I've got one of these https://www.amazon.co.uk/UT210E-Current-Meters-Capacitance-Tester/dp/B00O1Q2HOQ?th=1 which isn't autoranging but that makes it better for measuring a very low current drain like you are looking for. You can't blow it up, or at least I haven't been able to yet, and if you've got it set on the 2A scale and more than that is being drawn, it just shows it as an error. To closer meet your spec you'd be better looking at this one https://www.amazon.co.uk/UNI-T-UT210D-Digital-Current-Capacitance/dp/B0753FY711/ref=sr_1_2? but you may find it isn't as good at very low levels. I've also got a 1000A autoranging clamp meter but that doesn't register anything at all until there's at least 10A flowing.

I know what you mean, Fluke do a beautiful graphical meter that is virtually a handheld oscilloscope but the price of one of those is eye watering!

I couldn't find a system that included a stainless centre box other than the very expensive ones, so that is an Allmakes mild steel job. That comes with M8 bolts welded to the clamps but no nuts or washers. On my previous one I'd ground the weld off to remove those and used stainless M10 bolts, nuts and washers so I didn't have to get the angle grinder out to remove the old one (as I've always had to do in the past with the M8 mild steel bolts they come with). I'd already ordered the centre box (£60) before I found the stainless system and decided to go with that too, so I've spent £350 in total. My rubbers were all good so them not being supplied wasn't a problem so all I had to find was some washers and M8 nuts. (of which I have plenty).

I must admit that's the first time I've seen quad pipes where you haven't had to hack lumps out of the bottom of the bumper.

Marshall8hp wrote:

Well done! Was this a twin to start with? These seem to have fitted up nicely.

Yes, it's always had twin pipes but after replacing the original Land Rover ones with aftermarket at least twice now, I figured the extra on stainless was going to be worth it.

Today I've changed my exhaust system. A couple of weeks ago I went to the car, started it and realised I'd left something inside so went back for it leaving the car idling. As I came back to it thought it sounded like I had an exhaust leak. A quick check showed the outlet pipe on the middle silencer box had pulled out by about half an inch. Inside the car you couldn't hear it but figured I should do something about it. This was the Saturday before going to France on the Tuesday so figured I needed to do something a bit quick. EuroCarParts used to do a Klarius centre box but shown as out of stock in all the branches near me and while I could have had it delivered, wouldn't have got the 45% discount on their current deal so it would have been £120. So I bodged it. It seems that the brackets and mounts for the silencer boxes were pulling the whole system towards the back of the car so it was under constant tension, hence pulling the outlet pipe out of the middle silencer box. A piece of steel plate and some tekscrews to hold the two parts rigid and a big dollop of GunGum to seal it. Didn't expect it to last long but at least it wouldn't get any worse.

Ordered a silencer box, expecting it to arrive while I was away, then started thinking about the rest of it. The rest of the system didn't look too bad but wouldn't last forever. Getting 50-75k miles out of an aftermarket exhaust at around £250 isn't that bad for most people but that's only 2 or 3 years for me. What I really needed was a stainless system that I could fit and forget. eBay showed a few well dodgy looking secondhand ones and new systems at £600+ were a bit pricey. Plus all of them seemed to come with the big horizontal pipes which I think look ridiculous, although not a ridiculous as the quad pipe outlets (it's a Range Rover, not a bloody Ferrari!). Then I found this https://www.gravityperformance.co.uk/product/exhaust/cat-back-exhaust-system-range-rover-p38-mk2-v8-td-94-02/. Discrete tailpipes just like the original, lifetime warranty and the price includes VAT and shipping. It also doesn't have the Tee connection where the pipe splits to the two sides that I've always thought can't do anything for gasflow. So I ordered one and have been out there fitting it today.

I suspect my aftermarket downpipes and Y piece section is about half an inch shorter that it should be as the centre box was under tension until I adjusted the brackets with a club hammer. However, that then meant that the connection at the back of the centre box was still slightly too far forward but it all went on reasonably smoothly. I may slice the inlet pipe to the centre box and put a sleeve joint in it to make up the extra half inch. that way there will be no tension in the system at all. Being in 3 pieces the shiny stainless bit was easier to fit than normal where it comes in two parts. It also means that the two pipes can be set at the same height. The very heavy duty clips that came with the system are only just small enough to clamp the pipes together securely but a smear of exhaust assembly paste before bolting them up, means the joins are gas tight. So for the final test, what does it sound like? At idle it has a bit more of a burble to it, driving it and there is no drone which I was dreading (and would have caused me to be offering it for sale to anyone that wanted it) but it does sound a bit louder when floored in Sport so I'm happy. It'll look standard once I get it a bit dirty too but at the moment there's just two shiny tailpipes showing.

