None of the additives and other crap they put in petrol to 'improve' it. It's Propane with possibly a very tiny percentage of lubricant to stop the pumps seizing up.

That depends on where in the country you are. I've got 5 LPG filling stations within 5 miles and under normal circumstances can always find somewhere to fill up when outside my area. Admittedly there are problems at the moment with many stations normally supplied by Flogas not getting supplies and those that do selling out far quicker than usual so not scheduling refills often enough. Mind you, once out of the UK where I do most of my really long journeys, I've never had a problem. Poland and further east even have LPG only filling stations......

dave3d wrote:

Inside of the engine looks very clean.

Another advantage with running on LPG, the oil stays clean. I've had to do about 400 miles on petrol just recently and the oil on the dipstick is definitely dirtier now than I have ever seen it in the past and I'm 3,000 short of my next oil change.

Anything is more responsive than a 2.5td P38......

Have a read of this https://rangerovers.pub/topic/2247-2007-supercharged-l322-project-thread

The P38 is easy to work on, parts are dirt cheap and just because one part of it packs up, without Canbus where everything is linked, it doesn't affect everything else. At the end of the day, the L322 is just an X5 prototype. Yes they do rot, I've seen few with rusty rear arches but one overtook me the other day (I was towing an Audi A2 on an A frame at the time or he probably wouldn't have caught me) where the whole rear wing was rotten.

Pierre3 wrote:

But still good buys depending on what you look for.

I wouldn't call 20 grand for a P38 a good buy.....

As most of you know I've spent a lot of time playing with imports and while most were from USA, EU and, in a few cases, Russia, I've currently got a Japanese import Audi RS5 sitting outside the house. Every other Audi for every other market allows you to switch the digital speedo between miles and kilometres and to be able to switch the HID headlights to dip left or right. Not the Japanese ones and I've spent half the day at an Audi indie and it appears we are going to have to reflash the whole system so I can get a speedo in miles to get it through the IVA test.

No, the clips that hold the tops of the springs are a spring steel U shaped clip that slides onto a pin on the top of the air spring. The ANR2224 clips are the ones that hold the wheelarch liner in. I bought a bag of 100 from an eBay seller in China if you need any.

and what's the thing between the radiator and air filter box? It's low on coolant too......

Wood chisel isn't needed on the fronts, they just fall out once you've go the clips off. I do them with the wheelarch liner in place but it's easier with it out if you've got big hands. Hardest part is lining up the bottom pin to slot it into the hole in the bottom of the spring.

Pierre3 wrote:

When I start Nanny I get a couple of headings such as Motronic, Bosch and EDC, after selecting the car - P38. After choosing EDC there are four heading - EDC [again, I think it said], Wabco C, Wabco D, and the gearbox [ I think I have the Wabco letters correct].

I have been through all the headings but nowhere is there anywhere to change these settings. In fact, I can't see where I can do things that people have mentioned - such as turning on the aircon, or unlocking the tailgate - stuff like that.

Jacckk has hit the nail on the head. You are only seeing the first page of systems, Engine, the two options for ABS and Gearbox. By using the green arrow you will scroll across ad see the other stuff, HEVAC, EAS and the all important in this case, BECM. To connect to all other systems the ignition needs to be switched on with the key in position 2 (or the engine running) but to connect to the BeCM, the ignition needs to be OFF.

Or a core plug behind the flywheel.....

Clean it all off and pressurise the cooling system which should show where it is coming from.

I used white spray grease on all the sliding bits and quadrant on mine. If it's sticking in the rubber, talcum powder.

BBUS = Battery Backed Up Sounder.

Windows should close on a press and hold of the lock button, not a double press, that sets superlocking. If they don't work from the switchpack but do from a press and hold, then it's the switchpack. They do usually fail one contact at a time so only going up or only going down is the first sign that the switches are starting to fail. It hasn't had water in it by any chance has it?

You'll know. In normal mode with foot planted to the floor, the gearbox will change up at around 4,000 rpm, with Sport pressed, it will scream up to 5,500 rpm before shifting up.

Alarm Fault is normally an iffy connection on the ultrasonic sensor above the passenger side B post. Pull it out, unplug it, squirt of contact cleaner and plug it back in, job done.

