A couple of weeks ago I noticed the nearside rear brake backplate looked a bit damp. The rear discs didn't look brilliant and I knew it was getting close to needing pads on the back too so ordered a couple of rear discs and an axle oil seal (I already had the pads). Finally found time to do it today. I somehow doubt my nearside rear brake was doing much......

At least everything came undone easily enough though, unlike the other side which hasn't been doused in axle oil. One of the caliper slider pins was seized solid but rather than trying to twist it out and shearing it off as I have done in the past, I decided to get a bit more technical. I drilled a 5mm hole in the caliper carrier behind the pin and tapped it with an M6 thread. Then I filled it with Plus Gas and left it to soak for a while. Screwed an M6 bolt into my tapped hole and it pushed the pin out easily. Once I'd cleaned everything up, I just cut the bolt down and screwed it into my hole to stop any crud getting in there.

Had a phone call earlier from a guy I'm helping restore a soft dash LSE Classic. One of the alloy air con pipes got damaged when it was all being pulled apart and it's broke. He's found that they are almost impossible to get as the soft dash is a sort of mish mash of Classic, P38 and Discovery parts. He's asked someone about it and they have offered to make a replacement in copper. The question is, is there any reason why they are made of alloy in the first place and is he going to have any problems with a copper pipe? I said I assumed they were alloy as it was cheaper and some fridges use a copper condenser so I would think it would be OK. Anyone know of any reason why it isn't such a good idea?

Had a PM on the other site from Ash or Ash saying he couldn't log in again. I just tried logging out (which I don't normally do) and logging back in again and confirmed that you do need to log in 5 times. On the 5th attempt the Captcha box pops up and it lets you in. Hopefully, if people see this when not logged in, it'll tell them what they need to do in the meantime until it's sorted out.

I need a PRC7618, which is the Clarion PU9836A, to go in the P38 my mate in France recently acquired. It's a '98 HSE with the amps in the doors so he needs the correct stereo to feed these. They can be recognised by looking on the back and it has two DIN style rectangular sockets, an 8 way and a 10 way. Ideally it needs to be a worker and with the security code if at all possible but not absolutely necessary. When he got the car it had a dead aftermarket head unit in it and he's trying to return it to standard. I know a few people have fitted tablets and I thought Marty might have one he's taken out but he hasn't and the only ones on eBay are listed as spares or repair (which usually means they are completely dead and no use to anyone).

I'm flying down next Friday (13th, yes I know, booking a flight for Friday the 13th may not be such a good idea) so am trying to get one before then so I can bung it in my hand luggage.

Hi and welcome, I'll give you a bit more info which seems to have got confused over on the other side. I can't post on there as I got myself a lifetime ban for advertising this forum (and being critical of the attitude of the mods over there). If you get gearbox fault as soon as you turn the ignition on or start the car, but before selecting a gear, that is a voltage problem. Going into limp mode and either cutting out (especially when hot) or failing to start is quite likely a CPS problem. A gearbox going into limp mode and doing odd things, is likely to be a genuine gearbox fault. Have a read here http://www.ashcroft-transmissions.co.uk/frequently-asked-questions/4hp22/4e-faq-s.html which describes your problems almost exactly. Ashcrofts will do you a recon gearbox or you can take a punt on a secondhand one. The gearbox on a 4.6 is the 4HP24 rather than the 4HP22 fitted to the 4.0 litre and diesel models. The 24 is also longer so you need a gearbox from another 4.6, preferably a later one the same as yours (not sure if there are any differences between gearboxes on the GEMS and Thor but better swap like for like in case there is). If you swap just the gearbox and retain your original transfer box, make sure you change the gearbox output shaft oil seal or you'll be taking the transfer box off again to change it (or dumping ATF all over the floor).

Not sure if anyone else has seen one yet, but saw one of these today

Possibly the strangest looking vehicle to have ever carried the Range Rover name. Admittedly, I've always though the Ejoke should really be the Land Rover Freelander Mk3 (or is it 4?) and not sully the Range Rover name but this thing is just plain weird. Looks even worse with the roof up.

Southbound M11 near Stansted at around 09:45 this morning, I was pleased to see that I'm not the only one that makes my P38 work for a living. A very tidy looking 4.6HSE towing a tri-axle trailer at a steady 70 mph. Is it anyone we know?