Just checked the ones I bought from Island recently and they are marked 2035, so week 35, 2020. If yours are marked 2016, that is week 16 2020, not year 2016.
leolito wrote:

Maybe we will all move to normal springs after supplies run out, and live happily ever-after :-))))

Now go wash your mouth out with soap and water.....

Yes. If you open the sunshade and tilt the sunroof up, you will see a plastic cover on either side, this slides out towards the back of the car (it's on keyhole shaped holes with pins in them). This will expose the two Torx screws and a couple of small C clips, remove those and lift the glass out. To get the sunshade out, RAVE says to open the sunroof and remove the wind deflector before taking the glass out (but I don't remember doing that the last time I took one out). Once the glass is out and the wind deflector off, undo the two screws on one side that hold the runners in place, this will allow it to be moved slightly and allow the panel to come out although a bit of brute force will do it just the same.

No matter what material you use, if it is wrapped around the edges of the panel the spring things aren't needed.

You have. They look like plugs that have been taken from an engine that has been started and run for a short time a number of times so they are sooty rather than oily. I wouldn't worry about them too much, at least it shows that all cylinders have been firing...

The fan on the diesel is different as each blade is separate so highly unlikely it would fail in the same way. This is the petrol one https://www.island-4x4.co.uk/cooling-4046-err4960g-p-3432.html and I suspect before one lets go a number of the blades will have cracked at the hub.

Take the glass off (two small Torx screws each side), then bow the panel downwards in the centre so it comes out of the runners. The little springy things make getting it back in a bit of a pain, but it can be done.

Sounds like he cobbled together a Frankenmotor (which is why he's saying it has had new head gaskets) but you've got a Thor block (from the 60D number) so the crank position sensor mount and knock sensor fittings will be correct (as they are different to the GEMS). Some of the dodgier LPG conversions put the spuds in the upper manifold to make it easier so he might have been being straight about swapping the upper manifold.

He's bullshitting about Thors having imperial bolts, they don't, virtually all the threads are metric. I suppose the bottom line is as long as it has good compression and oil pressure, it doesn't really matter too much, it'll get you back on the road. It probably won't have a cough on start up if it has some decent plugs in it.

Smiler wrote:

Is the oil pump in the gearbox or the bell housing?

Gearbox, bellhousing is just a big lump of cast metal bolted to the gearbox at one end, the engine at the other and big enough for the torque converter to fit inside.

I have ordered a full ZF4HP24 gearbox but with the diesel bell housing and torque converter fitted.

So you'll have the 4HP24 pump too as well as the stronger internals.

RutlandRover wrote:

Cheers Richard.

If the threads for the exhaust manifold bolts are imperial does that mean the threads for the bolts that hold the mounting brackets for the alternator etc are imperial too?

I would think so, all engine bolts on the GEMS are imperial even though non-engine parts are metric.

I've had the spark plugs out now. They're all NGK LPG2 plugs (despite the engine not having LPG fitted, it's just a completely stock intake manifold) and the look like this:

Shame the pictures aren't showing up, they have a no entry sign showing so I suspect you haven't made them viewable to anyone. The NGK LPG plugs are the same as the NGK Iridium ones but with a higher price tag so would be fine if someone has money to burn. I pay £2 each for standard NGKs (BPR6ES), the equivalent Iridium (BPR6EiX0 are twice that (although will last about 4 times longer) whereas the special LPG plugs were will over a fiver each last time I looked and they appear identical to the standard Iridium. However, as the LPG2 has a 21mm hex, that does show you have GEMS heads. I suspect someone has fitted replacement heads at some point in the past and not specified Thor ones.

I'd be more inclined to look at the fusebox than the BeCM. BeCM does what it is told by other things so unless it is swimming in water and getting false grounds, it is unlikely to be the cause. A failing fusebox isn't uncommon and will cause all sorts of random intermittent faults.

