In answer to those that think a P38 is unreliable, we got back home about 5:30 this morning after a completely uneventful run.

Opened the bonnet twice in that time, once when I arrived in Latvia and again when I got home. No coolant loss, minimal drop in oil level and nothing else needed any attention. The trip meter is actually 153 miles short as I forgot to reset it until I was getting off the ferry in Calais on my way out. The new set of Vredestein Quatrac 5 tyres fitted before leaving seem pretty damn good. Didn't get the chance to try them in anger on snow but in the wet (of which there was plenty....), they gave a lot more feel to the steering than the Goodyears that were on it before.

Economy was pretty amazing too. I know the LPG sold in the UK is 100% Propane and in Europe it is usually a blend of Propane and Butane which, in theory (due to the stoichiometric ratio for Butane being lower) should mean you use less but I wouldn't have thought it would have made this much difference. Pumps are going to vary so a fill isn't always going to stop at exactly the same amount but by dividing mileage with fill quantity would give me a miles per litre figure. If this was then multiplied by 4.54 would give an mpg figure or by multiplying by 67 litres would give range on a full tank. Every fill was good, and there were quite a lot of them, but would you believe 228.2 miles on 59.29 litres? That's 3.85 miles per litre, or 17.5 mpg, and a theoretical range of 257 miles. That was cruising at anything between 65 and 80 mph (depending on traffic) through Germany, Holland and into Belgium. The gas pump I filled from in Germany had a label on it showing that in summer it gave 40/60 Propane/Butane and in winter 60/40 Propane/Butane but how much of an effect that would have I've no idea. No matter, it still worked out cheaper on fuel than it would have cost the two of us to fly there and back.

Just got to clean it now, it's absolutely filthy!

Not a premature congratulation, I'm over an hour late as we are 2 hours ahead of UK time here. Here's wishing you all a good one

Not a premature congratulation, I'm over an hour late as we are 2 hours ahead of UK time here. Here's wishing you all a good one

Having spent the last few weeks on the Ascot, doing everything I would do to it if I was to keep it myself, I finished the final job yesterday. That was removing, soldering and heat shrinking the connections in the footwells that used to go through the pretty green and hairy multiway connectors. At that point, other than waiting for the original stereo to come back from being refurbed at Clarion, as far as I was concerned I'd finished the mechanical and electrical work (just need to persuade BPSM to take a trip down to deal with the cosmetics now) and it was spot on. Everything, and I mean everything, now works exactly as it should.

But ideally, it needed a bit of a test. Daughter's Toyota MR2 has recently developed an evil wailing from the RH rear wheel bearing but a press is needed to remove the old one and press the new one in. Not too much of a problem as a mate has a workshop with a suitable press but he's only there during working hours. So I would need to remove the rear hub and get it down to him at a time when he would be there. As the Ascot was now sorted, I swapped cars with her last night confident that it would get her to work and back for the next couple of days and give me the time to pull her car to bits and get it back together again. At 8:50 this morning my phone rang. I've broke it, she said. She'd managed all of 50m from her driveway to the end of the road, the engine had died and now the message centre was telling her she had a gearbox fault, a traction failure, an ABS fault and the engine wouldn't restart. Got there and found that everything looked normal when the ignition was switched on, it was only when the key was turned to start the engine that the starter did nothing and the dash went blank. The negative battery terminal was loose. I can't remember when I last had the battery off but I obviously didn't do it up tight enough when I put it on. Tightened it up, jump started it from mine, checked that it was charging and she went off to work (and so far, hasn't broken it again).

What I don't understand is why then? Over the last few weeks I've used it a few times to run around in just to see if everything was working as it should. I've done a couple of hundred miles in it and never a problem. I've started it and had it idling for ages while doing other jobs and not once has it shown any signs of a problem. So why is it that the first time a woman used it, the damn thing dies?