As well as shifting cars around Europe this weekend I took the opportunity to give my mate a hand in getting his EAS working. He's only just got the car and when he sent me a few pictures of it when he got it, I could easily spot why the EAS switch did nothing and the suspension didn't drop at speed despite the previous owner having spent a fortune on it. The biggest clue was in this picture

Errm, that's not original.....

As well, there were signs that somebody had been in there from the fact that the valve block appeared to be complete but there was a reason why the pump wouldn't run, it was disconnected

Although the pump looked OK, I suspect it had been replaced as the lid of the EAS box suggested that it had got a little bit warm at some time in the past

I pointed him in the right direction and he got a rebuild kit for the pump and a set of O rings to rebuild the valve block and did those. So, in theory, all I had to do when I got there was connect everything up and maybe clear the odd fault or two with the Nanocom or the RSW EASUnlock software (as the cable and an old laptop live in the car anyway). The dash was showing EAS Manual when he first started it up so that said the jumpers had been fitted in the EAS ECU plug.

Fairly simple you might think but in anticipation of any possible problems I removed the valve block and compressor from my SE and bunged them in the boot just in case. We started off by getting rid of the Schrader valves and putting the pipes back where they belonged in the valve block. We then turned our attention to the electrical side of the system. Fitted the delay relay which he'd found in the glovebox, removed about 3 feet of insulating tape from the plug for the EAS ECU, checked to see if it had any jumpers in there (which it hadn't) and plugged it back into the ECU. Then removed the EAS bypass harness fitted to the BeCM (the expensive alternative to a pair of jumpers at the EAS ECU plug), refitted relay 20 which had been removed and figured that it might work. Started the engine and nothing. No lights on the display, pump not running, zilch. Pulled the display and rocker switch out of the dash and found that had also been disconnected, so plugged that in. At least that now lit up but the pump still didn't run. Use the Nanocom to force it to run and it did. Checked and found that not only had the pump needed a new piston and sleeve, a replacement reed valve he'd had to make from an old feeler gauge fitting (as the original one was split) but it seemed the thermal switch was open circuit too. Fitted the pump from the boot of my car.

Now it ran, it sounded a bit noisy but it was generating air, so much air that after a couple of minutes there was a pop and the sound of air hissing out. The collet on the large pipe just beneath the exhaust silencer had obviously fallen out so the pipe had popped out. Pulled the collet from the valve block in the boot of my car. Left it running with doors open for about 10 minutes then closed the doors to see if it would lift. It all appeared to be doing the right things, no fault messages, bottom light on with the standard height light flashing. That's about all it did though, the suspension was still doing nothing. Seems that although the pump was running, it wasn't filling the tank for some reason. Maybe a problem inside the valve block, maybe he'd mucked something up when fitting the O ring kit, we didn't know, but it didn't work. So, pull it out and fit the one from my boot. So now it has my pump and valve block in it. Fired it up again, pump runs, left it for a while and slowly it started to lift up off it's knees. It bloody works! A squirt of the soapy water showed leaks from just about every one of the multiple connectors in the air lines but I keep some of those (along with a length of pipe and a set of Schrader valves) in my emergency get me home if something goes horribly wrong kit in the boot. Swapped the cheapo pipe connectors for decent quality ones and no more leaks, or at least none of any immediate concern, those that were left were at the valve block where a couple of the pipes went in and they were cured by trimming a couple of mm off the end of the pipe so the O rings sat at a different place and not in a groove in the pipe. It was all working although appeared to be sitting a bit high. Admittedly it wasn't on flat ground so we took it down the road to a nice new, flat car park to put it next to mine and measure the heights at each setting. Spot on, no tweaking of heights needed. The only thing we hadn't checked was if it lowered to motorway height at 50 mph but that would need a run down to the Autoroute, even 50 kph is pushing it on the mountain roads around where he lives.

The pump still seemed noisy though. It could be heard easily inside the car whereas on mine the only way I can tell if it is running is by opening the bonnet and putting my hand on the box lid. I've also heard other people say they can hear their pump running too. We had another look at it and compared it with mine. The pump sits on 3 rubber mountings with a washer above and below them. These washers are dished and they were on upside down. The bottom ones need to go with the concave side downwards and the top ones with the concave side upwards. With them like that the engine was fired up and to see if the pump was running I had to put my hand on it to feel the vibration, it was completely silent.