If you haven't used the Nanocom to turn off passive immobilisation, then what will happen if you unlock the car, open a door but don't start it within a set time (either 30 or 60 seconds), the immobiliser kicks in again in case you accidentally left it unlocked. In theory, as soon as you put the key in the ignition it should transmit and unlock signal automatically but won't if you had left the key in the ignition. Going into the BeCM setting with Nanocom you will find one simply named Immobiliser and it will be set to Enabled. Change it to Disabled and save the settings and it won't do it again. This is the setting that some people think turns the immobiliser off completely but it doesn't, only passive immobilisation. The other setting I always change is intermittent wipe which by default is disabled. Enable that and if you have the wipers on continuous and you stop at a set of lights, they drop down to intermittent while you are stationary and start up again as soon as you exceed 2mph.

If you unlock the car but don't open any doors, it assumed you pressed the button on the remote by accident so relocks after a set period too.

Even more impressive if you poke the Sport button before flooring it. Makes you wonder how something weighing that much and with the aerodynamics of a warehouse can be made to accelerate that quickly......

I would think the main reason is the Pandemic. P&O said they've been running at a loss for the last 2 years but while Brexit may have reduced slightly the freight traffic, the main thing has been travel restrictions meaning virtually no tourist traffic. Pre-pandemic there would be at least 6 or 7 lines of cars waiting to load in Dover and usually at least 4 coachloads of people too, This weekend there were 3, but in December there were about 6 or 7 cars and that was it. Travelling back in early December I think I was the only UK registered car sitting the the queue, the others were Romanian registered minibuses carrying, presumably, turkey pluckers coming over to work. Early January wasn't much better with probably no more than 15 cars.

It is the tourist traffic that spend money in the restaurants and the duty free shops too so it wouldn't only be the lack of traffic but the lack of other income. Not only that but I used to pay around £120 return with a 6m trailer whereas now it is over that just for the car and the price doubles as soon as you take up twice the space whereas the freight rates are based on overall length. Freight rates are fixed but tourist rates vary with time of day, day of the week, time of year, school holidays, etc so that is what will have really hurt them.

The other ferry companies would have been affected just as badly but they appear to have accepted it and hoped that it would pick up which it now is rather than stopping just as things would have got better. I see that P&O are now saying they will pay redundancy payments depending on length of service and the longer standing crew members will get up to £170k. It's just the way they went about it and although they are calling it redundancy it isn't. If a job role is removed that makes the person that has been doing the work redundant. So when they closed the restaurants the staff working there would no longer have a role so that is redundancy, the rest of the crews have been sacked pure and simple. Talking to one of the Port of Dover staff on Sunday morning he said that the last P&O ferry to return to Dover left the passengers sitting on the dock in Calais and came over empty so they didn't give a toss about their customers either.

Nitrile rubber is OK with Ethanol up to 95% and as fuel lines on modern, by which I mean anything later than about 1980, use Nitrile rubber hose rather than pure rubber, they should be fine.

Pierre3 wrote:

Only the gobshites in Downing Street could think that is a good idea to let the Chinese have 50% ownership of new nuclear power stations that were going to be built with EDF. What complete prat thought that one up.

and when you consider that EDF stands for Electricitie Distribution Francais and it is the French nationalised power company, that means our nuclear power stations will be 50% owned by the Chinese and 50% owned by the French......

Going back a few years I was chatting with an engineer at Orange, the mobile phone network. The French network SFR, run by the French nationalised telecoms, had changed it's trading identity to Orange but, as a nationalised industry its profits were capped in France. So simple answer, buy out a UK company and use that to generate uncapped profits. Same goes for Veolia the waste management company, also French.

So, I gave E85 a try in my GEMS to see if it would run on it as well as Nigel's Thor does. Managed to find LPG round here on Saturday so filed the LPG tank. That would give me 200+ miles range on that. Had a little normal E10 fuel in the tank (range was being shown as just over the 50 mile threshold when it stops telling you how much you have) so bunged 40 litres of E10 in it so the gauge was showing half full. Ran on LPG down to Dover, off the ferry at Calais and straight into the Total station just outside the docks. Refilled the LPG tank at 0.99 Euros (so roughly 82p, more expensive than some stations here but cheaper than the MFG operated station in Dover at 90ppl) and also put 40 litres of E85 in at 0.89 Euro per litre (compared with 2.10 Euro, or around £1.75 for E10) taking it up to just over 3/4 of a tank, which probably caused my fuel gauge to suffer a nosebleed as it has never been that high in the 12 years I've owned the car. Reset the trip computer, plugged in the Nanocom, reset the adaptive values, set it to monitor the lambda sensors and set off.

