in the head unit and it actually does something which it didn't before. They sound pretty damn good to me although I think I still need a sub.....

Just got off the phone to him and he admitted he'd finally got around to signing up. We aren't sure if it's a Tornado cam or chip but I have to admit, it's bloody quick. The stupidly expensive Prins LPG system doesn't run out of puff even at 5,500 rpm either. One interesting thing is the coils have been moved to a bracket at the front of the plenum (1998 so GEMS motor) where they sit neatly between the alternator and AC compressor. It's suddenly developed an SRS fault which Nano reports as internal module fault so we're going to try swapping the ECU with the one in my SE one day next week. We also suspect the keyfob receiver has been disconnected but we'll have a crack at that at the same time. He's in South Beds so not on my doorstep but not too far away.

I couldn't TIG weld to save my life. bpsm put a link to a picture rather than embed it into his post so I tried a post with the the link in the insert picture box. Posted but it came up with no picture but the 'insert image here' message, so I deleted my post and the 500 error popped up. Maybe I tried to delete it before it had fully saved it or something like that. You can still see the original message if you got to the Portal tab.

If it's come adrift at the top, it might find it's way in from there. With the side off the centre console you can see them where they fit to the bottom of the heater box.

Shame but never mind, maybe someone else has some contacts. My first wife worked for EMAP, the publishing house, and I used to have loads of contacts on numerous magazines but not these days. The P38 does very much seem to be ignored. I ordered a couple of parts for my car and a copy of a Land Rover magazine was in the parcel that arrived. I had a read through it and other than a buyers guide for the diesel L322 (which didn't mention the self destructing GM gearbox) there was no mention of Range Rovers at all.

Shouldn't think so although it might fill your car up with very dirty, smelly, water and dead leaves. Giving them a squeeze from underneath will usually result in a shirt sleeve full of dirty water. They are a conical shaped bit of rubber with a slit in the end so water can get out but not in. Dirt will clog them so they can't get the water out fast enough. When mine clogged up the water was running out of the side of the transmission tunnel cover and forming a puddle on the passenger side rubber overmat.

Martyuk wrote:

I wonder if any of the Land Rover magazines would be interested in a bunch of people keeping P38's on the road and giving them some love, rather than pulling them apart because they can't be bothered to fix anything...

That's not a bad idea. They get the odd mention in the Land Rover mags but most owners of inferior LR models tend to think of them as the unreliable, best forgotten, model. A bit of positive publicity could be good for explaining to people that there is nothing to be frightened of and they aren't complex, just a little different. Smiler, you're in the trade, how about using some of your contacts?

My pillar trims were pretty horrible too, dirty and with chunks of the furry coating missing. That stuff comes off fairly easily with a plastic scraper and the remains can be cleaned off with meths, white spirit or thinners. That leaves a smooth, beige plastic which initially I didn't like as, being shiny, I got reflections of other cars headlights off it. I must have got used to it though as I don't notice it now. The problem with using the headlining material on the pillar trims is that it is foam backed so while it would be OK on the A and D post trims, would be very difficult to get a clean edge on the B and C trims where there is the cutout for the sliding seat belt mount. You could make it look neater by wrapping it round to the inside but I suspect it would then jam up the sliding part. What is needed is either a matching material without the foam backing or some means of re-applying a furry coating much like the original.

I had a look for alternative hotels but not knowing the area makes it difficult, the Alex was OK but as Morat says, the beer is crap and it's a bit conference centre-ish. Premier Inns are usually pretty good (so Lenny Henry keeps telling us), so that would seem to be a viable option.

If a couple of people can strip headlining shells out and clean them off (removing the old cloth is easy, it damn near falls off), Dina and me can glue the new material on. We did mine with just the two of us but 3 people is the ideal number so another body to help with holding the material away from the shell. Once the material is on then either another couple of people can refit or the removal crew can take on that role.

Is this an invitation to take your car to bits? Diffs and autobox (and transfer case) are simple enough, take drain plug out, allow oil to go all over the floor, put drain plug back, refill. On yours with no dipstick, filling the autobox isn't as straightforward as the earlier ones.

I think I'm going to be tied up all the time sticking new headlining material to the shells but I'm sure someone will be able to show you.

Water in the ducting hasn't come from the AC, that's definitely left over from what got in through the pollen filter housing. If the weather stays like it has been today, leave the car parked in the sun so it's at cooking temperature inside then run the engine for 10 minutes. If the AC drains are clear, you'll find a big puddle underneath the centre of the car. I parked mine for a couple of minutes this afternoon and came back to it to see a stream running out from underneath and that was with the engine off.

I'll second the stick it in the top hose method too, at least then you will be taking a reading from the actual coolant temperature. If you are going for silicon coolant hoses then you must have pretty looking anodised bits too, it's just not done to have silicon hoses without.