A pretty good half days work in all, even if we did end up having to use the valve block and compressor from my SE which I now have to replace. All that was left was to get it running properly on LPG but that is a whole different story.......

My mate in France has just acquired a P38, he did a straight swap for a UK registered, RHD, diesel, Peugeot 406 Coupe which I picked up for him over here 3 years ago for £1200. He became the proud owner of a 1998, 4.6 HSE with an LPG conversion and a leaking water pump. Problem is, he does mechanics, if it goes up and down or round and round, he can get his head around it so an Airtex water pump was ordered and fitted . He does cosmetics, in fact, I think he could give Morat a run for his money (he does all the cosmetic and mechanical work on the cars we import from the US), but he is useless when it comes to electrics. So a P38 maybe isn't the ideal vehicle for him to own. Initially it had a dodgy drivers door latch so it thought the door was always open which caused all sorts of grief with the central locking/immobiliser, etc but that was sorted by pointing him in the direction of Marty and getting a new latch (incidentally, he reckons Marty is a fantastic bloke to deal with for those that weren't already aware). The EAS has had new air springs, and a ton of money spent on it but whoever did it obviously gave up so it has been disabled and a set of Shrader valves fitted so each corner can be pumped up individually. He's put a rebuild kit in the pump and new O rings in the valve block and I'm going down there in a couple of weeks with the Nanocom to recommission the EAS and get it as it should be. Just in case he's cocked it up, I'll also take the valve block and compressor from my SE so I'll have spares if they are needed. He's currently got the EAS MANUAL coming up on the dash so the jumpers have been put in the EAS ECU plug, so they will need to come out too.

However, he called his insurance company to get cover on it and as soon as he told them what vehicle it was, the response was, "So you'll be needing the optional breakdown cover then". Cheeky buggers, but in saying that, he decided to give it an oil and filter change but despite trying 3 different motor factors, nobody had a filter. One offered to order one for him at 24 Euros but warned that it might take a week, so I'll be taking a couple of those down for him too. So if it is that difficult to get something as simple as an oil filter in France, then anything else must be impossible. Only other thing with it is that the HEVAC is missing the fan speed knob and AUTO button. Does anyone have a dead HEVAC that they can be pinched from?

It had to happen sooner or later, but I've just deleted my first thread. The satisfaction is not complete though as I don't seem able to ban the poster, it would have been nice to do unto others so to speak. Anyway MadeleineCatly we don't have much use for waffle in Polish (at least Google Translate auto detect thought it was Polish but the translation didn't make a lot of sense) about Gout so sling yer hook. Shame, I thought maybe we'd got a P38 owning bit of crumpet joined, might have increased attendance at the next summer camp........

From a discussion going on over on the dark side where some daft Yank had an air spring come apart so lubed the rubber bit to put it back together and then wondered why it kept coming apart again. Durr, they aren't normally lubed that's why. However, it moved onto the advice about not jacking the car on the chassis rails but only on the axles. Now I can see how it could be thought that this will pull an air spring apart and it probably would if it had no air in it at all, but if it is inflated it'll only extend as far as the shocks will allow it to so no different to dropping a wheel into a pothole or driving over some very rough ground. A tyre place I use has a guy that used to own a P38 and he always insists that the EAS is put on high so there is maximum pressure in the springs before jacking on the chassis. I appreciate that if a car is sitting on the bumpstops with no air in the springs, jacking it on the chassis could well cause the springs to come apart but there should never be a problem if they have air in them.

But why have I posted this advice here and not over there? After my ban, for which I am still awaiting an explanation, I registered another username giving the very briefest of information about me and using a completely different email address. I posted in one thread and my post appeared, only to disappear a few minutes later and since then I've posted a couple more times and the posts have never appeared. Looks like they may have sussed that it's me. Being logged in means I don't get half a screen of adverts though and I have found that I can send PMs.....

Anyway, we get a much better class of discussion on here.

Anyone going next weekend? As it's only a couple of miles from my place, I'll probably wander down there.

Just refreshed my connection to RangeRovers.net and got this. I've only sent an invite to Mikeinfrance recently but it looks like someone may be reading PMs too.

Not really electrikery or even oily so I thought I'd post it in here even thought it isn't an introduction. But I thought you could all do with a laugh at my expense.