It depends whether you are talking Disco 1 or Disco 2. The Disco 1 uses the non-electronic 4HP22 the same as used on the Classic, the Disco 2 uses the electronic 4HP22EH on the diesel and 4.0 litre petrol and the 4HP24EH in the 4.6 as used in the P38. The 24 can handle more torque than the 22 so using your original torque converter and bell housing on a gearbox with stronger internals makes perfect sense, particularly if the engine is to be modified in any way (or you spend half your life dragging 2 or 3 tonnes behind it like I do). I can't see there would be any point using a larger torque converter on a 4HP22. What are you trying to achieve?

Replying to David (RutlandRover) as I've not been here for 3 days due to driving my car again (Tuesday afternoon drive to Portsmouth with a Brian James transporter trailer on the back, Portsmouth-Caen overnight ferry, drive to La Rochelle, collect a BMW 330d that had almost died while the owner was on holiday a few weeks ago, drive back to Caen, night ferry last night, dropped BMW off at the owners local garage who have quoted considerably less than the €4,000 that the BMW main dealers in La Rochelle had quoted, and back home about 3 hours ago. Turned over 468,000 miles just before getting home too).

Anyway, flex plate isn't new, for some unknown reason, LR put a mark in yellow paint on them so the fact it still has it means it hasn't ever been changed. Spark plugs look to be some dubious make (Beru?) so probably came from the same place as the dodgily named oil filter and need to be changed. Stripped exhaust manifold threads aren't uncommon, usually the rearmost one of the RH bank or front one on the LH bank as these are the ones where it is awkward to get a socket on them square. Threads may well be 3/8 UNC if the heads have been changed and heads originally from a GEMS were fitted (see my reply to your other thread in Oily Bits). Easy test is to see if a 21mm spark plug socket will fit in the hole where the plugs go. If it will, they are GEMS heads but other than the machining identical to Thor heads.

I have repaired stripped manifold threads in the past using cut down Toyota head bolts. They are M10 thread (so a stripped 3/8 UNC thread hole will take an M10 tap perfectly) but have a slimmer bolt which is about spot on to cut an M8 thread on. That way I ended up with a stud that is M10 at one end and M8 at the other. Using a stud makes putting the manifold back on easier too.

Correction for Clive (and clarification for David), the GEMS used Imperial threads in a lot of places, particularly the heads. So 3/8 UNC is the correct thread size for both inlet and exhaust manifold bolts on a GEMS. There's quite a few other threads on the engine that went from imperial to metric on the Thor. The other difference between GEMS heads and Thor heads are the holes where the spark plugs sit. On a GEMS, they are larger which allows use of the BPR6ES plugs with the 21mm head hex but on Thor heads the holes are slightly smaller meaning a 21mm plug socket often won't fit so they use the PRF6N plugs with a 16mm hex. Other than that they are identical castings, just the machining is different. Classic heads had an additional row of bolt holes along the bottom so are referred to as 14 bolt heads (even though it has been found the additional bolts can cause uneven loading on the head gasket causing it to fail so the advice these days is to either not fit them or fit them but not torque them down).

Try setting the timing on a TVR 280i, that's a real pain too. I've just got a pair of front Dunlops from Craddocks. Mine are starting to look a bit iffy but have been there for 11 years and about 230k miles. I initially ordered them from LRDirect who accepted the order then refunded me as they were out of stock. Craddocks showed them as in stock at around the same price so I ordered from them. After a week of hearing nothing I rang them to be told that they were expecting a delivery and could either send them as soon as they arrived or give me a refund. I decided to wait and they turned up a couple of weeks ago. Genuine Dunlop, with a date code of week 48, 2021. At the same time I ordered rears from Island and they arrived in the usual couple of days. The ones on it had been fitted as soon as I got the car so they were a couple of years and 40k older and had definitely seen better days so were fitted immediately. The fronts can wait until I've nothing better to do (or it starts dropping overnight).

Clive603 wrote:

Richard would be on a regular change regime.

True. I changed mine as a precautionary measure when the engine was rebuilt. So the original one (at least I'm assuming it was the original) was still good after 285k and the replacement has been in there for a further 181k. The original has been in the boot ever since just in case.....