For a key fob repair I found John Dean very good. I sent him two knackered fobs belonging to my vehicle and he repaired them properly, so now I actually have three working key fobs, because, a couple of years ago I bought a new replacement fob from LR.

In regards to Richards evaluation of using the key rather than the fob I have, for the last two years, only used the key because I am tired of getting locked out of my car due to external interference on the fob. It has happened at least 4 times when I have been to large shopping centres, and only once was it the vehicles fault because the door latch had "gone west". I now leave it unlocked outside my house, and quite often when I go to the supermarket. I reckon that the average knobhead who steals cars isn't really interested in a 25 year old RR.

Pierre3.

Richard, this is exactly my worry, that the goons won't know how to do the test correctly, and without trying to haul the handbrake out the roof of the car. I did everything by the manual, and the handbrake is firmly applied at the second click of the lever.

I wondered whether the drum might need a few applications of the brake to clear any oil that might be on the shoes but I suppose that there is already enough leverage on the drum without having to do that.

Anyway, I can only wait to go to the test, next week, and see what happens then.

Pierre3.

As usual, thanks for everyone's contributions. It is very useful as always.

Richard, I was thinking that, indeed, because it does look as if the plastic clip part has just gone brittle. So, I just need until the weather improves so that I can get back under the vehicle.

Dave3d, I kind of made the comment based on two pictures that I saw on the Rimmer Bros site. The aftermarket cable just looks a bit "basic" compared to the LR one, but it is often difficult to judge from online images. The other issue that I had was if I decided to fit a new cable then I would have to strip down the handbrake drum, to attach the brake shoes connector. I know that, when you say it quickly, it appears to be simple but I have a feeling that it would be a major battle trying to disconnect the propshaft, to get the drum off.

If the car fails the annual test again [it is on a re-test for handbrake poor operation], then I will strip the handbrake drum and fir new shoes as I have a vague suspicion that some gearbox oil may have got into the drum from a slight leak on the back of the transfer box. But hopefully not.

Pierre3.

Hi Richard, I have seen crows foot spanners but I just don't think that you could get the leverage on what is more or less a seized connection. It took me about 45 minutes to release the thread, by the age-old backwards and forwards working of the two nuts, after I had disconnected it from the handbrake lever and pulled it down under the car. I could only move the 16mm nut about two or three threads at a time because of the corrosion, and I did begin to think that it might be easier to just fit a new cable !

True to form, a new LR handbrake cable is €144 plus shipping, although there are aftermarket ones cheaper. I'm just not sure that I would buy an aftermarket when you consider how much leverage you can put on a handbrake.

Thanks for the description of the electrical plug shown in the picture. I noticed that mine is only just holding on as the plastic clip, that holds it, is broken on one side. I may have to consider replacing it, but with what I am not sure.

Pierre3.

Harv, if your cable has corrosion on the threads, under the floor and right under the handbrake lever, then you will have to disassemble everything on the transmission tunnel. There is no way that you can get the leverage required under the car because you can't get the required open-ended spanners into the indentation to loosen then. Stripping the handbrake is the only way.

By the way, what is this connector, shown in Richards picture ?

Pierre3.

I got under the vehicle again today, to redo the handbrake adjustment, and it turned out to be a couple of hours of a job, 5 in total !!

I appreciate Richards advice that it is easy to get at everything, and to some extent I agree, but this is not a job for the faint-hearted if you haven't been under the transmission tunnel inside panels. Initially, I made the mistake of tightening the shoes in the drum first, and then checked the free play on the handbrake lever. This is the wrong way around - it needs to be done by releasing the brake shoes right off, and then adjusting the two nuts at the top end of the handbrake cable.

Unfortunately, although Richard rightly says that the adjuster nuts are easily accessible, what isn't mentioned is the the nuts sit in an indentation in the transmission floor, and this prevents one getting two spanners, a 20mm and a 16mm, onto the nuts to turn them enough to take up any slack. And this also assumes that the nuts will turn in opposing directions and are not stuck due to corrosion and rust and weather. Mine were jammed tight.