As I’ve mentioned my car has 5,000 miles or thereabouts to do in the next 3 weeks, but it hasn’t started too well. Checked all my documents on Tuesday evening to realise the MoT runs out on the 23rd. Managed to book it in for Wednesday afternoon but it failed. When Marty and I changed the front axle back around Christmas time, the one we fitted had split boots on both ends of the link rod that joins the two wheels together. I’d meant to change them but never got round to it, figured I’d leave it until they were worn and starting to slop. Not too much of a problem as I would be back from my first 2,000 mile round trip on the 22nd, so ordered the complete set so it would be at home waiting for me to bung it on as soon as I was home and could drop it in for retest.

Set off on Thursday morning towing a car transporter trailer loaded with a 1974, Series 3, V12 E Type Jag which needed to be delivered to my mates workshop in Antibes in the South of France and 120 kilos of cast iron fireplace that needed taking down too. When I’d called to book the hire trailer I’d said I needed the biggest they’d got and big means heavy. I was towing a good 3 tonnes. All was going well until somewhere near riddlemethis’s place at about 3am on Friday, the AC stopped working and it was getting a bit warm. Checked it with the Naonocom and it said it was working but I’d only got just over 9V arriving at the compressor clutch, not enough to pull it in. I could dab a wire from the battery onto it and the clutch would engage and stay in on the 9V but as soon as it released, it wouldn’t pull in again. Figured that at the next LPG and coffee stop, I’d upgrade it to the later system where the HEVAC pulls in a relay which would switch power directly from the battery. With a few lengths of wire, my crimp tool and a spare relay, that was done in about 10 minutes fitted and tried. Clutch clicked in and then immediately dropped out again. Nanocom showed that the HEVAC was getting offended. It had detected that the clutch wasn’t drawing as much current as it should so had logged a fault and stopped trying to engage it. Bugger, some things are just too clever for their own good. Looks like it was going to be a warm journey for the rest of the way so we carried on with the windows open..

Near Aix the car seemed to fill with orange dust. Couldn’t work out what it was to start with until I looked in the mirror. I’ve got the new material for the headlining but that is scheduled for next week when I’m back home. The turbulence of driving with the windows open had released the headlining at the back and the rotted remains of the foam was coming out and flying around inside the car. Stuck it back up when we next stopped but by then everything inside the car, including us, had turned orange.

Arrived at the workshop Friday morning and we unloaded the trailer. Loaded the return load, a 1967 Triumph Bonneville motorcycle, and set off to my mate’s house. As I was slowing for the last toll point (St Isidore), about 10 miles from his house, it went Beep, Alternator Fault comes up on the dash with a red picture of a battery. Pulled up and opened the bonnet. All looked fine, alternator looked like an alternator, hadn’t burst into flames or melted and the serpentine belt was attached and turning nicely. Figured I should be able to make it to his house with the battery not being charged. The last part of the run to his house is 3km up a mountain track which rises almost 500m. It’s very narrow and bumpy with two hairpin bends and I’ve got to get up it in a car that may run out of electric at any time so the engine will stop while towing a trailer. Daren’t let the revs drop so went up there at about twice the speed I would do normally with the trailer dragging in the undergrowth on either side. Part way up the engine note seemed to change but I ignored that as it was still running and the dash hadn’t lit up with any more warnings. Got to the top, parked and opened the bonnet. Put my meter on the battery and it was showing 11.8V with the engine running. Definitely an alternator fault.

Found a pair of gloves so I didn’t have to wait for it to cool down. It was pretty warm having done just short of 1,000 miles in an ambient temperature of 31 degrees (almost as warm as the occupants of the car with no AC in 31 degrees!) but it was soon off. I had the vain hope that it was something simple like a stuck brush that could be sorted with a quick poke. No such luck. It seems that 316,600 miles is the finite life of a Marelli P38 alternator. The brushes were pretty worn but not as worn as the slip rings. That’s the black plastic under the ring that the brush is bearing against, not just a bit of blackened brass……

