That's a new one. I've known it when the contacts get dirty and you can't adjust the illumination level but never for them to all go out.

An update and to answer some of Dave's questions. It's in and it works, sort of..... Noticed the difference between the 4HP22 and 4HP24, the actual gearbox section of the 24 is 15mm longer but the tail housing is 15mm shorter so the overall length is the same. However, that means that while the overall length of the box is the same, the tail shaft sticks out 20mm beyond the face that the transfer case bolts to rather than the 5mm on the 22. After a bit of head scratching and measuring, realising that as the transfer boxes are identical and interchangeable, the only difference would be how far into the splines in the transfer box input shaft that the output shaft of the gearbox slides into. Measured the splines and found that they are easily deep enough to take the extra length. So as well as the other differences, the length of the splined connection between the two is greater on the 24 which, presumably gives it more strength there too.

So, after a bit of a struggle, the transfer case went back in and was bolted up to the gearbox. The main problem we had with that was supporting everything. With a large, 20 ton (overkill I know but it was given to me by a truck driver years ago and it's nice and big), bottle jack under the end of the gearbox where the mounting plate would go and the transfer case on the bracket sitting on the trolley jack, the bottle jack wouldn't allow the trolley jack to get close enough. Not wanting to support the weight of the gearbox on its sump and risk denting it, Bolted a length of steel angle to a spurious tapped hole in the side of the gearbox casting to take the weight. The other problem was getting the transfer box on the trolley jack under the car. I'd put my EAS High calibration blocks in the bumpstops so the suspension wouldn't drop and jacked the front wheels up until I could get ramps under the front wheels. The front wheels were then strapped to the ramps with the same ratchet straps used to secure cars to a trailer so it couldn't roll off.

But, it still wasn't quite high enough to get the jack with the case on it under the car. So it was Nanocom to the rescue. Plug it in, go to EAS, turn the compressor on and run that for a couple of minutes, then open the front and inlet valves so the front rose up, do the same at the back and we had at least another 3 inches of clearance. Anyway, transfer case in, and realised it would be easier to bolt up the front propshaft before the crossmember went in as access is easier. I know a lot of people have a problem getting a socket onto the propshaft bolts but I decided to replace the original hex head bolts with Allen headed bolts and had bought ones of the correct size and thread (3/8 UNF) along with new Nyloc nuts. That way all four can be done up without having to rotate the propshaft. Then it was time to refit the exhaust and crossmember. The exhaust was simple enough to put into place but the crossmember put up a fight. I'd had to use a crowbar to get it out and it needed a club hammer to get it back in, gearbox mounts (new ones) fitted and bolted up and we could finally remove all jacks from under the car, Exhaust bolted up properly, rear prop in, with more new nuts, prop guard on, connect the oil cooler and dipstick pipes, connect the wiring plugs, fit and calibrate the XYZ switch, poke the handbrake cable back up through it's hole in the floor and it was time for some fluid. At this point Dina came outside and asked how we were getting on, so I gave her a stepladder, a small funnel and two 5 litre cans of nice new Castrol ATF (at around half the price from Opie Oils than Eurocarparts own brand stuff). At one point she poured it in faster than the funnel could cope with so with ATF down the side of the engine and one exhaust manifold I knew it was going to smoke and smell a bit once it was started.....

Finally the time came to start the engine and see what happened. The inevitable cloud of smoke from the ATF all over the exhaust manifold and lots of greasy handprints on the exhaust but other than that, all seemed fine. The 4HP24 holds 11 litres from empty but there must have been a litre in there as with 10 litres, once running and checked, the level was smack in the middle of the min and max marks on the dipstick. Although the dash was showing Gearbox Fault and not displaying the selected gear in the message centre. Not the XYZ switch as the LED next to the gearlever was displaying correctly. Checked the fault code and it was giving an Engine Torque Fault, cleared the code, ignition off then back on again and the selected gear display was back and no Gearbox Fault. Started the engine and after it had run for around 20 seconds, the fault comes back. OK, but does it work or is it in limp mode? The answer is, it works, all gears engage, torque converter lockup happens and kickdown works but the changes, particularly down changes are harsh.