So therefore one has to take the cable off the handbrake lever, and drop it down under the vehicle, spray it liberally with releasing oil, and then gradually free it up, until it will adjust freely backwards and forwards. Sounds simple ? Well, no so simple - to release the cable you have to take out the electric window switch pack [straight forward], and pull off the pin holding the cable to the lever. Then, in my case I realised that there was no way to push the locating pin back through the lever and head of the cable. This is where the work starts - you have no option but to remove the whole centre console, including the head of the gearshift, the heating controls panel, and both tunnel side panels.

Then you need to pull the pin that keeps the lever connected to to the cable quadrant, so that eventually you have the lever free to lift upwards vertically, to allow you to lift the whole centre console up and out. This finally gives you access to the lower cable locating pin, which you can now pull out, allowing the cable to be pulled through the floor from underneath the vehicle.

Obviously, it is important to make a note of all the screws, nuts [under the armrest storage box, look carefully and pull up the flat base in the box, it comes out] which hold the back of the console, and bolts, and keep a note of the plugs that fit into all the various connections - heater control plugs, window pack plug, handbrake lever switch plug, gearshift mode plug, etc.

Finally, if requiring less travel on the handbrake lever, open up the adjuster nuts on the cable and push it back through the floor. It will be a bit of a fight to reconnect it but a vice grips on the cable, to lever the head of the cable upwards, is useful in getting the pin back into the lower quadrant. Then, with the handbrake off, get back under the vehicle and do the brake shoe adjustment again, as per RAVE.

All that's left to do is replace all the centre console parts, remembering to reconnect all the plugs, and put the screws back in their correct places.

And all done in under five hours - just.

Pierre3.

Richard, I will recheck the free play again this weekend. I think that I backed it off 1 complete turn so I probably need to do it again. The biggest problem I have is trying to adjust the cable under the car. I can, as mentioned earlier, see and access it easily, but I can't get two spanners up to the adjuster nuts to adjust them.

Firstly, they are very tight, probably due to not being adjusted for a long time; secondly, I can't move the rubber boot that covers the smaller nut; thirdly, need angled spanners to get into the space where the cable goes through the floor; and lastly, I am only guessing that one nut is 17mm and the large one right under the floor is 20mm but I am not sure.

I am thinking that the solution must be to take out the window switch pack and the gear stick panel to get at the bottom of te handbrake and disconnect everything from there.

Pierre3.

Richard, thanks for that. I had a root this morning and although I have 8.8 high tensile allen bolts they are all too long, and of course they are nearly all metric anyway !!

So off the nut and bolts supplier, and get some UNF jobbies.

By the way, I gave up with the tie-wraps as I could only get two into the bolt holes. I can't understand why LR never thought of this when designing the P38.

Pierre3.

Richard, that's the thing I wondered about - is there any reason not to use normal nuts and bolts ? I have a big selection of assorted nuts and bolts from my work days, including things like coach screws M12, M14, M16 etc., stainless steel nuts and bolts and self tapping screws, and Allen head bolts and nuts. I have at least 6 boxes of stainless steel washers from M8's up to big 4mm thick penny washers.

I wouldn't use the SS bolts as I know from experience that the shear off quite easily.

So I will have a root about in my big spares box. I didn't think about Allen bolts.

What about going even further to ease of removal - using tie-wraps !!!! 😂 .

Pierre3.

So, I got under the car this afternoon, and it's just as well that I did !! I have looked at RAVE for instructions, and I saw a video by a guy doing a handbrake shoes replacement, and for whatever reason I thought that the handbrake drum was beside the rear diff, but it turns out that it is at the back of the gearbox. Who would have thought !!!!!!

I tightened up the handbrake until I couldn't turn the brake drum, even though there was only a small amount of free play on the propshaft. I was able to tighten the drum so that I couldn't move it and then backed it of just enough for the drum to turn.

I am just hoping that the shoes are good as I see that there is an oil leak at the joint on the back of the transfer box, or the gearbox, whichever is the one right beside the handbrake drum. There is oil on the drum but hopefully it has not got into the drum itself.

Pierre3.

Just a final note from me - when I took out the seats and replaced the foam base I didn't have any issue with the motors when refitting everything. I didn't replace the motors and also I didn't move the seat base on the runners. When I put everything back nothing had changed, but I don't know what would happen if you take the seat base off the runners and refit it in a different position.

Pierre3.

Hi guys, thanks for the advice, as usual.

Thorst, I did wonder if that would happen, and answers one question.