Just down the road from my mates place, well about 450m in the vertical plane and probably no more than 1km in the horizontal, but a 4 km drive away, is a place called Cassauto 06. A car breakers although I’ve driven past it no end of times and assumed it was no longer in business as where you used to see a pile of dead Renaults, now you could see nothing more than the sign. He assured me they were still there and phoned them. Alternator for a V8 petrol P38 Range Rover, no problem mate, got loads of them, he was told. I found that slightly hard to believe but clutching one very dead, and still very warm, alternator, we went down there. I was convinced we would get there to find a pile of assorted alternators, none of which would fit a P38. Seems that everything is hidden out of sight these days and there were at least 3 P38s and a Discovery in there amongst other stuff that used to be common but isn’t these days. When was the last time you saw a Renault 16 or a Peugeot 304 cabriolet? There’s at least one of each in this place, pretty much rust free too! The guy goes off and comes back with a very familiar looking alternator. Put it next to mine to make sure it was the same then went out the back. Came back a few minutes later with a pristine looking, fully tested, guaranteed for 30 days, 100A alternator with a Land Rover label showing it to be an AMR3021 (standard fit on an earlier P38 but then superseded to a different number). Cost me 150 Euros but probably a lot cheaper than if I’d used my ADAC European breakdown membership who would have got one for me but it would have been from a main dealer at main dealer price and probably not until Monday at the earliest.

Fitted it and was quite surprised to find that 11.8V was still enough to start the engine without any of the usual gearbox fault, etc that usually pop up if a battery is a bit iffy. Meter on the battery showed it was charging nicely but the engine note still sounded odd. A quick look underneath showed why.

Bouncing over the bumpy track at a stupid speed had caused the outlet pipe on the centre silencer box break off. It looked well rotted anyway and I’m surprised the MoT tested hadn’t at least commented on it. Interestingly, it’s only a couple of years old. The centre box started to leak at the seam so I ordered a new one which arrived with a Britpart sticker on it, but it was cheap. The one I took off had Land Rover on it and I’m fairly sure it, along with the downpipes and back end, are the original ones. The silencer itself is fine, it’s the rear pipe that had let go. Sounded quite throaty and figured that as long as the front pipe into the silencer wasn’t in the same state, it would get me home. Concerned that the front pipe would be taking the weight of the whole silencer, I used a bit of steel garden plant wire to at least take a bit of the weight and hoped it would last.

It did last and got me home although I must admit that after about 700 miles I remembered a post from someone on the other forum who had a blowing exhaust burn through an EAS pipe. With the exhaust gases coming out in front of the rear axle I then started imagining the axle oil solidifying from the heat and the diff seizing, the brake fluid boiling in the pipe running over the axle (even though there isn’t one) leaving me with no brakes or the rear air spring catching fire and dropping me onto the bumpstops. But none of the above happened and we got home.

We even had air con. I noticed that the feed from the HEVAC goes to the connector in the RH kick panel. I’d checked the one in the LH side but don’t think I’ve ever been inside the other one. It looked OK but I snipped the wires into the plug and bypassed it anyway. AC started to work but it didn’t last, so on a fuel stop I checked and found 11.2V at the compressor so ran a wire from the compressor to inside the car. As there were enough volts to hold it I once engaged, all that was needed was enough volts to pull it in in the first place. Every time it started to get a bit warm in the car, Dina would poke the bit of wire into the fag lighter socket, the clutch would engage and we’d get cold air. As soon as it started to get warm, she’d just give it full battery volts and it would all go cold again. No problem.

Just got to get it all sorted out before the weekend when we set of on a 3,000 mile round trip……

In anticipation of 5,000 miles in the next 3 weeks and the respray (which isn't going to happen until after the 5,000 miles now), I've been doing the odd little job on the car this weekend. As well as the obvious service things, I've been doing something I normally never do, cosmetics. I've painted the front grille so it's no longer a milky grey from the UV exposure. In fact, I've painted it twice as the first time I bought dark grey bumper paint but it looked more like a shitty brown to me so I've done it black. Did the strips under the headlights too and I must admit it looks damn good.

As those that were at the summer camp will have noticed, one of my front foglights was doing a passable impersonation of a goldfish bowl. So I took it out. Now one piece of advice. If you have a front foglight full of water, do not open the back of it while laying under the car. It makes your Tee shirt very wet and your head hurts from hitting it on the front anti roll bar as you try to leap out of the way. Found out why it was filling with water as it had a big crack on the top so any water thrown up from the front wheel would lay on top of it and drip into the lamp. Anyway, after emptying the water out, I had a bit of a problem. There were multiple tide marks showing the different levels the water had got to at various times on the inside of the lens. It appears that they install the bulb holder and reflector before fitting the glass and that is bonded in place so didn't look like it was going to come off. Or not in one piece anyway.