As some of you already know I recently fitted one of the very nicely made, twin core, alloy radiators (one of these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DIRENZA-TWIN-CORE-ALUMINIUM-RADIATOR-RAD-FOR-LAND-RANGE-ROVER-P38-V8-4-0-4-6-94/350591602189) and have been extremely pleased with it. But I decided to be a bit more scientific (anal?) than simply watching the gauge on the dash and the last few days gave me the chance to try it. Having one car that needed to be trailered to the south of France and another to come back, I sat the Nanocom on the passenger seat and monitored the coolant temperature. Now obviously we don't want an engine to overheat but it does need to be within the correct range. Running at a constant speed with ambient at around 22 degrees, it sat at 87 degrees, on that way back last night when ambient got down to 3 degrees, it had dropped to 86. Slogging up some of the hills, it crept up and the highest I saw was 91. Interestingly, giving it a big boot full of throttle so it kicked down and the revs were up at around 3,000 rpm, caused the temperature to actually drop rather than go up as I had expected so it proves the water pump and viscous fan are doing their job. On a long downhill with a closed throttle at about 70 mph and I saw it drop (as low as 79 on one occasion) as you would expect.

Then for the real test. The car I was bringing back had to be picked up on Saturday but I wasn't due to set off for home until Sunday (yesterday) afternoon so it had to be taken up to my mates place after we'd picked it up. Now he lives just over 2,000 feet up the side of a mountain and the access is a very narrow, potholed stone with the odd bit of concrete, forest track that rises 1,850 feet in two miles as it winds it's way up the side of the mountain, including two very steep hairpins. So with this

hooked up to the back, I stuck it in low (not a cat in hell's chance of getting up some of the steeper bits with that amount of weight on the back in high) and set off for the top. The temperature started off at 87 and started to rise as I made the engine work for a living. By the time I was halfway to the top, it was up to 94 but didn't go any higher and started to drop back as soon as I let the engine idle for a few seconds. That was all on LPG too when all the naysayers will tell you it'll ruin your engine as it burns hotter than petrol. Later we decided to check my mates P38 (another 98 GEMS only a 4.6 compared with my 4.0 litre). By comparison, his runs at 94 when running but rises very quickly when sitting in traffic to the point that the Nanocom got grossly offended when it hit 100 degrees compared with mine that stays at 87 no matter how long I left it idling. So we reckon that his cooling is a bit marginal and, as the water pump is new, his radiator is likely due for replacement in the not too distant but what should they run at? I think we can safely say his is running a bit too hot, or at least getting a bit hot when left idling but is mine running too cool?

Taxed the Ascot so I can run around in it to see if there's anything that still needs doing to finish it off and to see what packs up. Dina got in and realised she seemed to be sitting a bit high and it turns out that the passenger electric seat was stuck at the highest position at the rear and wouldn't go down. The front would go up and down but lowering it just succeeded in her sliding forward on the shiny cleaned leather. So spent the morning getting that working. Then turned my attention to a bit of testing on the HEVAC.

I've replaced one blend motor and given the other two a good clean out, check and re-grease and they are all working fine but..... It's been about 15 degrees so setting the temperature to 20 should result in hot air but it doesn't. To get hot air, the temperature has to be turned up to 26. If I poke the Program button the air comes out at maximum temperature so it isn't like the heater matrix is just cold, Nano shows it to be 65-70 degrees. Nano shows the two temperature motors to be giving a feedback figure of 83% when set at 20 degrees and rises as the temperature is turned up. Checked mine and got a figure of 70% when set at 20 degrees. Figured that the interior temperature sensor may be reading high so the HEVAC isn't giving hot air as it doesn't think it needs any but Nano shows that to be correct. Blasting the interior sensor with brake cleaner and the reported temperature dropped to -1 degree and the blend motors opened up and gave me hot air from the vents. But once the temperature sensor reported 10 degrees or higher, the output went cold again.

So it's doing everything it should, it's regulating the temperature it just needs to be told to keep the car hotter than it should. Both blowers are working, both pollen filters are new and a decent amount of air comes out of the vents, it's just the temperature is lower than it should be. I've even used the Nano to calibrate the blend motors and that made no difference. No book symbol on the display either. Any clues anyone?

It's awfully quiet tonight, has the forum broken?

The official Land Rover Owner show is happening just down the road from me this weekend so the roads are clogged with Defenders and Discos on big wheels and chunky tyres. One of my neighbours suggested I was setting up in competition with the fleet outside my place. It's a good job I live at the end of a private road.......

Some of you may remember that I noticed that EKA was set as Disabled in the BeCM on the Ascot. It didn't seem to be a problem but now it is. As you probably realised, I've been away and it hasn't been touched for 10 days. I was pleased to see that the EAS appears to be working fine as it hadn't settled at all in that time.

