The roof rail covers do just pull out - they have spring clips holding them in.

Mine came from Maltings on their eBay store aswell from memory.

Well it passed the MOT.

He retested it on non-cat once I showed the previous years' tests and results, and said he had to check under the vehicle to make sure that the exhaust was actually connected.... as the emissions - both CO and PPm were flat line 0's - zip, nada...

So that's all good and out of the way for another year. He apologised for the confusion, and actually ended up having a pretty good chat with him about LR's etc - he said all the newer ones were shite too... !

I'm away working the 11th/12th and the 25th/26th - so you're welcome to do something then... but you'll have to find a different workshop to do it at! :)

I paid £195 including delivery (and included the gaskets for the headers) for that Y pipe/cats. Delivery was Parcelforce 24 Large service, and the unit itself was pretty well packaged in heat sealed plastic bubblewrap stuff.

Island 4x4 were the next cheapest about £250 +VAT - but eBay to the rescue I guess...

I've never had an issue with the element wires in the P38 windscreen obscuring vision... I have a number of mornings where I've been grateful of the screen being heated though :P

Well, got the exhaust all swapped - the old one smelt a bit when it came out... I've heard that the semi rotten egg smell can be a sign of failed cats - so chances are these are properly had it...

Out with the old

Old vs new:

Fitted and playing with getting the crossmember back in:

Almost there!

Done!

Starting to look like a new car under there with the recon gearbox, new O2 sensors and now the new exhaust...

Started it up to make sure there were no leaks etc, and it is a lot quieter now... There's no sign the old cats have been gutted, but it's a LOT more muted... unfortunately in my book, as I liked the rumble it had!

MOT retest 12pm Monday, so should be good to go now.

Well, due to work and things filling up my summer rather more than I anticipated - I'm currently only able to do the 4th/5th of August - otherwise we are starting to get into September - which is when I'm generally busier again!

If people are interested in the 4th/5th then let me know.

I'm in the middle currently of building a DSP amp replacement for a customer. I've got enough bits to assemble another 2 units - but might only have enough wiring to make one more loom at the moment... but the hope is that I will have a couple finished and on the shelf for a change, rather than custom made to order.

Well, as mentioned - I'd already decided to defer the retest until Monday, and had bought replacement front pipe/cats to get it sorted, as apparently they tried testing it on the cat test on petrol and it failed there too.

So, given that, I decided to just replace the whole lot anyway to be sure. My CO value was about 0.5% out of the "allowed" 3.5% if they had done the non cat test, so it would have passed by about the same as it has been the last few years - so I don't believe that on LPG it's running THAT badly.

With the new cats/pipes all fitted now (just crawled out from underneath and finishing doing that) it should pass no matter what - but I will be questioning why they tested it differently.

The highest I had out of mine was all long distance too.. I have a 75L usable capacity tank, and got about 265 miles out of it.. it was pretty much full motorway driving at 70mph though (probably average of 50mph overall if you account for the junctions, going between M25/M4 etc).

On picking mine up from getting the gearbox done, the battery had been disconnected, so the Trip2 was reset - and I saw 13mpg for awhile... I think after a few hundred miles it's now crept back up just over 15mpg... I had got it up to about 18mpg over 6000 odd miles, so again probably around the 13-14mpg average mark on LPG with combined driving.

Hi Chris (well both!)

I have about 5 of the DSP amps here and they are all dead... I've done some fairly extensive probing and it looks like the issue is in one of the DSP chips itself - so they are pretty much just junk.

As a replacement - I do a DSP amp replacement board with 4 standard P38 door amps on it to fit in place of the DSP amp. It requires a bit of wiring in, but it does a decent job of replacing the old amplifier and will work with the factory head unit - or the signal inputs can be either attenuated to use the amplified outputs of an aftermarket head unit, or you can use audio transformers to clean up the normal line level signal from aftermarket head units.

Navigation unit actually has the power to drive a small 1W 8ohm speaker, which for the brief period that I used the factory navigation, worked fine to hear the navigation over the radio. I have been working on ways to include the nav audio into my DSP replacement, but haven't had time to try any of my ideas to see if they work!

I have a bit more info on the DSP amp replacement on my website. I'm actually about to start building another one for a P38 owner up north as he's in the same situation!

That is the kind of thing that really pisses me off... and there are plenty of words I can think of to describe it.. but none suitable for public announcement :)

The biggest thing for me is that I remember you telling me that you checked that they had sent a heated screen - given that when I had mine done I had told them on the phone it was a heated screen and they sent a non-heated one!! And it was the guy who fitted it that said yes!!! so surely if you've asked and he's said it is heated, then why cut the sodding wires off... retards...

