Not had the respray as they weren't able to fit it in at a time when I didn't need to use it. As it was going to be being driven most of the way across Europe with a GB sticker and Union Flag on the back (Dina's idea), I figured it ought to look vaguely respectable. So I reminded myself why I usually leave body and paintwork to the pro's and had a crack at it myself. With an aerosol of paint mixed to match, a bit of grey primer, a dollop or two of filler (on the rear arches) and a big roll of masking tape, I got stuck in. From 20 feet away it looks perfect, from 10 feet away it looks pretty good but up close it's not that pretty, you can see every mark and run. Painting the front grille and bumper so they are black and not a sort of faded grey made a big difference, as did painting the bottom strip of the grille in body colour and the wheels in silver instead of bubbly aluminium oxide.

The full respray will be happening in a couple of weeks.......

If you want to draw 40A, then a battery with a trickle charger permanently attached. A 230V AC to 12V DC power supply capable of supplying that kind of current would be rather large.......

You sure you need 40A?

You get a much better class of sarcasm, in fact, you get sarcasm without it being edited out by a moderator......

Because when he first popped up on the other forum, RRTH, our favourite know-it-all, told him he hadn't got a P38 because they weren't available in 1994. It is a very early UK car, first registered in December 1994. I admit, it's been updated with a few later bits, but the basic car is a very early one.

The only P38 with post cat sensors was the ones made for the US market, all the rest of world models only had pre cat sensors. It could well be that someone has tried adding additional 0-1V sensors to run a single point LPG system although Chris's car now has a multipoint so slaves off the petrol system.

I gutted the cats on mine (as they aren't needed when running on LPG) thinking it would make it sound throatier and maybe allow it to breathe better but it seemed to make no difference at all.

There's a number of different DSP amps but they are just that, different. The one fitted to a Disco looks the same as a P38 one but only drives the front door speakers, not the rears or sub, the L322 one is completely different again.

On a standard car audio system, the three (or two on the really basic low line system) speakers in each front door, are paralleled up so whatever is feeding them will feed all of them. On a basic, conventional, system you'd have 4 outputs from a head unit, going to front left, front right, rear left and rear right. Each of these outputs will feed all speakers in the four doors. So there will be a pair of wires from each door that go up to the head unit.

The original high line system had a head unit that delivers a lower level (not high enough to feed the speakers directly) output to the amps in the doors which then feed the speakers. I suspect this was because the high power levels the system runs would have made the head unit too big and run too hot if the output amps had been in the head unit itself. Modern amps are much smaller and run much cooler so modern systems can run 50+Watts without melting the dashboard.

The DSP system only has left and right channels, and a data signal from the head unit which go to the DSP amp in the boot. The data signal deals with splitting the signals between the front and rear speaker and the bass, treble, etc which is all done in the DSP amp. So instead of the cables form the speakers in each door going to the head unit, they all go to the DSP amp.

This means that, unlike the earlier systems, you can't just slap a modern head unit in the dash and expect it to work because they will have 4 (or five if you include a sub) outputs that are expecting to go directly to loudspeakers. Some modern units can have the output switched between speaker level or line level so can be used with the earlier system with external amps. If they can't, then that is when you need the attenuators to drop the speaker level down to something that the amps can handle.

Door amps are all the same. There were 4 different levels of audio system fitted to the P38, low and mid line that only had speakers in the doors fed directly from the head unit, early HK high line with amps in each door and later HK high line with just the DSP amp in the boot. The DSP amps die and cost an arm and both legs, which is why Marty looked into replacing it with four door amps (as this system was fitted to the majority of cars). The kit he's proposing to produce, (when he gets the plugs) will be as plug and play as possible. The only wiring that will need adding will be a feed for the rear speakers from the head unit to the amp in the boot. Wait until he's back in the country and if you ask him nicely he'll probably install it for you.....

Not only are they a different plug, they are different sensors. GEMS uses 5-0V Titania sensors but Thor uses 0-1V ones. There's two types fitted to GEMS, early and late (late 97 to 99), he'll need the early ones. Easiest way to tell is that the late GEMS ones have grey plugs on them, early have black plugs.

General consensus seems to be that 80ft/lbs on an alloy head and block with a composite gasket is probably a touch on the high side with 65-70 being nearer the mark. As you should have done them up a bit at a time (I did something like 35-50-65) then a quick tweak won't do any harm (as long as you haven't bolted too many other bits on so you can't easily get to them all....).

I suspect he means the propshaft sliding joints which would make sense if they were a bit sticky. My front prop had a bit of slop in the sliding joint which meant I got a bit of vibration which was worse when in normal height than at motorway height as it was extended more.