However, went to move it today and the doors didn't unlock on the fob, none of them. Opened it with the key in the hole and only the drivers door unlocked. Found that the battery was completely flat. I mean totally, zilch volts. Connected jump leads and noticed the hazards flashing. As the sounder has been disconnected, that meant the alarm was going off. Closed the door, manually locked it and unlocked it again and the hazards stopped so I'd turned the alarm off. Tried to start it and the dash said Engine Disabled, Press Remote. Now the remote isn't doing anything as the flat battery has caused it to lose sync. I can't re-sync it as it won't do that while the engine is immobilised.

So, grabbing all the paperwork for it, thrash off down to local friendly main dealer and get the printout showing the EKA code (so I at least now know which of the 5 different 4 digit numbers handwritten on the various bits of paper is the EKA code). Back home, try the EKA and it does nothing. But as EKA is disabled in the BeCM, that's probably why. Out with the Nanocom and plug that in. Go into the BeCM settings and get "Error, Unable to communicate with the ECU". Clean the contacts on the OBD connector, still the same. Check RAVE and find that the BeCM uses the same pins as the engine ECU, ABS ECU and HEVAC. Try them and find I can connect to all 3 (although the HEVAC did put up a bit of a fight) but still can't connect to the BeCM. Tried it the usual way with ignition off, tried it with ignition on, rebooted the Nano umpteen times but it still won't connect.

So, anyone got any ideas? I've got a car that has lost sync (no check engine light) so it either needs the remote button pressing but as the remote has lost sync, that won't do anything, or the EKA entering but as EKA has been disabled in the BeCM I need to connect to the BeCM to enable it before it can be entered.

When I went for the MoT last year the rubber boots on both ends of the track rod were perished and falling to bits. Rather than mess around I just got the complete Lemforder track rod kit so track rod with a ball joint on one end, track rod end and adjuster and fitted that. Took the car in for this years MoT yesterday expecting all to be fine and it failed on track rod ball joint boot split. Now my local factors stocks random sized boots for a quid each so I shot straight down there and picked one up. Split the taper and took the split boot off and found the ball joint itself was perfect and still had the original grease in it but the boot was falling to pieces. It doesn't look to be made of rubber either, more like a sort of rubbery plastic (vinyl?). Whatever it was made off, it doesn't last like old fashioned rubber does. It may not perish but it splits instead but I would have expected it to last longer than 12 months (admittedly that's 23,000 miles). So if you've fitted Lemforder expecting to fit and forget, think again.

Got a little niggly one on the Ascot(?). The dash foam is lifting either side of the drivers windscreen vent. There's the vinyl covered foam and underneath that is the plastic shell and they have parted company. I can make up a clamp to be able to hold it down but need a glue to put in there before clamping it. I'm thinking along the lines of some sort of epoxy but it needs to be something that doesn't go off too quickly or it will be going off before I get the clamp in place. It also needs to be something I can put on with a (bent) brush as I think taking the windscreen out or the dash off isn't really an option.

Anyone got any recommendations?

super4 wrote:

would appreciate some help. Have P38 Gems here on the mountain in Spain - LPG stopped working - just doesn't change on the button press - waits then beeps to make me press back to petrol. Have finally got the ECU lead from UK and downloaded Zavoli Alesei N software which loads and seems to work on my Win XP desktop (not connected to car) but does not run on my old laptop on Win 2000 . Says various dll files missing. Do you know if it should run or is Win XP the earliest ?
Chris B

Anyone else seen this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Range-Rover-Vogue-P38-Ascot-Edition-with-LPG/272743775017

An early car but looks very tidy and the faults all look stupidly simple.
Brakes, tied in with the ABS light on will be either pump or modulator, parking brake means it needs adjusting or was tested on a roller by an MoT tester not knowing what he was doing, a pair of wipers and a washer pump needed and the fact that the emissions show a lambda fail mean it was tested on petrol even though it's got an AEB LPG system fitted (from the switch, almost certainly a Leonardo like on mine, dead simple and cheap even if the lot needs replacing). Then it just needs a couple of ball joints.

If I didn't already have the SE, I'd be whacking a cheeky bidnapper bid on it myself as the auction will end when we're on the way home from Summer Camp (shame it doesn't end a bit sooner so it could be at summer camp, it'd all be sorted in a matter of minutes if everyone descended on it like vultures and did a job each). .