I had the opposite with Autoglass - even though the sent the wrong one, the guy was really helpful, friendly, and commented on the fact I'd already taken all the trim off for them! (Partly because I was resealing the pollen filter housings/plenum and also I wasn't sure if I'd get a retard fitting it!)
The second guy who came back to fit it also was really nice, and he was into Land Rovers aswell, so I had a chat with him whilst he did it, and I also gave him a hand to lift the new glass in. He mentioned about the sealing of them and said that on vehicles like the RR he almost overdoes the sealant to make sure it's not going to leak at a later date!! so far so good..

I hope that you get it sorted soon, and you get something for the inconvenience.. I would be wanting that moron to be out of a job.. but that's just me..

I hope it does too!

I changed the plugs today, and they all looked pretty similar in colour. The bank 1 O2 looked about the same as the plugs, but the bank 2 O2 looked really sooty... So don't quite know how that works... I was expecting to see sooty plugs on bank 2, but nope.

Will update on Monday once it's been retested...

That's fine.

I'll print that out and take it with me and see what they say on Monday.

Really hate having these bloody arguments... Puts the RR out of use for the weekend.. not that I have anywhere I need to be, but even so...

My numbers are in the pictures above of the test results...

CO: 0.498%
PPM: 158

Second fast idle test was
CO: 0.604%
PPM: 39

Which is still under the amount for the non-cat test (3.5%/1200ppm)

Last year when they tested it as non cat, it was 0.522% CO and 481PPM

Either way by the time it gets retested on Monday it will have new cats... it's also just had 2 new O2 sensors again as for some reason they'd both failed... which is strange, but hey - it seems to want some attention this year!

I looked at that, but I am guessing that they have gone on Chart 2 - which is for "Passenger cars on or after 1 August 1992" which is what the P38 (especially mine) does technically fall under. There are also listings in the EGA database for emissions for all models of P38 (well, LP Range Rover) which correspond to how it's tested.

The only thing is that it doesn't split out into LPG on the second chart - which I guess when I question it, they'll throw back at me...

I've decided to order a new Y pipe/Cats (the one on there has been off recently when I had the gearbox done - so shouldn't be too much of a pain to replace) and I've moved the retest to Monday - so hopefully whether they agree to retest it as the non-cat test or not, it should pass.

EDIT Or am I interpreting the flowchart wrong? Should it go from the BET section in chart 1, and then onto chart 2 (as it's starred with the note)?

Typical though from how my year with things is going!

That's pretty much what I got - I'd have the check and see if they were metric ones or not... but I found ones in there that were suitable for pretty much every required fitting, and it's still got some gas in it and keeping me cool a year or so after getting it filled last :)

The CO reading was a tiny bit higher than last year, but still well within the limits of what it was tested on last year as a "Non catalyst equipped vehicle"

The test this year as a "Catalyst equipped vehicle with closed loop control" has lower limits and it's well over double those...

I've posted last years and this years emissions sheets below...

Last Year (with what I believe to be the correct test):

This Year (different test):

Thoughts? Can I argue the testing procedure if they do a full catalyst test again tomorrow when it's rebooked in?

So had the MOT test today, and it failed on emissions...

They tested it as a "Catalyst Equipped - closed loop vehicle", even though I told them it was running on LPG... They said they tested on both petrol AND LPG and it failed both times.

Just got home and checked last year's paperwork (was tested at the same place) and it was tested as a non-catalyst vehicle, with fuel type listed as LPG - and passed, with the CO values pretty close to what they were this year...

I called them up and booked a retest for tomorrow and told them it was tested incorrectly - which they didn't like being told, they just said "it's been tested on both and if it's failed, then it's failed"... despite the past 2 years being tested as a non-cat vehicle on LPG.

Am I correct in thinking they've tested it incorrectly? They said there were emissions changes this year, but I thought that only affected Diesel vehicles with DPF and things like that.

I've been having a trawl of the internet, but can't find anything out there on LPG vehicles and emissions testing - as if it should be done as a non-cat test, then I'd like to go back in there tomorrow with the previous 2 years test results and something in black and white to say what it should be tested as. I noticed the testers name was different this year to the past 2 years, so wonder if the guy doesn't really know what he's doing!

It also failed on the crack in my bumper having sharp edges (first year it went in like that they actually put tape over it and passed it!) so I'll get the dremel and duct tape out this afternoon to attend to that.. but I don't want to end up having an argument with them over emissions without some evidence from my side over how it should be tested - if they disagree...

Marty