Dina had gone shopping and a quick check in the kitchen revealed that the dishwasher was half full. So the foglight went in there positioned so the jets of water and cleaning stuff would go into the opening on the back. Switched it on and went back outside to continue my tinkering. Dina came home from shopping and thanked me for putting the dishwasher on even though it wasn't full.

After about an hour a voice from the from door was heard to say, "Richard, what was this doing in the dish washer?" The dishwasher had beeped to say it had finished so she'd opened it to empty it...... I told her that Orangebean, Mark, the guy in the dodgy shorts with no seats in his car at the Summer Camp, had suggested a dishwasher was ideal for washing engine parts and I figured it should be pretty good for foglights too. It was, it did a damn good job too. Sealed the crack with a dollop of silicon and the jobs a good un as they say.

Bugger, I can edit a post but not the typo in the title, Doh!

Those of you that were at the Summer Camp will have met my other half, but we found a way of inadvertently worrying lots of people this weekend.. We were off to the South of France last Thursday, straight after work. I had a car that needed delivering and another that needed bringing back. Rather than the usual Classics that get stuck on a trailer behind the P38, these were both modern cars that were to be driven and Dina wanted to do some of the driving. So, as women do, she posted on Facebook that she was going to Nice for the weekend. Now we weren't actually going to Nice but if she'd posted that we were going to Tourette Levens, which is about 6 miles inland from Nice, nobody would have known where it was.

We left home straight from work, headed down to Eurotunnel and were happily cruising a Porsche Macan Turbo at a steady rate southwards. Dina's phone had decided it wasn't going to connect to any of the French networks at all and was showing no service all the time (turned out that when she'd changed her contract recently, 3 had decided to bar roaming on it). We'd got about as far as Riddlemethis's place around Dijon when I got a text from my daughter telling me to check the news as something had happened in Nice. At that time what information was coming out was still a bit sparse and we carried on, Nice was still another 500 miles away. Checking a couple of hours later we found the extent of the atrocities so I sent Dina's daughter a message telling her that we hadn't got there yet but her Mum had no service on her phone so not to worry.

However, most people had assumed she had done the sensible thing and had flown down to Nice and was there enjoying the firework display to celebrate Bastille Day so were sending her messages on Facebook checking that she was OK and getting no reply........

Until we got back Sunday night, she couldn't reply but her daughter spent most of the weekend getting messages from very worried people asking if she'd heard from her Mum as they'd tried and got no reply. She was, she was happily taking her turn driving back in what she described as an animal. The car we had to bring back is a 2014 Audi RS7. As standard the twin turbo'd V8 puts out 565 bhp but this one has been chipped to 720 bhp. It's the first time I've had a drag race away from an Autoroute toll against a Ferrari and won......

In anticipation of 5,000 miles in the next 2 months and the forthcoming respray and general tidy up of my car, I've decided to do the odd little niggly job that I've thought about for a long time. Things that work but had an outside chance of needing attention at the side of the road if I was unlucky. One of these was the hoses to and from the throttle body heater. On the GEMS, and I suspect the Thor is much the same, there's a short pipe that runs from the inlet manifold to the heater and another long one that goes from the heater back to the coolant reservoir. When I had it all in bits rebuilding the engine, these needed a bit of attention. The short pipe had split and been shortened at some point and was only just long enough and the long one is a hard plastic pipe with hose on each end so it could fit onto the heater and reservoir. The hard plastic had gone brittle so cracked when I moved it and the hoses on the ends were looking a bit dodgy too. Unable to find any 8mm inside diameter coolant hose, I'd used fuel hose and had a couple of joins in the hard plastic bit too. It worked but I recently found that fuel hose isn't ideal. From previous experience I knew that you can't put fuel through coolant hose as it dissolves it but figured the other way round would be OK. It isn't. It isn't intended for the sort of temperatures so goes very hard and inflexible. Originally I thought about replacing the hard plastic with 8mm copper microbore pipe but would still need some 8mm inside diameter coolant hose for the ends. So why not replace the lot with one run of hose and avoid any joins? Finding something suitable wasn't easy but I ended up buying a length of this stuff http://www.autosiliconehoses.com/silicone-hose-shop/performance-silicone-hoses/silicone-1-ply-radiator-heater-hose-up-to-30-metres.html. 8mm inside diameter silicon coolant hose.

