Thanks Nigel, a nice easy job as it turned out. The top starter motor bolt can be awkward to get at but having done it a few times, it can be done by feel. Otherwise taking the wheelarch liner out allows it to be seen but is a bit of a faff. The nice part was that as the engine had been fully rebuilt not that long ago, everything under there was clean and not covered in oil as you'd normally expect. Not only that, as the car had sat there from Thursday afternoon to Saturday morning, I wasn't dodging a hot exhaust downpipe to get at it either. When I took the dead one back for the refund they were surprised as they normally get given something covered in black gunge having been under a car for years.

Before taking the old one off, the definitive test was to drop a jump lead down the side of the engine. One end on the battery positive and the other end onto the cable between solenoid and starter. If it is the solenoid, the starter will spin, if it is the starter it won't. It didn't spin and just drew a small spark rather than a nice big splat so definitely dead.

You can cut one of the braces under the dash and take the upper steering column off and it will come out then. I took the dash out to do one and the heater matrix doesn't need to be removed completely, just twisted to one side.

I've been averaging 30k miles a year for the last 4 or 5 years now, so I may hit the half million by the end of the year. If not it will be early next year. Not got any long trips (i.e. anything over a couple of thousand miles) planned at the moment, although you never know. I was asked about the logistics (and changes in regulations due to Brexit) of collecting a car from Germany a few weeks ago but heard no more.

All I've got to hope is that I don't miss it. You know how it is, look at it one time and see 499,990 and the next time I look and it's already gone over and I didn't get a photo of it.

Not today but over the weekend. A few months ago I noticed oil on the inside of the nearside front wheel from a leaking axle seal, so fitted a new Corteco seal. All good, for a while anyway. While swapping the wheels around to even up the wear last week (fronts wearing faster than the rears as expected) I noticed oil on the inside of the same nearside front tyre. A blast with degreaser from the pressure washer and a run down the road showed it was coming from the same oil seal. Decided I'd get a genuine LR one this time with the LR Classic site showing it as in stock so nipped down to the local LR main dealer and got them to order it to save on postage. Having got that I got stuck in on Sunday. I knew the dust seals on one of the front calipers were split and I'd got an overhaul kit on the shelf (bought when I'd first seen it but never got around to fitting it) and a pair of front discs and pads ready to go on too.

Did the oil seal first and found the Corteco one had split. Whether I had damaged it when fitting it or if I'd just got a duff one I don't know but it certainly explained the amount of oil that was coming out.

Fitted the new seal, whacked the brake disc off while the complete hub and half shaft assembly was out, cleaned everything up and put it back together. I don't like using hose clamps or Mole grips on brake flexi hoses so undid the banjo bolt and put an M10 bolt and nut through it with the copper washers to stop the brake fluid all falling out. Used my tyre pump to push the pistons out, cleaned up the pistons, cleaned the rust out of the groove the dust seal sits in and put it all back together with lots of brake seal grease. Getting the new dust seal in is easy once you work out how. Put it onto the piston and push it all the way down so the part that fits in the groove in the caliper is hanging free beyond the end of the piston, lay it in place and all bar the last inch or so slots straight into the groove. Poke that into the groove with a blunt screwdriver tip and the piston slides back in nicely. Fit the new disc, pads and caliper, get the other half to take a break from her gardening and do the up, down, up down on the brake pedal to bleed it and the wheel goes back on. The other side was just a repeat of the above but without having to take the hub out for the oil seal, that was just the brake job.

Then turned my attention to the rear. I've had a clank from the rear offside for a while when going over bumps and the dust shield was flapping about so thought I'd tackle that too. Jacked it up on the towbar so both rear wheels were clear of the ground, off with the wheel, brake caliper, caliper carrier and disc and sure enough, the steel strip that holds it in place had rusted through. Also notice that when I was turning the disc to gently tap it off, there was a scraping noise from the other side as the wheel turned. So that one needed doing too. Had to grind the remains of the bolts that held what was left of the strips to the dust shield but managed to get the bolts holding it to the hub out with the trusty Irwin bolt remover and lots of Plus Gas. Made up new strips from some alloy strip I had laying around and pop riveted them to the dust shield top and bottom.

Out of the whole job the only thing I wasn't happy with were the banjo bolts and copper washers on the front calipers. The heads on the bolts were rusted so a 13mm socket was a very loose fit and the copper washers sealed but didn't look too clever.

So that was it, all ready for the MoT on Tuesday morning. While it was sitting on the ramp with the engine idling, one of the mechanics, a new guy that hasn't been there long and wasn't aware of my car, commented that the engine was sounding sweet. The tester told him to look at the mileage and he asked why it was showing in kilometers. He couldn't quite believe the 492,227 showing was in miles. Seeing the ends of the shiny new pop rivets on the rear dust shields the tester said he would have just taken them off and thrown them away but they were put there for a purpose so my view is to keep them. Result was a pass with no advisories.

Ordered a pair of front caliper banjo bolts and a set of washers from Island4x4 yesterday morning and they arrived a few minutes ago, so I'll change them shortly. I bought a set of Dunlop air springs a few months ago and only changed the rears, so I'll change the fronts when I get time (or when they start leaking) and I've got a petrol pump to fit as I've worn out the track on the gauge sender with constantly running with just under 1/4 of a tank for years so I get an intermittent fuel gauge fault come up on the dash and a yellow low fuel warning light until I bung a few litres in it. Just got to find the time now, hopefully before I hit the 500k mark.