Checked in RAVE and it lists a fault of Engine Torque signal out of range with the affect being harsh gearchanges but no limp home mode. So that is what I have. A torque signal is sent from the engine ECU to the gearbox ECU. Thinking that maybe we had damaged the wiring (even though it is all in a protective flexible conduit) when putting the gearbox or transfer case back in, measured for continuity between the two ECUs. No problem. Then checked for a 12V PWM signal from the engine ECU and my cheapo Chinese graphical meter showed a waveform although it appeared to be showing a much lower level. Being fortunate in having another car, the Ascot, sitting there, checked that and found a completely different waveform and at a higher level too. Checked the two gearbox ECUs and found they are different (mine is AMR5493 marked 4.0 while the Ascot has an AMR5496 marked 4.6), so pulled the ECU out of the Ascot, tried that and this is where things start to get really weird.

With my original one, if I clear the fault then read the data, I get an engine power reading of around 45 at idle rising as the engine is revved, a battery voltage of 10.6V (?) and the gearbox mode as Economy (the ECU supports Normal, Economy and Sport modes although the P38 only uses Economy and Sport). After the engine has run for around 20 seconds, the power reading goes to 236, the gearbox mode goes to Normal, the dash beeps, Gearbox Fault comes up and the gear indicator goes out. In this state I get the harsh gearchanges. On the Ascot, with a 4.6 engine and 4HP24 gearbox, I get power of 52, again rising with revs, 13.8V battery voltage and gearbox mode of Economy. With the Ascot ECU on my car, I get power of 45, 13.8V and Economy mode for the first 20 seconds then the power reading changes to 236 but the gearbox mode stays at Economy, no Gearbox Fault and gear display stays on the dash. Driving it like that, it drives perfectly with super smooth gearchanges both up and down the box, kickdown works and so does Sport mode. Brilliant I think, cracked it but as soon as I exit the displayed data on the Nanocom, the dash beeps, Gearbox Fault comes up and the gear indicator goes out.

So, the situation at the moment is that with the Ascot ECU in and the Nanocom connected and displaying the gearbox inputs, it works perfectly (even if the engine power figure seems odd). The Ascot is an earlier car (96 model, VIN TA337218 showing a build in mid 96) and having checked the data on the gearbox in it, it is a model 030 061. The gearbox I have fitted is an 030 064 so would be from a 98 car which should have an AMR5692 ECU. It might be that all I need do is fit the matching ECU but I'll give Dave at East Coast Range Rovers a call in the morning and see what he can suggest as he has swapped gearboxes in the past and they have been a simple plug and play job.

Anyway, to answer one of Dave3d's questions, once the propshaft, crossmember and exhaust are off, flex in the engine mounts will allow it to drop down but as the gearbox mounts are attached to the crossmember, it'll try to sit on the floor. That's why RAVE tells you at the beginning of the gearbox removal process to remove the upper fan cowling, so you don't break the fan as the front of the engine rises. On the diesel I don't think you need to remove the crossmember to get the exhaust front exhaust pipe off, so leave it in place (in fact, I'm not even sure if you would need to remove the exhaust downpipe as it is on one side and not both as on the V8 although it might make access easier). With the propshaft off, remove the U shaped shield that is there to stop the propshaft flailing around if a UJ breaks (not that one ever should if greased regularly). There's 6 bolts holding the transfer box to the gearbox and the top two are a bit of a pain to get to, multiple socket extensions and universal joints needed. The first time I took mine off, I had to resort to using an Irwin bolt extractor (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Irwin-Bolt-Grip-Remover-Expansion/dp/B000QW6K8I) to get a good bite on them. They are flanged head bolts so the actual hex isn't that deep. My transfer case bracket is a couple of lengths of angle iron that fits onto the lugs where the bolts go and was made up with the case in the car so the bottom of it is horizontal and a suitable size socket to fit into my trolley jack bolted and welded to the bottom of it. That fits onto the bottom of the case with a ratchet strap around it to hold it in place. If I was to make another, I'd make it so a couple of the bolts on the case can be taken out and used to bolt the bracket to it rigidly. That way the transfer case can be unbolted, the bloody annoying and a real pain to get to, breather pipe can be disconnected and it can be slid backwards. Once clear it can be lowered on the jack and pulled out from under the car. Refitting it is the reverse but a couple of long M10 bolts to fit into a couple of the bolt holes to use as guides for it to go back in are useful.

I've had the transfer case off before when I put a new chain in it and even that on its own was awkward, a combination of the weight and the fact it hangs down at a strange angle. Two of us did it then with the car on a ramp but we didn't remove the exhaust so had to manoeuvre it over the exhaust cross pipe which made it more difficult. Today we are going to put it back before the exhaust and main crossmember goes back on. I'll report back later......