Been ABS season in France for the last few days. First one was the car belonging to my mate in the South who noticed that the ABS pump was cutting in every time he touched the brake pedal. Assuming, as most of us would, the accumulator on it's way to meet it's maker, he ordered one from Island and fitted it. No difference. maybe air in the power circuit, so flushed through the entire system and bled the brakes. Braking improved no end but the pump was still cutting in every time the brakes were applied. In fact, if he left the car with the ignition on, the pump would cut in for a few seconds every 30 seconds or so without the pedal being touched. Then noticed that when the car was left, the fluid level would rise in the reservoir and drop back down as soon as the pump cut in. So the pressure was somehow dropping and the fluid stored in the accumulator was flowing back into the reservoir. Assumed that there must be a leaking non-return valve in the pump that was allowing the fluid to flow back but before ordering a replacement pump, did a test. Disconnected the hose from the reservoir to the pump and put a length of hose with a funnel on the end on the pump. Poured fluid in, turned on ignition, pump ran and the level dropped. Touched the brake pedal and the level dropped a bit more, the pump cut in but the level didn't rise after leaving it, instead it started filling the reservoir. So the modulator had an internal leak, presumably between the power circuit and the hydrostatic circuit. He ordered a replacement modulator block and took the old one off. This is what he found after he had removed the reservoir.....

Best demonstration of why you should change your brake fluid regularly. I know it absorbs water but wouldn't have thought it would absorb enough to make the internals go rusty. He's now fitted a replacement modulator and the brakes are better than they have ever been since he has owned the car.

The second one nearly caused me grief. Went over to sort out a problem or two on mymisteri's car. I'd already replaced the door latch with one with working microswitches, replaced the drivers window regulator with one with a full set of teeth, replaced the leaking heater O rings and reconnected the heater hoses. Only then did I take it out for a test drive to find ABS and Traction faults and the most evil sounding rear wheel bearing I've ever heard. So, went back yesterday armed with a rear hub assembly complete with driveshaft and ABS sensor. Fitted that, along with a pair of tailgate struts so it didn't drop onto your head when opened and a working remote receiver to replace the dead one so the keyfobs worked. Then took it out for a test and found no noise from the wheel bearing but still had ABS and Tractions faults. Plugged in the Nano and, after a couple of attempts, managed to get it to connect to the Wabco D ECU (1999 car so has the 4 wheel traction control). On my previous visit I couldn't get it to connect but had assumed that the dodgy wheel bearing would almost certainly have damaged or at least moved the ABS sensor. I found that the Nano would only connect with the ignition in position 2 but with the engine not running. Once connected I could start the engine and it stayed connected but there was no way it would connect if the engine was already running. There were no stored faults, the sensor voltages were the same, driving it slowly and the speed displayed on each wheel sensor matched, so all seemed fine. Except that it still had ABS fault on the dash and the ABS warning lamp didn't go out as it should. Tried checking the speed sensors again and noticed that although they were all showing the same speed at 5kph, the right front sensor seemed slower to react than the others. Gave it a tap, saw it move, tried it again and everything was fine. Job done but what I don't understand is why there weren't any stored faults. If I hadn't been driving across an empty car park, I would never have noticed that the one sensor was reacting slower than the others and the problem would still have been a mystery.

It just had to be done.......

Although that was on the way to mymysteri's house and I'm now at over 333700.

Forwarded to me by a mate.......

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/222530261135

(Only another 15 to go now Tony)

Clive's thread on lifting his car has disappeared not because it broke any forum rules ('cuz there aren't any), but because Ferryman started writing a reply and then attempted to edit it. Unfortunately, he deleted the whole thread and not just his own post......

It might be recoverable but I'm not sure how often backups are done so it may have been lost forever, doh!

Inspired by a question asked on the other side by someone who is now registered on here too and by the lack of bass on my system. OK, so I've got the original LR speakers rather than the HK ones but need to swap the 6.5" woofers in all 4 doors at the very least. I've got an aftermarket Kenwood DSP head unit driving the original speakers. Well, nearly original as I changed my basic spec door panels for ones from a higher spec car and found that as well as the wood on the outside, they had a pair of HK midrange speakers still bolted to them. So I've got bog standard woofers and tweeters but HK midrange at the moment. A professional sound engineer spent a good 2 hours while we were driving through Holland playing with the settings and got it as good as it can get but the woofers are decidedly lacking in the bass department (and there's no sub). As I've got OldShep's 2001 Vogue here with a working HK DSP system in it, I bunged a CD in the changer expecting amazing sound quality. No matter how I fiddle with the settings, it's good but nothing like as good as I expected it to be. In fact, it's not that much better than what I have. Maybe I've been spoilt recently with listening to the Bose system in an Audio RS7 and the Naim system in a Bentley but I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to at least get close.

