A blue P38 would blend in better than a white one. I was pulled over by a silver Focus estate that was unmarked about 10 years ago, and only realised it wasn't marked up as a police car after they'd been round, checked the tyres on my own (also Focus back then) car and were sending me off on my way again.

The calibrated speedo on the Thor always seemed odd as all evidence of any extra uses in real life are a couple of holes in the dash from (could be anything) something once being there and an extra aerial. I always assumed it never got used for its special purpose and probably had a car phone once tbh.

Blood bulldozer sounds like a band name c. late 1990's/early 2000's metalcore/nu-metal/whatever it's called at the moment.

So that's what police mode does - makes sense, I'd not thought about things like the tailgate - was imagining run-lock ignition and similar. Probably that's done externally to the becm tbh, if at all. On the subject of wiring, mine's got a nice puzzle lined up for when it goes wrong, a Laserline immobiliser which seems to be wired into fuel pump and ignition. The other car, the '99 has a special vehicle plate and calibrated speedo, but I'm pretty sure it was never a police car. It's always been blue for example.

Re. Cruise Control, if it's petrol I think the default might actually be to "not fitted." It's a job that's hijacked by the specific ecu(s) is how I understand it. Before I rewired the comms port I'd get a 50/50 on whether it reported 'Police' or not on the '97, the '99 always says it is a police car, although I suspect it needs a clean/rewire itself. (This is, on the '97 HSE, both before and after the becm went wrong and had to be repaired).

Yup - it does indeed! I CTRL/F searched 'Idle' earlier to check it was the right document, should have read it more. I personally suspect the RAVE figure is wrong. That kg/h figure in the Poole/GOMOG document would make some semblance of sense if it were g/minute (just under 27 kg/h I think) but who does that?

I think you're right about the Intake sensor, I've looked over a couple of GEMS cars now with the nanocom and (didn't always note the calculated load though - next time I get the chance on another car, I will look at it) it seems a common thing, mine's almost exactly the same as you describe, give of take the odd degree. Somewhere I have read or heard the same about it coming into play for high temps only/mostly, and not low and I'm almost positive it wasn't one of your older posts.

GEMS notes for morgans - "This sensor is located in the hose leading to the air cleaner.The signal is used to retard the ignition when the air temperature is above 55 degrees."

Might be that I was thinking of, GEMS by Poole or something the pdf is called.

Off the top of my head my GEMS (petrol only, no LPG) reads roughly 8 or 10 times the rave figure, or I think that's what I worked it out as. That was over a year ago, but my figures (I have written down somewhere) are roughly 20-25 calculated load.

MAF readings looking right from idle and at revs, and something like 20-30 on the nanocom for calc' load has happened to mine with different MAF sensors, TPS and idle screw settings. Either it reports incorrectly or rave is wrong, I haven't been able to 'prove' the car's at fault otherwise. My intake air sensor is about half a day slow to pick up, but I can't see it affecting warm running that much - maybe I'm wrong there, but they are either a bit hard to find/remortgage required, there's a reason I didn't buy a new one anyway.

I've read through a fair few older forum notes and a bit of googling in the past, other cars seem to give similar results if I remember right. Could be wrong.

romanrob wrote:

For next time i'm in there... how did you split the heater box from the evaporator?

In terms of top of heater off from bottom to remove the bit with blend motors and core leaving the exposed aircon end - there is one screw in the top (on mine, the upper left of the heater inside the top duct facing towards the bonnet). After the middle metal frame is out of the way and the four big floor bolts for the main dash frame slackened the heater can be pulled up and out leaving the aircon end in the car.

Rest of car without heater (1) -

It might be the screwhole visible in the plastic over the heat exchanger but not sure tbh. There is also a new screw there now, and the old one is somewhere in the heater. Managed to nearly forget it and then drop it in after the whole lot had been squeezed and wriggled back into place. Vac plus garden hose & magnets on sticks haven't found it, so it's still in there. Also - on mine the airduct for the screen vents under the dash is separate from the dash itself (which has come unstuck over the years anyway - delaminated, need to fix it when I finally do the blend motors after the winter) and might/might not conceal the relevant air outlet. Needs to come off anyway whichever.

(1) - Somewhere I had a photo of the heater box leaking all over the office floor, but I can't find it right now.

EDIT - Sorry Gilbert, It's not that I didn't read your post but I think I was typing mine slowly so yours popped up between starting and finishing. Yes, it's exactly that - one screw.

Btw: Leolito, it's the middle bit that (really takes a bit of pulling and the 4 big main floor bolts loosened off) has to come out, on mine it's the alloy coloured not Oxford blue bits.

j_rov wrote:

How long did it take start to finish please?

I did mine in one weekend as well. Dash out and back isn't too bad when you get going. It can probably be done quicker - and depends on the level of what else you want to do (I still need to get and fit blend motors and therefore haven't glued the dash itself back together, screen vents are still popped out a bit), the wood/alloy strip over the glove box needed repairing as I broke off all the prongs that hold it in place but oddly a cheap 2 pack 'magic metal' of all things worked on that (I think it might just be grey Araldite actually).

Happy Christmas to everyone on here, probably the most helpful and informative forum there is out in internet land. Cheers all, and enjoy.

Magnatec 10W-40.

