Morat I've been doing the same all winter. For 2/3 of the year she loves her Mustang, but it's a terrible winter car. I'm really happy she loves the LR's. I'm mostly driving the Disco at the moment.

I had to take apart 3 Valve Blocks to get enough good NRV's for one good one. How much are they selling for? Another set to make myself another good valve block would be nice.

You won't have any trouble as long as you keep moving. I'm not up on diesels but on a petrol engine you will over heat in stop and go traffic or while off roading in warmer weather.

When I go to get mine done (also cracked), I plan to R&R al the trim myself. Maybe in England you'll find a glass technician who's familiar with the P38. Here, he probably hasn't even seen one drive by. He will certainly not know the procedures for removing the trim without breaking it to bits.

I suspect they deleted the A-pillar grab handles due to concerns of smashing your head into them in an accident.

Great news. If we ever meet, I'll join you for a beer. But helping each other out on our P38's is what we're all here for, so no need for you to buy. I'm glad to hear it works!

I have a decent single car garage, 7' tall door. The LR's fit inside well enough to work on them. Where I live, a lot of the year is too cold to be working on your cars outside.

IIRC, mine had a garage door opener mounted in that location (maybe an NAS thing?). I couldn't make it sync to my garage door, so I put something useful in its place.

I did exactly that to mine, fitted a grab handle from a parts P38 that I had for a while. I like it, I sometimes grab it to enter or exit the vehicle.

If it was me, before tearing everything apart again, with your spark plugs removed, I would crank it over with the starter for a couple of minutes if needed, and then try it again (still with plugs removed). You shouldn't do any harm to the engine, as it is only turning any not building any pressure. Also, your starter motor won't be worked too hard as it isn't fighting any compression. I would be very surprised if the woodruff key failed.

Very nice design. I'll be watching your progress.

And resetting the windows and radio code takes about 2 minutes

30 seconds is probably enough. I wrote 45 to make sure.

It's not a bad idea, with your plugs out, to spin the engine with the starter until your oil pressure builds up, maybe 45 seconds or so. A sort of poor man's pre-oiler.

Sorry, not gauge but light

As you've been doing, keep a close eye on the gauge. On a new build, I think it will take longer than 15 seconds to get oil pressure.

A cm below the seam is about right. The trouble with filling too high is that as the coolant expands with heat, the excess will blow out the overflow. If you continue to top to a level that is too high you will think you have a leak when you don't. The seam might be okay, but may be marginally too high.

I haven't done that particular job, but a heat gun usually works wonders at removing glued on bits.

ok, at least I wasn't completely out to lunch. What do we do if we ever need to replace a hose? Like David, I was hoping I would be able to use heat if I need to get the hoses off the cooler another time. Do we need to buy a new cooler at the same time as a pair of hoses?

Are the threads at the cooler LH? I tried removing the gearbox and engine coolers from a parts P38 and destroyed them. I thought they were badly seized, but maybe I was turning the wrong way?