Lets play MOT Bingo!
I'm 99% certain I'll be getting new front tyres after the curious case of the Locked Viscous... but I thought I'd lob it in and chance it. I'd rather get the tyres myself but I ran out of time after the reminder popped up on my phone. I think I'll set a month's notice next year and put it on pay day!
The Duchess is being a little minx again!
After running perfectly as a DD for a couple of weeks she refuses to start. She has sometimes needed a couple of hits on the key when starting from cold, but has always started, nearly always immediately.
Suddenly she won't start at all. She cranks fine but there's no hint of any pots firing. Th8s is just a whinge really as I haven't bothered with any diagnosis yet but I'll post up results as I get round to them.
I'll start with a Nanocom scan, fuel pressure and try taking a spark plug out to test for a spark.
My money is on the CPS right now but that's a flat out guess until I have any data. I'll check before loading the parts cannon!
If anyone has suggestions on what to test, please let me know (apart from my head for still running this vehicle! 😀)
Folks, my fronts are pretty buggered due to driving 10k miles with a locked up viscous so they'll need replacement for the MOT. The rears are.. as you'd expect for 10k miles with plenty of tread and even wear. Am I OK to replace just the fronts or do I need to have the same rolling radius front and back? I'm wondering if having a difference would knacker the viscous again..
Thanks!
I'm not really a modeller these days but this is amazing!
If you can play Youtube in 4K and you've got a few spare minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPHASpKgRtQ
Wow!
After having to contemplate towing the Duchess behind Snog last month, neither Marty nor I knew if it would have been legal.
So, does anyone with towing experience (and I know we have at least one, eh Gilbert :) ) know whether it would be legal to tow a 2300kg vehicle on a trailer behind the same vehicle rated for 3,500kg (assuming the trailer was less than 1200kg, I guess).
Cheers!
Dumb question time again!
The battery on the Duchess is low, good enough to run the systems but not enough to crank. Can I hook up my (not particularly powerful) charger straight in there and avoid all the tedious window setting, radio codes etc?
It isn't a trickle charger, but seeing as you can hook up a whole car to jump start I don't see why it would be an issue except various google searches warn against this.
So, I thought I'd ask experts instead of Google :)
edit: very low :( 8.1V
With a day off I've slung a battery in The Duchess and I'm trying to get ready for the annual pilgrimage to Swindon so familiar to P38 owners. This time it's Radius Arm Bushes because I missed the meet.
I'm a little concerned setting off as she makes a nice loud cheep noise related to road speed. It's most obvious when coasting, disappears under power and for a Brucey Bonus there's vibration when coasting downhill. Steering left/right makes no appreciable difference. There's a reasonable amount of clonking during low speed manouvring too but I'm putting that down to the radius arm bushes. I did think it might be UJs in the driveshaft but wiggled the front one earlier (by hand) and it seemed solid side/side. It looked nice and fresh too, it that's any indication.
She's getting washed right now but when I get her back I'm going to get her up in the air (as far as I can with the standard jack). What should I poke/prod/pull when trying to diagnose? I'll try to get a video as well.
Hi folks,
I managed to flatten the battery... I opened up the drivers door using the key, opened the bonnet. Opened the driver's side passenger door while looking for jump leads and then hooked up a spare battery.
The alarm went off.
The dash showed keycode lockout and all the window/sunroof not set warnings.
I tried the nanocom and it locked up with "unable to communicate to ECU" showing above the EKA entry screen).
Restarted the nanocom same deal
Restarted the Nanocom, put the key in posn0 tried looking at other parts of the BECM menu then went to EKA unlock,
Entered the code, heard some relays clicking but no doorlocks.
Dash still shows "keycode lockout" and "Engine disabled". The key flashes red when I push the buttons, but no joy.
Went to work in the Jeep!
Have I got a very sick BECM or is there something else I should try?
Folks,
I need to drill and tap a new hole. I've now got a suitable tap - M12x1.75 and an HSS drill bit of 10mm. According to all the online charts I can find, I should be using a 10.2mm drill bit. Will the 0.2mm difference mean certain failure and death?
Or should I just crack on with the 10mm?
As you can tell, this is the first time I've ever tapped a thread :)
Thanks!
A blue 01 on coils with dodgy HG, broken radio and satnav and no mileage listed.
Still, looks quite nice in the photos!
I just put this up because it's about 5 minutes from me if anyone wants me to go have a look.
I'm sick of being scared of being under the Range Rover so I want to get a decent jack and some decent stands. The stands I have at the moment are only 2ton but they'll do for holding up axles, props etc.
Does anyone have any recommendations for a jack that would lift a P38 high enough for a fat bloke to get underneath? I'm looking to keep costs down as far as possible, I've got a lot of parts to buy :(
Thanks!
So, I definitely need to change some U Joints. I'm tempted to have a crack myself if I can get the P38 high enough up in the air for me to get myself underneath....
I have a couple of questions :)
Are bearmach any good for UJs? They seem ridiculously cheap...