Bolt wrote:

little aspirator fan

Mine was clogged with (dog?) hair - used a little hooked spike made from a small paperclip, a torch and a vacuum cleaner to free it up.

no10chris wrote:

rad products in a p38, I’ve taken rads out that we’re totally blocked, they don’t have the biggest of water ways

Cheers, totally agree. I can't count the number of times I've heard 'it had a leak' followed by 'so I put radweld into it' followed by 'it blew all its coolant out and overheated again' - If that car doesn't have half its liners dragged into strange positions it's a lucky one. Something I'm mildly paranoid about on the HSE tbh. I use it from time to time for work, my daily car is my GEMS and also my to-and-from site vehicle most of the time. One of these days I'll take the Thor to bits (if there's anything left of it) and have a good look at it. Even worse, last time I checked it the Bosch had water not coolant, and as a lazy sniff test all I got was a nose full of hot radweld vapour. Great. It's also impossible to stop other people mixing coolants if they do use it. Pink plus Blue seems to make a nice sludge. Flushed the GEMS out as best as I could when I first got it (it had meths-purple coolant and the people indicated as having serviced it - I rang and asked - said it was likely screenwash, probably right actually). Runs on 50/50 blue now.

I used radweld once in a Renault 5 I had back in the 90's. Didn't help at best. Decided it's counterproductive in the main. I can't imagine what it does to the convoluted paths coolant has to take in the Rover engine.

Bolt wrote:

They must just be blowing the "excess" coolant out when they get nice and hot.

The Thor does - if I fill it a bit more than I meant to it soaks the wing. The Gems must do, but I've not seen/noticed it happen. On my -sample size of two- comparison, the Gems seems to run at a lower overall pressure - although it's improved since the thermostat finally gave up, reckon it'd been dying for a while. Gets warm now. *

-*The Bosch car is also dosed with radweld frequently, which I hate tbh, and isn't mine - I just have a good look over it from time to time when I use it. The Gems is my main car and is not allowed radweld/k-seal or similar the only car I've got that I'd consider using them in is a Citroën flat twin, and for obvious reasons that isn't going to happen.

leolito wrote:

the knee panel

Mine's held together with glue and duct tape. It is likely psychological but the anthracite/darker one seems to be a little less brittle. Or possibly it's an age thing. The beige lightstone panel really is prone to self destructing at the best of times.

They all seem to have a very slightly different 'comfortable level' - try as I might, I have never got mine to sit at the top-up level and stay there. There's a fair amount of expansion and contraction going on.

What I have done on mine after the first drain and refresh (not a full drain-down, that's slightly involved) and making pretty sure it's bled right, heater's coming on hot etc, is to mark the level on the tank in pencil (even if it's gone opaque it might give an idea, could always use a strip of card to dip-check it and compare).

There's now a pencil mark for cold and sitting still and a pencil mark for warmed up a bit, switched off. Both are below the 'fill to' mark on each car. The two engines have slightly different happy levels to them, but they are (and also all other P38s I've seen/driven/worked on) both in the same rough area.

It isn't all that bad - once the dash is out and it's all apart, it makes sense to do it. I replaced the core on mine and put it back together having not tested my 'repair' on the passenger heat motor. Then spent the summer wondering why I didn't do it when it was in bits. Now I need to take the dash back out before next summer (or see if it's workable through the glovebox hole but probably, it isn't). The only part of the heater job that was looking to be problematic was getting it out from the metal frame in the centre above the transmission tunnel, turns out the large bolts (4x) that go into the floor will allow enough wiggle room when loosened to get the top unbolted and pull the top half of the heater out and off from the a/c bit. Quick edit - looking at my photos the entire silver-grey middle frame came out leaving only the car-coloured bits.

Hmm. That's a puzzling one. I've had the rear carpets out of mine for most of the year (back in now) and the front cill plates/covers up a couple of times - the loom routes along the outer sides seem quite dry on mine. Haven't checked the wheel well since I put the boot floor cover back in - I replaced the rear hatch seal and looked at all the usual places as it was filling up regularly (not just condensation, or I don't think it was). The soundproofing was sponge-damp and any leaks vs condensation monitoring quite hard to do. With the soft finishes all out it stayed dry even with a hose on it, but of course it was summer, warm-ish and the floor hatch was off. Will find out how well it copes with Autumn plus carpets back on-board.

I did discover an absence of visible leaks excepting the flaps/vents for air-out at the tailgate top, that had filled up inside the wiper motor casing. After cleaning and replacing it sort-of-properly it doesn't seem to be doing that now.

Mind you, my heater is stuck at full heat, passenger side at the moment (had the dash out and decided that dismantling and cleaning the motor might work - it doesn't, should have done it properly). If that circulates round it might at least help keep the inside dry.

JMCLuimni wrote:

Another location of water ingress onto the floor is through the holes used to hold the lower windshield trim in place.

That's worth bearing in mind for any work in that area, they break fairly readily - I didn't order enough last time I took that end of the car apart. Opting instead for silicone all round the existing bits. The screws for the covers and bits under that area, where the bonnet hinges down and over - intake plenum cover or something- sit in little plastic things that manage to leak in interesting ways as well. Looked at it again last week and the sealant is showing its age now. That said a combination of cleaning out under the filter housings including their drains and resealing (including replacing the pollen filter covers) did work better than expected.

Martyuk's reply - "Pollen filter housing - or a buildup of leaves etc" sums up the main cause of my leaks, when it DOES leak it can't run away if they're blocked I suppose.

The GEMS decided to throw a bunch of EAS and other sensor faults at me this morning, as I started it to go to the MOT place. Just found out it's passed though, which is nice. Much like Dave3d a few posts above, stress levels dropping to normal. Advisory on oil leak, will look at that in due course. In sympathy (probably) the Thor threw out an EAS fault as well, whilst out at work - timer relay out/in again sorted it for now. (Nanocom is with the local garage in the '97 as there is a tyre to look at as well and they might need it).

Yesterday, finally reinstalled the rear soundproofing and carpets having dried it out (MOT is due in October so didn't want it to be empty for that - checked diff oil and transfer fluid and levels/greased props last weekend), and had another look at the rear seat positioning and seat-back latching arrangements which were a bit intermittent in terms of actually working.