Initially I would be running on the E10 that was in the pipes, filter and fuel rail so nothing changed. Then as, presumably, the E85 got there, it didn't feel quite as smooth, almost as if there was a slight misfire. Once on the motorway it ran as expected and was smooth cruising at 70 mph, lambdas both switching even though the short term trims were always going positive showing it needed more fuel than on E10 which is only to be expected. Under normal acceleration it was fine but under light acceleration it still felt like it was misfiring and holding back slightly. I had 170 miles to do before heading back and during this time it seemed fine with the trip showing 16mpg. Can't really compare this as I've run on petrol so rarely I don't know what it reads on petrol but it would seem to compare with Nigel's findings of a drop to 14mpg when on 100% E85. Other than the feeling of a slight misfire under light acceleration, it ran normally, no loss of power, temperature staying normal (if not a couple of degrees lower than normal), idle smooth and starting normal.

Arrived where I needed to be and the fuel gauge was showing just under half a tank. Set off to head back to Calais for the return journey and it was just the same, smooth when cruising but with the feeling of a slight misfire under light acceleration. About halfway through the return journey, I noticed an odd smell but couldn't work out what it was or if it was from me, another vehicle travelling in front of me (like when you can smell the exhaust from a diesel being run on paraffin or used chip oil) or from an industrial plant I had just driven past. Couldn't really put my finger on what the smell was either. Figured it must be from another vehicle as I hadn't noticed it on that same stretch of road on the way down particularly when it seemed to disappear only to reappear later. By this time I had reached the A26 so there was nothing else around me, no traffic, no industry, just a clear road and open fields so the smell must be coming from the car. Initially thought it could be the cats overheating but discounted that as it was still running at normal temperature but decided to err on the safe side and switched over to LPG and ran on that for the rest of the way back to Calais. By this time the fuel gauge was showing down to 1/4 tank so roughly 25 litres left meaning I wouldn't quite have managed the whole 340 mile round trip on the one tankful but still a decent range between refuels with another 210-220 on a tank of LPG. Topped up the LPG tank again at Calais sand ran on that for the rest of the return journey.

Thinking about it later, although the engine coolant temperature was normal, the conversions that can be fitted to allow running on E85, advances the ignition timing so it would have been retarded for the fuel. Retarded ignition would result (I think) in higher exhaust temperatures so it could well have been the cats complaining that they were getting too hot. Nigel's car still has the original huge LR cats on it whereas I have much smaller aftermarket ones which again might be relevant. Why it ran fine for the first 250 miles or so before it started to generate a smell I can't explain. Or, it wasn't the car at all but was from something outside and I switched over to LPG at the point I would have lost it anyway, who knows?

I've since noticed (after putting another 40 litres of petrol in it) that it doesn't run quite as smoothly on petrol as on LPG anyway. I'd never really taken that much notice as I run on petrol so rarely and for such short distances I don't have a benchmark to compare. It doesn't have the feeling of a misfire, and accelerates normally but doesn't idle as smoothly. It's unlikely to be ignition related as LPG needs a better spark than petrol and it runs fine on that (plugs are only 6k miles old too) although due to lack of use, it's quite possible the petrol injectors are gummed up and need a clean which would explain the slight roughness under acceleration.

So the conclusion is that for Nigel, who's P38 is now on French plates so an LPG conversion isn't viable as to pass the CT, the French MoT, the LPG system needs to be installed using a Government approved installer using a Government approved system for the car (if there even is one for the P38). For his use it might be worth fitting the £800 E85 conversion so the economy on E85 will be back up to, or better than, E10 levels which really will make it cheap to run. For me, is it worth completely overhauling the petrol system when it gets hardly any use and LPG is widely available in Europe (even though it has been withdrawn from some of the French motorway services, there's still plenty of places to fill up) at the same price or, with the exception of France, cheaper than here? If I get really bored or have another reason to take the injectors out, it might be worth getting them cleaned but I can't honestly see it is worth it. I could live with the misfire if I was really stuck but the odd smell was what concerned me more. Was it coming from the car and my cats were about to set fire to the underside of the car or was it outside and would have stopped at the point I switched to LPG anyway? But, an interesting experiment nonetheless.