There aren't many P38s you can buy that will guarantee how much money they're going to cost you. Recyclers are paying around £200 by weight for them at the moment, so you can be sure you're only going to lose £195
Buy, drive straight to scrappies, and you've had the joy of owning and driving a P38 diesel for only £195 :)
Does it start better with a whiff of Right Guard (very poor man's Easy Start) into the intake?
That's normally a sign that the glow plugs aren't doing their thing properly.
Does the starter turn it over at normal speed?
Well, I know stuff all about oil burners, but given the frosty nights now, weak battery or knackered glow plugs would be a good place to start looking.
Gilbertd wrote:
It can be peeing it out like the Torrey Canyon and they still can't fail it.
No, but they can call in the Fleet Air Arm to attempt to bomb it, and mostly miss :)
Thanks for that Clive
If I were to present the car for MOT next year to them (which I won't be) with a beautifully de-rusted, treated, primed, painted and stone chipped underneath, I'd probably get an advisory along the lines of
"unable to verify the chassis structural condition due to a recent heavy application of paint"
I've seen that actual advisory on a car that was scrupulously restored by a colleage in the Classic Car community
That'd already crossed my mind Chris.
I've now terminated my long standing MOT relationship with the village garage- not just because of the incorrect advisory on the blue one, but as I gave them a hard time over that, they took it personally (as people in small communities do) and absolutely flayed the VSE with advisories when I took it in a couple of weeks later.
It now carries in its MOT history:
"Corrosion to rear offside and nearside chassis, cross member, panhard mounting bracket and shock absorber mounting brackets"
"Corrosion" in this case was the terminology they chose to use for some paint flaking off. Advisories being free text entries, they can use whatever words they choose.
It's now condemned to carry in its history that it's rotting away underneath, which it bloody isn't!
Robbo1 wrote:
Looks very nice. Just need to give the rest of the car a polish to match 😂
Rob.
I suspect the car won't see a polish until next spring now Rob. The occasional bucket of water to wash the worst of the cr@p off maybe.
Bloody thing was mint and gleaming- one trip across Dartmoor to North Devon (by road!) and it came back looking like that. I could have wept.
Black is not a great colour for a daily driver through the winter :(
Before shiny tailpipes:
I agree- looks very similar to factory. No large drainpipes poking out the back either
Current rear end...
Back tyres look like slicks in that shot- there's actually 9mm of tread on them. Strange
Sloth wrote:
Could I trouble you for a picture of it from the rear, if its not visible in the video?
No probs Sloth. I'll just need to tweak it a little more at the back- at the moment the tail pipes can either be level, or protrude by the same amount, but not at the same time!
I'm trying to get them right without cutting the bumper at all. I think it's possible
I'll stick a video up later today for Morat (and anyone else contemplating buying one). Just have to do some heat wrap at the point that it passes the air bag. It has about 6" air gap anyway, but that stainless is an efficient radiator and I don't want the bag cooking if sitting in traffic.
EDITED- much later. Now it's settled it's a 3" air gap- too close for comfort.
That's true Clive. My 270k + miles VSE has had, new Tophat motor (190k), Autobox, Torque Converter (at 220k), Couple of diffs, Props, Several sets of discs, 3 water pumps, 3 radiators, few wheel bearings, 3 sets of airbags and 1 set of coils (!), 5 full sets of tyres.
Quite a long list!
Thanks for the info chaps!
The oil feed to rockers and the water gallery are pretty close together in the head gasket aren't they Chris?
I might be making that up- just trying to visualise last time I had the head off!
The Vogue 132399153607 looks interesting, but put in the cost of a TH short engine and it gets less so!
Wonder why he didn't mention that it was on LPG?
Reunited with The Good Book!
"Most important of the changes was that for 1997 there would be an Autobiography custom finishing service....
.... however Autobiography vehicles did not become available immediately...
.... The Autobiography service was to be inaugurated in spring 1997 by a special edition which would include Carin, TV and video."
Loads of fakes out there
no10chris wrote:
Just done a search on autobiography, was first released 1993, to the public 1994..
On the Classic, possibly, but they even didn't start producing P38's until late '94 :)
Cheap, yes, Autobiography probably not! Don't think they started Autobiographys in 96. Haven't got The Book to hand to check.
Well, that was a bit of a tussle...
The Italians (I'm guessing it's a Direnza as it looks identical) make a very pretty exhaust that all fits together nicely. Only problem is that the car they built the prototype on must have been in an accident and bent like a lozenge.
Before bashing it around and cutting/ bending mount points it would have melted one of the back bags, worn a hole in the petrol tank and burned through the boot floor to the lpg tank.
Anyway, it's on there now (apart from one rubber, which needs a bit more bending on the bar), drove down the workshop track in Access to check that nothing was going to get pinched or hit anything it shouldn't, back up again in Normal, still good, and just for laughs, down again in Extended.
Sounds OK actually. As Chris said, not loud inside but a throaty V8 rumble outside.
Tomorrow, more exhaust stuff, but on the blue one this time.
I don't want roaring!
It'll be an unwanted side effect I think. In a perfect world it would be as quiet as the factory system.