Gearbox off, jeez, is it heavy or what and despite it being strapped to a transmission jack adapter on a trolley jack, it still used gravity for the last 6 inches of downward motion! Decided that with the transfer case attached we, that is me and a recently retired Land Rover workshop manager, could barely move it so removed that to make it slightly more manageable. New rear main oil seal fitted, spacer behind the flex plate changed for the thinner one needed to take account of the larger torque converter on the 4HP24, and fitted an Ashcroft Transmissions heavy duty flex plate. Figured that it will be easier (as opposed to virtually impossible) to fit the replacement gearbox and refit the transfer case once it is in place. I've got a bracket I made up years ago that bolts to the transfer case and fits into the trolley jack so it is at least held at the correct angle, so, in theory at least, that should be relatively straightforward. With two of us under the car, two trolley jacks, one with the adapter on it, a bottle jack and a ratchet strap to hold it steady on the main jack, lifted it back into place. Took a bit of wiggling to get it to slot into place but it went in and the bellhousing bolts were whacked in with the rattle gun Instead of two clicks a time on the ratchet. At which point, our respective better half's told us to call it a day if we wanted any dinner.

So, tomorrow is refit the transfer case and connect everything else up. The odd thing is that with the old gearbox out, it seems to turn smoothly with no noise although thinking about it, it is in neutral so maybe it only clatters when it tries to drive. The fluid is spotless, not at all cloudy, burnt looking or with any metallic shaving in it either.

Pump running on every pedal press could point to a failing accumulator but equally can be caused by air in the system. It stores a specific amount of fluid under pressure and with a failing accumulator, that quantity is lower so is used up sooner so needs to be replenished. However, if there is air in the system, more fluid is needed when you press the brake pedal as some of it is used in compressing the air before the remainder is used to operate the brakes.

Ordinarily, when you press the brake pedal all you are doing is opening a valve to allow some of the high pressure fluid through to operate the brakes. As a safety feature, there is also a conventional hydraulic circuit which is what you are using when you have no stored pressure. That will only allow the pedal to go to the floor if it has air in it, otherwise it will feel like a conventional brake pedal where the servo isn't working. All I know is from experience when my pump failed. That meant there was no pressure stored at all so I was relying on the conventional circuit, the pedal was rock hard and I needed both feet on it to get the car to stop.

Other vehicles don't have a powered system though so air in the hydraulics has a different affect. Until pressure has built up you should have a very hard pedal that gives very little braking effort.

Soft pedal is usually air in the system, a lack of fluid pressure gives a rock hard pedal with very little stopping power. Once up to pressure, air in the system will cause a very slight delay between you hitting the pedal and the brakes coming on (as you are having to compress the air before anything moves). It is so slight that you tend to not notice it until the bleed the brakes and it goes away. Bleeding the brakes, following the steps in RAVE to the letter, would be the first call and even cheaper than a new accumulator.

Sorry, typo in my previous (now corrected), Y shows 2000 but then they ran out of alphabet so went to numbers from then on so the 1 means 2001, A means built at Solihull and 458723 is the serial number of the car.

I suspect yours is sounding just like this one that did exactly the same thing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKEqPY5rX7A

The head gasket was blowing out the side to the outside world, drove perfectly OK although from underneath you could actually see sparks of tiny bits of burning gasket material being blasted out the gap when it was revved.

The letters at the beginning of the quoted VIN numbers are the model year, T being 96 (as although production started in 95, they were all 96 models), U was jumped, V being 97, W is 98, X is 99, Y is 2000 and then they started at the beginning (as Z would be too easily misread as a 2) so 1 is 2001.

GEMS models were up to WA410481 with Thor starting at XA410482 (so the year designator changed but the serial number carried on). While the actual numbers show the particular serial number for the car but that doesn't mean yours is the 458,723rd P38 as these numbers continued on from the Classic which used the same format

The rest of the VIN gives detail on the build, so yours shows it was built in the UK by Land Rover at Solihull, it's a P38 with a 4.6 litre V8 engine, a ZF 4 speed auto gearbox and is RHD.

I get the argument but it's just the monthly costs that seem ridiculous to me, particularly for a lease deal where you spend the best part of £5k a year and don't even own it at the end. OK, so with an EV you aren't paying road tax (I think) but you still need to pay the electricity bill and insurance on top of the payments.

As a comparison, my fixed costs are £25 a month road tax and £74 insurance (admittedly for a trade policy that covers me for an unlimited number of vehicles so probably more than most pay), so call it £100 a month or £1200 a year. That means I would need to spend £3,800 on repairs before it's costing me more than leasing a new car. If I didn't do any of the work myself, I still think I would be quids in paying someone else to do it. I suppose the main difference to the way I think in that I have never bought a car on finance, I reserve that option for property. I've got 2 buy to let houses and the mortgage on each of them is around the same as leasing or doing a finance deal on a new car and instead of having nothing at the end of it, there's the best part of £200k, and rising, equity in them when I choose to sell them.