It sounds like you have done everything to check it and found nothing. When you say it works in reverse does it work normally? I had a gearbox fail on me and that wouldn't work in reverse either. The only thing I can suggest is you phone Ashcroft Transmissions (https://ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/) and speak to Dave Ashcroft, he should be able to point you in the right direction.

You need to investigate if it is the steering lock or the lock barrel. If the lock barrel won't turn it won't take the steering lock off but equally if the steering lock won't release, the key won't turn. If the latter, that is why giving the steering wheel a wiggle will allow it to turn. If you can get the lock barrel out, which you should be able to with the key in it, will be able to see if all the wafers are moving as they should. Never done it on a P38 so not how possible it is, but on another car I have actually taken the steering lock bolt out so it doesn't lock. I can't see why it won't be possible but like I say, never got in there and tried it.

Aragorn wrote:

NO idea why they didnt just move the engine over an inch in the bay...

If you look, it isn't central anyway, it is offset towards the drivers side as the propshafts run down the passenger side.

There's multiple places where the wheel can be out of alignment. The steering box needs to be centralised, there's a tab on the input shaft that has to be aligned with a 'lump' on the casting. At that point the drag link needs to be adjusted to get the wheels straight ahead otherwise it will always pull to one side or the other when steering straight ahead. If those two adjustments are correct, then you've got the splined intermediate shaft at top and bottom which can go on anywhere and finally the steering wheel on it's splines. There's no telling if it had been misaligned previously but now you have chance to get it all correct.

You've got it. By default it comes up to show AC, so there is a button you press to toggle between AC and DC and a Zero button otherwise it will show current flow from the earth's magnetic field. Clamp the end around a cable and it shows the current flowing in that cable. You have to go around just one, if you try to use it around a two core cable so it has both power and return, it will show nothing as they cancel each other out. If both sides show the same, then they are both drawing the same current so both working as they should.

As you probably realise, it will only power up the relays with the engine running so measuring current draw with your DMM is probably not a good idea. A clamp meter will show you if it is drawing current but it won't show you how much of it is working. When they fail they tend to lose strips so verifying if all the screen or only part of it are working will be difficult. You could check on the two power feeds to see if one side is drawing more than the other though which will give you a clue. I've got one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/UT210E-Current-Meters-Capacitance-Tester/dp/B00O1Q2HOQ/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?th=1 that works very well at very low currents so good for checking battery drain problems and doubles as a DMM and NFC checker (for seeing if a wire has live mains on it without having to actually connect to it) too.

Jeez, that's more than I pay for a trade policy that covers any number of cars. No restrictions on hybrid or full electric cars either, although they won't cover steam powered vehicles or kit cars though.

Yup, that'll do it.....

Are the springs properly inside the calipers and not poking through the hole? Once the caliper is pressing them down, they shouldn't be capable of moving.

Original were TRW calipers but with the spring at the rear they shouldn't need anything extra (and neither of the ones you linked to will fit anyway.. I had a rattle going over bumps and also if I kicked the rear tyre. That was the dust shield bracket that had rusted through and it was the dust shield rattling not the pads.

I've got a trade policy that covers me fully comp for any vehicle I own or in my custody up to a value of £10k per vehicle and when that came up for renewal the premium had gone through the roof. I list any that I own, or will be with me for more than 14 days, on the Motor Insurers Database and the broker told me it was because I had 2 Range Rovers listed and insurers don't like Range Rovers due to the number of them that get stolen. I explained to him that it is the later ones that get stolen and mine were 25 and 27 years old so highly unlikely to be stolen as they don't have the stupid keyless entry systems and the chances or them being stolen to order to be stripped for spares or exported to Africa was pretty remote. He spoke to the underwriters and got them to agree to renew at the same price as long as I didn't have any more modern ones.

For the average user it is probably better to go for a limited mileage classic car policy as long as you don't do huge mileages. Best bet for them are the likes of Adrian Flux, Footman James or Abbeyfields. Abbeyfields have had good reports from others that have tried them and they will accept a P38 as a classic car.

Yup, go for it.....

A valve permanently closed means that the ECU has instructed a corner to raise but it hasn't seen a change in the signal from the height sensor. Doesn't help much as it could be a leak at that corner, it could be a fault within the Height sensor or it could be that a valve really is stuck closed. Why it doesn't behave once the fault is cleared I have no idea. I assume you are clearing the fault with the engine running, switching off then starting up again so it gets chance to reset?

You'll need to wade through it a bit, but in this thread https://discoweb.org/index.php?threads/reset-adaptive-values.92885/page-13 there's some software that can be used with an ELM327 OBD dongle that alleges can reset the adaptive values. Admittedly I've not tried it but as I have a Nano I've no need.

If you squeeze it until it feels dry, leave it overnight without any further wetness and squeeze it again. I suspect you'll get the same amount out again. It really does hold a lot of water.

I replaced the heater core O rings on one car that had been leaking for quite a while (owner had been topping the coolant up on a daily basis for months) and the amount of coolant that was retained in the foam under the carpet had to be seen to be believed. This was on a Vogue where that foam is a good inch thick. We used a wet and dry vacuum cleaner to get what we thought was a lot of it out but it still kept coming. The owner ended up putting old towels under it and propping the foam up to allow air to get underneath whenever he wasn't using the car until it was dry but that took weeks. So if any appreciable amount of water has been soaked into it, it will need a lot more than a hairdryer......