Richard, I did read through RAVE and I gather that tightening the handbrake is straightforward, but I was only wondering about turning the handbrake drum, to see when the shoes start to bite, in the same way as I would have done when doing the handbrake on a normal car. Tightening up the shoes until the wheel stops turning, then back off the adjuster slightly so that the wheel turns freely again.

I am not sure that even with the suspension lifted up to maximum I could get under the car to work comfortably, so I was going to jack it up a bit to give myself more wriggle room !!

I know that I keep looking for information but another item has cropped up - I asked Rimmers for a price to send new propshaft guard bolts and propshaft to rear diff nuts and bolts and they said that there isn't a propshaft guard on the 2001 P38, and there are only three nuts and bolts on the propshaft/rear diff UJ. But RAVE appears to show four, and from what I remember of Ford RS 2000's there were always four bolts connecting the propshaft to the diff. Surely Rimmers have this wrong ?

Pierre3.

I would like to ask a further question regarding the handbrake - when I get the rear of the vehicle lifted off the ground, with the ignition off, will the rear wheels turn without causing the front wheels to turn.

Obviously, I don't want to be under the vehicle with the rear on axle stands, turning the rear diff, and the vehicle suddenly moves forwards or backwards.

With the ignition off is the centre diff freewheeling, or do I have to follow the instructions listed in RAVE to disconnect the centre diff as per towing or brake testing ?

I only have two axle stands and I don't want, under any circumstances, to keep the front of the vehicle lifted on the jack only.

Pierre3.

Hi Harv, I have looked at that schematic but, unfortunately, it does not list the part numbers or descriptions so I still don;t know the correct sizes.

I have emailed Jaguar Land Rover asking if they will give me the correct specifications, but after 4 days I have heard nothing. If that stays the same by Tuesday then I will start ringing LR main dealers to check with the parts departments.

Pierre3.

I do get annoyed when I find fasteners are different colours when replaced. It just looks so scrapyard looking when there are three or four different shades of caps holding the trim in place.

Leolito, I agree with you about the seat electrics - I rechecked the new one that I bought and the motors are wired differently. There are only two or three going into the new ones as opposed to two seperate cables and plugs going into the motors on my existing seats. I expect that these are to do with the memory options that are on my seats.

I know that the long, large fir tree fasteners are available but the small ones - nadda. However, I have bought these fasteners so hopefully they will work:

They may need to be painted a bit darker but I will wait to see what they look like when I compare them to the original colour ones.

Pierre3.

I decided that I would replace the foam rubber base in the drivers front seat, as the side squab thingy had got a bit worn down and didn't look quite right. I was very lucky to find a complete seat base, new old stock, for sale so I bought it fairly cheaply. It was out of a Vogue Anniversary or something like that, I think. Anyway, it had green leather whereas mine is Light Stone [or Lightstone], but as I was keeping my original leather I wasn't bothered about the new seat cover. My leather is in good nick so I didn't want to make it obvious that I had replaced the foam base.

It turned out to be an interesting job, and not very difficult. There are a few things that needed a bit of thought about. For instance, reading RAVE says go under the seat and unplug the electrical connectors. As I found out there is quite a difference between different seat bases. On the Vogue seat base, when I ordered it, I could see that it had the same set-up of motors as mine, with a mounting plate with the cable connectors clipped to it, but when I looked under my existing seat it turned out that mine has an outstation bolted to the base.

So the new seat base has only cable connectors and two yellow relays for the motors but mine has a full outstation box with many more connections, including the seat back controls. Therefore, I couldn't just remove my leather seat cover and put it onto the new seat base, I had to remove both foam rubber seat bases and then remove the leather from both and swap them around. The most difficult bit is getting all the hog rings out, but when I read up about replacing them a lot of people on different sites have used tie-wraps in place of metal hog rings. As I don't have either hog rings or hog ring pliers, which would have meant waiting for them to be delivered if I ordered them off the internet, I decided to use tie-wraps.

Being in the electrical trade for many years I have a large collection of various sized tie-wraps so I used fairly wide, heavy duty ones and I reckon that they are stronger than the original hog rings but are just as unobtrusive. When you now look at the seat you wouldn't know the difference and the seat is now much firmer than it was.