Running on 6 would cause it to be a bit gutless. Number 7 plug not connected will cause that bank to run very rich. The lambda sensors measure Oxygen in the exhaust but not fuel, so with one cylinder not firing, it will see a huge quantity of Oxygen (from the cylinder that isn't firing) so assume it is running very lean and pump extra fuel in to try to burn all of the Oxygen rather than just some of it. With all 4 on that bank firing, it should clean things up although it may need a bit of running to let the fuel trims adjust and settle.

Number 6 not firing may be simply down to a dodgy plug or lead. NGK BPR6ES are the best for the GEMS engine, and HT leads that are more than a couple of years old should be regarded with suspicion too.

I found the same, the hex hole in the end of the ARP studs is an Imperial size and I spent hours searching for my Imperial hex key set (that probably hasn't been used in at least 15 years) before finding that a random star bit would fit. 80NM is 60ft/lbs so probably a bit on the low side, I torqued mine to 65ft/lbs so 85-90NM would probably be closer to where you want to be.

Yup, magnetic tool for fishing dropped nuts and washers out from the valley is definitely a must have.

Early oil pressure switches do leak on occasions but a leak from the oil filter area could be one of the oil cooler hoses leaking, they do perish and start throwing oil around the place. Or someone has taken them off and lost the O ring. I had to get a centre silencer for mine recently and found that Euro Car Parts do a Klarius system which seems to be very good quality, far better than a Britpart (if you want things to last, avoid Britpart like the plague), and very cheap with one of their very regular discount deals.

Rich running is probably down to a lambda sensor (or both), unfortunately not cheap for ones that will last.

They are either side of the gearbox, the one on the left side of the car is almost directly above the gear change cable and XYZ switch and the one on the other side is in the same position. They might be what you have assumed are observation stoppers as I don't think there are any. If you give them a squeeze and you get dirty water running down your arm, you've found them.

Looks to me like it's ERR6445 (a stud with a 3/8 UNC thread at one end and an M8 at the other) but earlier ones used a 3/8 UNC bolt which is ERR6444.

Looks pretty good for a very early one, most have got a lot more blobby bits on that that (even my '98 has rust on the front edge of the bonnet). What are the lights next to the front fogs? I assume they don't do anything as they appear to have wires dangling.

You'll find most of the UK based people that answer questions on the other forum are on here. We've all fell foul of the over zealous moderator over there (the one that doesn't consider Fife to be a legitimate location but that WA is) at some time which is how this forum started in the first place. You'll get a much better class of sarcasm here too......

What day are you going? The off road course is on the way home for you anyway, do they allow spectators?

Chris, if you want to meet up, I'll PM you my address. You'll be coming past mine on the way to the showground anyway.

As it's Bosch I suspect it's going to be the same as a MAF connector on just about every other European car on the road. Local scrappy would probably be your best bet.

Anyone going next weekend? As it's only a couple of miles from my place, I'll probably wander down there.

It may not have started out that well, but there is a happy ending. After a trouble free run to Latvia, we got home about an hour ago. At no point did I have the need, or even felt I ought to have the need, to open the bonnet. Before setting off yesterday morning I checked the tyre pressures (no change from when we'd set off from the UK 10 days ago) and filled the washer bottle. The mosquitoes had caused me to use the washers quite a bit and with having to have the headlights on all the time it meant I'd nearly emptied it so it got filled with the 2.50 Euros for 4 litres stuff from the local filling station in Saulkrasti.

Now for those that think a P38 is unreliable, think again. On the 17 August I took it for the MoT and the mileage was showing 315,632 miles. Now, three weeks later and after the slightly rocky start, it's showing this.....

So that's 5,802 miles in 3 weeks and most of those concentrated into 5 days and not only have I hit the half million kilometre mark, I've gone way past it!

In case anyone doesn't believe it, I really did drive it to Latvia and back. This was taken yesterday morning as we left Latvia and entered Lithuania under the rather curious looks of the two policeman that were parked at the roadside just out of shot.

About 5 miles down the road it rolled over 320,000. The more observant will notice that I looked at the picture I'd taken earlier of the all black grille once I'd painted it, and decided that it would look better with the bottom strip in body colour. I also painted the front bumper (only the bumper though, not the bit below it) but with the number of dead flies stuck to it, you can't really tell in that picture.

Not a bad trip really but I think next time I'll go the same route (France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Lithuania and Latvia) but come back the northern route of driving into Estonia, getting the ferry across to Finland and then driving through Finland and Sweden before getting to Germany.