I get sent a Parkers email newsletter every so often and I don't know how, or indeed why, people pay the sort of money these deals cost. £400 a month and up unless you are happy to drive something marginally larger than, and about as useful as, a shopping trolley. £400 is about what I'm spending at the moment replacing my gearbox but that is, hopefully, a once in a lifetime expense. If I was to run on petrol and it was £2 a litre, £400 would buy me 200 litres, or 44 gallons. Even at 20mpg, that's still enough for 880 miles. Not that it would matter as most of these deals seem to be capped at 8,000 miles a year. I honestly don't understand it, if I was spending that kind of money every month I'd expect to be able to drive as often and as far as I wanted.

Providing you get the right gearbox, one from a similar age GEMS, it is a straight swap. The ECU is the same, it detects engine load, and hence when changes should happen, from the MAF sensor so it doesn't need a different ECU. The only other difference is the spacer behind the flex plate is thinner on the 4.6 to move the flex plate closer to the flywheel to give room for the larger torque converter so that has to be swapped over. It's convenient that I'm being supplied with the 4.6 one with the gearbox.

StrangeRover wrote:

LPGC I removed it because the tank was corroded through in the bottom.

You should have asked, I've got a rust free 90 litre toroidal tank here you could have. No idea of the date on it but I removed it, and the whole system, before selling a car for spares.

StrangeRover wrote:

HSE's were the upper most spec in V8 world before the Vogue most if not all had electric seats cruise control and the HK sound system,

I seem to recall yours has the painted lower valance on the bumper?

That's right, it has electric memory heated seats, cruise control, HK sound, sunroof, headlamp washwipe, front fogs as well as the body colour lower valance. However, it also has the 2000 spec clear front indicators and later rear light clusters so they have been changed at some point in its life so the valance could have been painted then too.

I suspect all that will show is that it is basically HSE spec. Quite what the options were for a 1996 HSE I have no idea but it seems to have most, if not all of them.

This is what DVSA say if you do an MoT check....

I was under the impression that it was all new builds from sometime this year had to have an EV charge point, no idea if it has been pushed back or not. I like new builds with good insulation, I'm installing AC systems in peoples new build houses as it gets too hot in the bedrooms as soon as the sun comes out.....

It's certainly getting that way in some areas of the country I'll admit. I'm lucky with a Flogas depot and 4 filling stations within 8 miles of me. You could always get a pump and fill up from 47kg bottles.it used to work out more expensive than a filing station but doesn't these days.

No problem at all on the Continent where more stations are appearing all the time. I even suggested moving to Belgium, cheap and plentiful LPG stations, good quality chocolate and decent beer, what more can a bloke ask for?

So far so good. Whacked the Ascot in for MoT and came away without even any advisories so at least I have practical transport for the time being (as I discovered yesterday, a Mercedes SLK280 isn't the ideal vehicle to load all the kit I need to install an AC system into). Got started on pulling bits off mine before rain stopped play. Flex plate isn't broken and still looks perfect from what I can see looking through the inspection hole. Both propshafts are disconnected as is the handbrake cable and the electrical connections. So next step is downpipes and crossmember before I can start on the gearbox itself. New flexplate (Ashcrofts heavy duty one) will be here on Monday, gearbox should be here Wednesday but LRDirect haven't given me an arrival day for the rear main oil seal yet. Bit of a bugger really as I could do with that before everything else. Realised why RAVE doesn't tell you to remove the crossmember on a petrol too. It tells you to remove the exhaust downpipes and refers you to the relevant section, then it says on diesel vehicles only, remove the crossmember. On a petrol it tells you to remove the crossmember in the downpipe removal section but you don't need to if you have a diesel.

One interesting thing that came out of the Ascot MoT though. The V5 shows it to be a Range Rover HSE Auto and there has been a bit of a discussion in the past as a limited edition P38 called the Ascot doesn't seem to exist. The assumption has always been that it is an HSE and someone has put an Ascot badge on it. The badge is very similar, but not exactly the same, to that fitted on a Rover 100 Ascot. However, according to the DVSA record when the VIN is put into their database, it comes back as a Land Rover, Range Rover Ascot SE 4.6L 5 door Auto Estate. So maybe I do have an extremely rare limited edition?

85 quid!!?? What size tank have you got?