Another thing I learned was that, as there are a couple of electrical plugs that need to be connected that go into the vehicle wiring system, when you put the seat back in position there is no way you can get you hand in under the seat. For some reason LR decided to mount the outstation under the seat and face the plug connections facing backwards and with the plug clips, which you need to press down to release the plugs, facing upwards right under the seat. So to unplug them you need to unscrew the outstation so that you can turn it upside-down to unplug, but when you refit the seat you put it roughly in position and then put two wooden blocks, or any other support, and lift the back of the seat right up. Then you can get your hand under the seat to reconnect the plugs that are coming from the wiring loom in the car.

As there are three axles running across the seat base, from side to side, there is no room to work under the seat. On the Vogue seat base it is completely different as there is no outstation and therefore quite a bit of room to get your hand underneath.

The only other pain in the ass are the fir tree fasteners that hold the ABS plastic surrounds, valances, in position. I found that they are very difficult to remove and can't really be used again to refit the valances. As they are NLA [no longer available] one just has to look for alternatives. I used the plastic rivet things from a Landrover Defender roof lining which have a body that pushes into the hole and a cap that then pushes into the body, effectively causing the end of the body to spread and grip. But I do suspect that the fir tree fasteners are likely to be available somewhere for newer cars made by somebody else.

The end result is that you can't tell that the seat has been apart, everything works as it did before, but the base is now firmer with more shape than it was. There are a few posts elsewhere that suggest using the seat base from the passenger side seat but I did email a few breakers and the passenger seats that they all had were no better than my existing drivers seat so that wouldn't have been worth it. And, I believe that there are a couple of retrim companies willing to make on but for nowhere near what I bought my new, old stock seat base for. I paid £100 including delivery, whereas, if you could get one but they are NLA, a new one would cost around nearly £300 if I remember correctly. I'm not quite sure whether the motors are inter-changeable though as they appear to be wired a bit differently. I wonder whether this is to do with memory option that I have on my seats.

Pierre3.

Hi, yet another question !!

I need to do a job on the handbrake and therefore the propshaft guard and the rear propshaft connection to the rear diff has to come off. I have a UJ 9/16th extended socket [from a few years back for some reason], but I wonder if somebody can tell me the correct bolt length for the rear diff so that I can order new ones before I start. Also, if possible what length are the propshaft guard bolts ?

I looked through the RAVE manual but it doesn't give the sizes unfortunately. I just know that the head size of the guard bolts and the diff nuts all seem to be 3/8 BSF but maybe someone could confirm this, please ?

Pierre3.

Thanks Richard. Great advice, I will have a look inside the pollen filters tomorrow.

Pierre3.

Hi, thanks a lot for the very useful information.

So, a couple of things - I think that I might buy a new pressure cap as I don't know how old mine is. But it certainly explains the coolant on the ground behind the front wheel, so thanks to Richard for that information.

Aragorn - I have a new seat base that I am fitting to the drivers' front seat [well, it wouldn't be the drivers' rear seat, would it - dohhh], so I took out the seat today, and that gave me a better look at the carpet under the heater, and guess what - I can see coolant on the transmission tunnel carpet just above the footrest. So I am pretty sure that [a] the heater matrix is leaking, or the seals into it are, and [b] I need a new pressure cap.

I am 98% certain that the engine is sound, it's a diesel by the way, as there hasn't been any noticeable change in performance. Not a guarantee, I know, but there is no white smoke anywhere, the oil level hasn't changed, and the exhaust is nice and clean. I did fit a new water pump and thermostat last Autumn, and I fitted a new Direnza radiator about three months ago. My water temperature sits steadily at dead centre and never goes up above that. When I first got the vehicle 5 years ago the temperature never went above the blue section, which I thought was correct, even though there were mentions on the internet that this is a problem, and not a good thing. Then my water pump broke the end off !!

Leolito, I understand how your issue worked, but mine is definitely using or loosing the coolant. Definitely leaking into the cabin, so along with a weak pressure cap I can understand where all the coolant is going.

The biggest issue now is fixing the leaking matrix seals, if that is the problem. I could also do with sorting the blend motors which I think are a bit iffy, and [does this ever stop] I think that the passenger side heater fan may have stopped working. About 18 months ago it started making a noise as if a big leaf was stuck in the fan blades but it would stop if I switched the fans on and off a couple of times. But it would sometimes come back unexpectedly.

Pierre3.