Your network cabinet reminds me of when I had a car that needed some serious welding doing to the underside and required large sheets of steel. I used an ex-Civil Service issue filing cabinet......

I meant not using the JBL ones that come in the kit and just keeping the original ones. From the spec the JBL ones look to be a larger diameter so I'm not sure if they will fit inside the housings. It might just be the plastic surrounds though so I could cut them off and they might fit. I suspect the JBL's will sound better though but I'll try hanging them in temproarily first before getting involved in serious butchery and glue.

Yes but why? As I've got separate mid range and tweeters, it's only the woofers that I really need (or ones that produce a bit more bass than the ones that are in there). Too late now, the JBL's are on order and will be here by Wednesday.....

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

dsp sounds good in mine in my opinion. sub on 4, bass on 6, and treble on 3.

I used to have the sub on 7 but then the Mrs put radio 1 on once. I couldn't be doing with it.

I tried a bit of Alterbridge (Blackbird) but even with the sub on 8 it hadn't got the grunt, or the top end for that matter, that I get on my home system (NAD amp and CD deck, Dual (better known for turntables) speakers) with all tone controls flat and sounded not much better than my existing standard speakers. When you do the sort of mileages I do, often at night on my own, a bit of decent quality makes all the difference, especially when you know how good a system can sound.

I'm going to go for the JBL's but the only reason I'm considering not using the tweeters is that, according to the JBL website, they are larger diameter than the stock ones so might need a bit of butchery to get to fit in the housing. However, in saying that, the ones on eBay are the 600C while the website only gives data for the 600CE so it may be that the eBay ones are a superseded model and are slightly different. I'll find out in the next couple of days when they arrive.

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

what's the range of the tweeters?

No idea on the standard ones but for the JBL's they quote 50Hz - 20kHz for the pair. I'd try swapping in the JBL tweeters to see if they sounded any better than the standard ones. I'd assume the woofer goes up to about 5kHz with the tweeter doing the top end. All this audio stuff is a bit low frequency for me, I'm used to dealing in frequencies in MHz and GHz rather than something getting dangerously close to DC as far as I'm concerned.
blueplasticsoulman wrote:

Would band pass on the mid-range be a bit overkill for what you want do do?

There's no band pass other than the 2.2uF cap in series with the mid range speakers. The head unit has a 9 way graphic with +-12dB on each band (as well as all the DSP settings) but supplies the standard full range output per channel (F & R left, F & R right). The high pass filter on the speaker output can be set for anything between 30 to 250 Hz while the sub output has a low pass filter that can be set over the same range. So I could set it so anything below 50Hz is only sent to a sub and everything above goes to the rest. Presumably, I'd need to give some overlap? Set the sub for everything below 80Hz for instance with everything above 50Hz going to the rest of the speakers? I think I'd probably need another road trip across Europe with my tame sound engineer in the passenger seat to set it up. Fortunately it does also have a save setup feature so if you ever disconnect the power you can recall it and put it back as it was (however, it doesn't save the stored radio stations, display colour, Bluetooth pairings, source select method, etc) .....

I'm leaning towards the JBL's too, at least they are made by a company with a reputation even if they are the most expensive of the lot. The sub out on the head unit has a low pass filter that can be adjusted between 30 and 250 Hz, while the main speaker output has a high pass filter that can be set over the same range so a crossover threshold can be set.

Not according to RAVE, low line and mid line all had the speakers driven directly from the head unit no matter what the year. High line had individual door and sub amps until they started fitting the DSP unit. Maybe someone has tried to improve the sound on Sloth's parents car? With it's cost and infamous unreliability, I reckon the DSP is the one to steer clear of personally. In a car with low line, mid line and early high line, it's possible to fit a modern head unit with, at worst, the addition of the attenuators. If you've got the DSP system then you are restricted to fitting a Grom or Pure DAB unit, both of which cost as much as a decent head unit alone, and retaining the original head unit. That's fine until the DSP amp turns up it's toes then you'd need to fit one of your units using door amps or spend a stupid amount of money on a new DSP amp.

I can understand people wanting to keep the car looking original but having driven OldShep's car and been keen to see what this fabled DSP system sounded like and in my view it's a bit lacking in performance. As for the head unit, FM radio, CD or cassette. Hmm, there's nothing that is going to demonstrate the sound quality on FM, I haven't seen a cassette in years (I've probably got some somewhere but have no idea where and the sound quality from them was never much cop at the best of times) so it had to be a poke around in the boot and load a CD. A Grom adds USB and Bluetooth, while the Pure unit gives DAB as well but for £150 I've got FM radio, DAB radio, 2 x USB (one front one rear), aux in, a CD player that can play discs burned in MP3 format (so around 10 hours to a CD) and Bluetooth connectivity including handsfree calling for the phone. OK, it may not look original but doesn't look too out of place and with the right speakers, It'll sound good too. I just need to find out what speakers to go for.

and the front grille has gone grey and faded just like mine had (but not any more).....