The short run from the inlet manifold was no problem at all, it's nice and flexible and pushed over the flared ends of the metal stubs at both ends easily. Initially I ran the longer one by the same route as the hard plastic so it ran along the front of the engine under the big metal thing that holds the wiring loom away from the serpentine belt, but it is so flexible that there was a danger that it could move forward and touch the back of the belt. So I re-routed it to run under the back of the alternator. A nice straight run and not in danger of being caught in any moving parts. 10mm I/D hose could also be used to replace the breather pipe from the top of the radiator, the one that seemed to be different on every car we checked at the summer camp. It's not cheap but seems to be good stuff and was delivered next day.

Next job is the headlining followed by the respray.......

Been outside playing with the car this evening, mainly giving the LPG system a tweak. Decided to take it for a quick blast down the road with the laptop on the passenger seat so I could see what the LPG system was doing. It had been idling for a while so was up to temperature and I dropped it into reverse still at idle. Slowly reversed about 2 feet and the engine cut out. Tried to restart it and nothing. Then noticed the check engine light wasn't coming on and the LPG switch wasn't lighting up. Tried the EKA code, no different. Tried the Nanocom and it said everything was fine. Started using a bit of logic and figured that the LPG switch would be getting an ignition switched supply so no check engine light and no starter either could be down to a lack of ignition switched electric somewhere. Fuse 26 was blown. Put in a new 20A fuse, check engine light came on, LPG switch lit up, starter turned and the engine fired up. Into reverse, managed about 10 feet this time and it cut out again. Fuse 26 blown. Another 20A fuse put in, reversed out of the driveway, into drive and set off for test drive (with a box of spare fuses on the passenger seat). Drove about a mile and a half to my local test road (a bit that used to be the southbound carriageway of the A1 but now doesn't go anywhere). Tried it in normal, floored it in Sport and confirmed that the LPG system was working spot on and keeping the mixture correct no matter how much I tried to make it work (foot to the floor in Sport and it didn't change up into top until I hit 85mph!). Got to the end of the road, went to turn round and managed no more than 10 feet in reverse and it cut out again. Fuse 26 had blown.

Now Fuse 26 supplies ignition switched volts to the engine ECU (which would explain the lack of a check engine light), the ignition coils and the lambda sensor heaters. As far as I can see from the diagram, putting it into reverse would have no affect on the current draw on fuse 26. So why the hell does it blow when I put it into reverse and not when It's idling or going forwards? When reversing out of the driveway, I don't even give it any throttle, just let it creep back at idle so it isn't likely to be a torque reaction when reversing causing something to short out, so what the hell is it?

A couple of months ago my car developed what sounded like a whining diff. As I had replaced the rear not that many months previously it couldn't be that so I assumed it was from the front. There was a bit of up and down slop on the input and oil that did resemble metalflake paint so I figured that had to be it. Marty fitted new top and bottom ball joints to a spare front axle he had, I went to his workshop and we fitted that. On the way home it did seem to be much better and the front end felt much more precise so the ball joints had done the job. Over the last few weeks though, the whine still seemed to be there. I wasn't sure if it was me being hyper sensitive to it and do remember my missus once saying that it sounded like a bus and had almost come to the conclusion that it had always been there. The noise always seemed to be coming from the centre of the car. I'd changed the transfer case anyway and that hadn't made any difference so I was starting to suspect something in the gearbox. But dropping it into neutral didn't cause the noise to change and running it through the gears with the transfer box in neutral and it wasn't there.

Yesterday I decided to convince myself once and for all so crawled underneath and dropped the rear propshaft off. Took it for a run down the road and realised that it is most definitely the rear diff. What a difference with no drive through it, near silent just as I remember it! No noticale slop in it at all but something definitely isn't right inside. However, I did come very close to a major disaster. I got home, went to refit the propshaft and found the parking brake drum had almost fallen off. The countersunk screw that holds it in was on the last turn of it's thread and another half mile or so and the drum would have fallen off and shot out from under the car doing who knows what damage on it's way out to freedom. So if you are going to try running with no rear propshaft, make sure you put at least one of the nuts onto a stud to hold it in place.

A visit to Avenger 4x4 to pick up a replacement rear diff would seem to be my first call tomorrow. Unlike the front, the rear is a piece of piss to change......