So, I need to change the speakers. They need to be 4 Ohm, with as low a frequency response as I can find and not stupidly expensive. I'll probably need to add crossovers too. Most 6.5" speakers are 2 and 3 way coaxial but that isn't needed and so far I've narrowed it down to http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-Skytec-6-5-Hi-Fi-Polypropylene-PP-Mid-Woofer-Bass-Speaker-Driver-Cone-200W-/182455996924 (nice low frequency response but 8 Ohm so no idea how they would interact with the HK mid-range and standard tweeters I've got in there and I've never heard of Skytec), these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JBL-300W-TOTAL-2WAY-6-5-INCH-16-5cm-CAR-DOOR-2WAY-COMPONENT-SPEAKERS-TWEETERS-/190885731881 (A name everyone has heard of, 4 Ohm but frequency response only down to 50Hz although they do come with a pair of tweeters, which I don't need, and a pair of crossovers but are described as mid-range) or these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bass-Face-6-5-Inch-16-5cm-165mm-800w-Mid-Bass-Drivers-Car-Door-Sub-Speakers/351990186243 (which seem to meet the spec but are just for the speakers so crossovers would need to be bought separately). My head unit also has an output for a sub so I will probably add one of them too.

Anyone tried any of these or got any other suggestions?

On my way back from the Loire valley yesterday we called in and gave a forum members car the once over just outside of Paris. The car, belonging to mymysteri has been the source of much grief to the owner and that, combined with being ripped off by a couple of French Range Rover 'specialists' meant she (yes the owner is a she, something I didn't know until I met her!) was on the verge of getting rid of the car. It's got the odd little niggle but they are causing all sorts of problems. The key switch in the drivers door (LHD car so LH door) doesn't work so the fob won't sync and the EKA can't be entered (Nano to the rescue here), the central locking isn't working (presumably due to the lack of sync) the front passenger (RH) door is superlocked which means the tailgate can't be opened (but hopefully that will sort itself out when the door latch is replaced and it can be synced) and the EAS pump is very tired so takes ages to build enough pressure to get the car to rise from it's bumpstops.

However, the things that I noticed first upon opening the bonnet was a) there's an awful lot of spare room under the bonnet of a LHD diesel and b) there were no pipes attached to the heater matrix. As she'd already been charged an arm and a leg by the aforementioned 'specialist' to sort out the non-functioning heater, she was not best impressed. It looked so neat I couldn't immediately see how it was supposed to be connected. Referring to the picture below, there was a metal pipe coming upwards from behind the engine (presumably the one marked as 1) with a curved hose that connected to what I now know is the heater return (marked as 2) so assume that a join has been put in the return hose. If there any chance someone with a diesel can get a photo of the heater pipe arrangement so I can be sure how it should be connected?

I strongly suspect that in addition to the above faults it will also need heater O rings as that is likely to be the only reason why it was disconnected in the first place. It's looking like I will be nipping over there for a couple of days in the next few weeks to get it all sorted and working as it should. The BeCM has already been to Marty to be reset (although it did seem to have a mind of it's own and thought it had a manual GEMS rather than an automatic diesel) but I suspect the vast majority of the problems were down to the door latch rather than anything more serious.

Curiosity really, but what dictates how quickly a gearbox drops the clutch so to speak? In the last few days I've driven 4 different P38s and have noticed a difference when pulling away from a standstill. On mine and OldShep's car when you pull away the revs go up to about 1,800rpm and the torque converter then makes the car accelerate while the revs stay constant. A bit like giving it some throttle and slipping the clutch on a manual. On the SE and one that a mate has just bought that he bought over to me to give the once over, the torque converter seems to lock up immediately and the revs go up as the car accelerates, more like dumping the clutch and booting the throttle on a manual.

I initially thought it would be down to mileage and a bit of wear but mine is on what I assume to be the original gearbox and has done 329,000, while OldShep's car only has 104,000 on the clock. The SE has 134,000 and the one my mate has just bought has 173,000 so that theory would appear to be out of the window. What dictates the speed the TC locks up at in the lower gears then? Is it the fluid, the fluid pressure, the torque converter itself or is it something more subtle like the output signal from the TPS maybe?