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?

If the cheap Chinese bulbs keep blowing, one option would be to replace them with LED ones. You need to get ones that are shown as Canbus compatible with a resistor to stop false bulb blown messages.

P38 doesn't need it, the valves and seats are hard enough to not suffer. Now you've got a Supercharged Sport, the Jag engine you have definitely does need it. Somewhere under the bonnet you should have a reservoir for the fluid.