Are all the UJs the same in the front and rear propshafts? I can't see any different part nos but I'd like to check before I buy the wrong ones.
It seems the perfect time of year to be rolling around underneath a vehicle!
Marty and I had a textathon last night to work out whether it would be a good idea to have a "Camp" again, but with the aim of replacing Radius Arm Bushes on our P38s.
Marty is happy to host us at his workshop again, which is very generous and is a better option than my house because he has a press (essential) and some air tools (probably very useful).
The proposal would be to find a date in March/April when we could do a two day weekend and plan to get everyone's bushes changed by Sunday afternoon. Whether that would be done as an end to end job or a production line like the Headliners we can discuss later.
We reckon on everyone buying and bringing their own parts, including new bolts etc so that we don't have any emergency parts runs on a Sunday! And pooling whatever tools and expertise we can to make the process as slick as possible. Hopefully the hopeless folks like me will learn some skills too.
I guess the first question is: Who would be interested in changing their Radius Arm Bushes?
and the second one: Exactly what parts and tools do we need to achieve this?
As you know, I'm not a mechanic so I'm really just throwing this out to the experts while offering to help, cook and gofer in exchange for getting my bushes changed with everyone elses. I'm keen to get underneath and wield an airgun though, that sounds like fun :)
As I understand it, the struggle is taking the arms off rather than putting it all back together so we should be able to avoid having lots of Range Rovers in bits on the Sunday afternoon :)
So what do you guys think? Is anyone interested?
Happy New Year folks :)
After replacing lots of steering parts, there's still quite a lot going on under The Duchess.
There's creaking from the back, which I suspect is brake related, but there's also some nastly clunking noises from the front (I'm pretty sure) which seem to be related to moving and/or changing between forward and reverse. If you spin the wheel lock to lock while stationary the steering is silent. There has to be weight on the wheels to get the car to make these noises, I've had some trusted people probe with bars and they can't find any movement.
The only suggestion so far has been "Hockey Sticks" which I take to mean front radius arm bushes - is that correct?
Here's a super high quality video of The Duchess looking filthy in her winter plumage (and her Ladyship looking worried) you can hear the triple clunk at the very start of the video, at 10s, 18s and 25s.
Let me know the good news! :)
I'm putting this under Electrickery but it's just a guess...
Recently, with the colder weather, the Duchess has decided to be a little bitch to start when cold. She used to start absolutely immediately, hot or cold, but now she can take repeated attempts to start. The starter/battery seem perfectly healthy and the engine cranks over nice and quickly. Eventually she'll start on a few cylinders and then the rest cut in over 2-3 seconds.
Where should I start looking?
So, I was rushing.. left the key in the ignition, went to open the boot, caught the door pin on the way out, got to the boot button to see the door swing shut. Locked. No second fob.
Is there any other option to breaking the window? the tops of the doors look a lot sturdier than my old E30's.....
Help!
The car is at work, near the boss's bedroom and the headlights are on. If the alarm goes off overnight, the car probably be dragged away by a tractor.
Just to keep me on my toes and because I've been feeling smug about how well the fob has been working with new batteries and covers... I went to the car this morning and pressed the fob. Nothing.
Tried a few times, checked the red light was coming on the fob.. nothing
OK. unlocked the drivers door to get in. No central locking. OK, this'll be a resync I thought - I'd left the fob in range of little fingers last night, perhaps it's been pressed too many times for the rolling code.
So, fob into the lock, Position 2, tried lock/unlock. Nothing.
Hmm, is that the correct procedure? So I looked it up and did some dance with key to p2, out, hold unlock while pressing lock three times - it didn't work.
So, Nanocom, EKA, start and off to work.
I still can't lock/unlock on the fob and I thought the key should have resynced by now due to friendy sync in a 2000 model. What should I have done?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8qWwy0o8nk
He's put some thought into that!
OK, I want to fit the silicon hose that bypasses the heater throttle body direct to the expansion bottle. The Duchess is using too much coolant, and I'm worried that the many-joined pipe will let go some time and cause a big problem.
So, I can't fit my sausage fingers behind the aircon compressor to get to the stub pipe on the top of the... whatever the stub pipe sticks out of. It looks like I should be able to move the aircon compressor if I undo a couple of bolts and also remove the plastic belt guard. Is that all it is? Should I be wary of anything else? Will I break something, release the gas and kill all the dolphins?
I do have the remote clippy pliers/clip remover things but I can see that there's pink staining the stub pipe so the seal isn't great. I really hope I won't need a jubilee on there because the access is woeful...
The Duchess is now steering better than ever, but the wise old mechanic said that the next place to look would be the Radius Arm Bushes if I wasn't happy. This has got me wondering if there's more improvement to be had. Is there a way to tell how good/bad the bushes are from a visual inspection?
Then if they are suspect, does anyone happen to have one of these?
http://www.lrseries.com/shop/product/listing/7650/3809/LRT-60-004-BUSH-FITTING-TOOL.html
that maybe I could borrow?
If not, would it be something we could buy/share as a group?