Ha, nice work on the £7.50 core! I think I paid £20 for the one in my old car, seemed reasonable enough in quality. Might have to try and get hold of one of these ones with bigger hose barbs Marty has mentioned.

Taking the dash out wasn't all that difficult that I recall, though this time I think I'll take the front seats out just to give a bit more room without risking damaging them. I think the most irritating bit was actually the glovebox mechanism... it was just really fiddly to get it to play ball last time. Just all time consuming - but being able to get the heater box out leaving the A/C evaporator behind and sort the flaps out is handy.

There is a plastic support at the rear of the heater box that kinda supports them, but the whole thing is still a bit crap. As you say, any movement on the engine bay side still moves the other end of the pipe and disturbs the seal. I've done the o-rings once and it lasted a while before. As I wanted to remove the heater box to fix the binding flaps, when it then started leaking again I wasn't missing the opportunity to stick an Audi core in.

As both my new P38 and parents P38 have binding flaps and/or dodgy blend motors, and leaking o-rings.... I'm just going to strip both dashboards out and do it once and for all.

Noticed the coolant dropping again... seems this time the radiator/thermostat bypass hose (the one that Ts from the top hose to the stat) has a hole in it that must be opening up as it softens, annnnnnd the heater core o-rings are leaking too. I swear the heater core leaking is like a rite of passage on a P38.

Three P38s, and by the time I'm done, all three would have had Audi heater cores... well technically one has it already... soon to be removed before it gets cubed!

What with water ingress, if it isn't leaking into the car, its leaking out of it...

I hadn't seen this thread :)

Sorry Mark, I haven't forgotten about your email - I'll reply to it now!

Also not worthy of seeing replies, or even the reply box :(

So the bad news is, my heated windscreen has just failed altogether now. Got power at both sides and the ground is okay etc, but nada. Not drawing any current at all. Oh well. And I've found an LPG gas leak -_- Thought I kept smelling it, those stupid use once hose clamps... the only one remaining on the vapouriser has come a bit loose. Tomorrow's problem.

Good news is my passenger side blower is fine, it was just RL7 / the fusebox causing the problem. I've cut the wire to the blower off from the blue plug under the fusebox, and mounted an external relay with a new feed. Relay is just mounted with number plate tape for now - it is surprisingly strong stuff. Annoyingly I had nothing to crimp to extend the wire, so I have two fuse holders...

Oh and for anyone wondering, a blower on full pelt draws about 17 amps with a clean pollen filter.

If you can't find it, find a specialist who can fill the system up with nitrogen - this is better than assuming a system is okay because it holds vacuum for a little while, as it'll be under similar pressure to operating. Once under pressure, they'll check everywhere with soapy water for bubbles forming like you would on the EAS.

Like I said, check out the pipes that run along the firewall if you do this and press the foam away behind them.

Just seen Wickes do some 6mm galvanised wire mesh. That and some black spray paint will do nicely.

Hopefully it'll be the case of poor connections - seems odd the whole drivers side suddenly stopped too. Many heating/cooling related things to look at tomorrow!

Mmmm I meant to order some mesh this week to do that job as Marty has done. Last time I had the panel off the old car, I remember seeing two connections in the middle of the screen at the bottom, not sure if the other connections are at the opposite ends or at the top somewhere.

Oh bummer :(

Well I suppose if I can get the other blower going and free up the flaps that will make things easier in the cold, the V8 warms up quickly enough anyway!

Mmm I'd seen it uses a pair of relays - I was hoping my issues were just the box as I know the one from my breaker is fine.

The drivers side of my screen mostly works(ed), but the entire passenger side from the middle of the screen onwards doesn't do a thing. Now the drivers side has stopped completely too. I need to take the scuttle panel off to check the connections under there and fit some mesh etc, so I will check for voltage with the meter at the same time. Fuses are good though I can't remember now if I've swapped the relays or not to rule them out.

More to look at this weekend!

Oh I could have sworn I only saw one on Island4x4, looking again though, quite a few options.

Hmm. Well I guess that doesn't really affect my RL7 plan if they're not the same. Will have to see if the heated windscreen fault lies elsewhere, stopped working completely again.

Hmmm! We do have a Pirtek in Poole. I'll have to investigate.

So on my silver P38, RL7 is looking rather crispy, and the passenger side blower isn't running at all. Whether it is the relay or blower at fault, I plan to swap the fusebox with the one from my breaker that looks in better condition. When I disconnected it though from the old car, I noticed the blue connector had clearly gotten a bit hot on one pin too. I guess this will be the same on the silver car.

I'm assuming this pin is fed by RL7, though I haven't cracked out the multimeter to confirm this yet.

If it is, my plan is to cut this wire out of the blue connector, extend it slightly and mount a decent relay externally, fed from a new fused feed from the battery. So the only feed from the fusebox is the ground/positive for the relay coil. I know recently a similar idea was posted up on the other forum, but it seems to me that it would be better to bypass the not so great fusebox tracks / connectors altogether.

Anyone foresee any issues?

Hmmmmm

I'd probably be able to get the whole thing off with pipes on the breaker, but doing the same on the other car without removing a load of stuff might be a bigger challenge.

I'll have a go at getting it off, might get lucky.

I think my gearbox cooler is leaking - having washed down the radiator and two coolers, I seem to have a bit of oil reappearing on the bottom of the two coolers. Need to sort this before putting the condenser back on and filling the A/C up.

I've got spares on my breaker, but I've read that these tend to not come off too easily or at all without breaking the ends off. Any tips on how I might remove the pipes without damage? Plusgas? Heat? Prayer?

If you can wait till the next day, get the MF31. For the price it can't be beat.

While the V8 will start just fine on a smaller battery, unless you already have a spare battery, its pretty much false economy buying anything else. Both my green and silver ones had/have little ~60ah 600-650cca batteries, but as soon as it dies on the silver one I'll be getting another MF31 for it. Any extended period of cranking and it will start to sulk pretty quickly, or jump starting other vehicles.

I don't really have a use for either and can store them for the time being - I'm not letting the replacement one go to scrap with the car, there must be a cause for its lethargic performance. The garden is already filling with various bits, whats an engine block or two? More interesting than flower pots.

I might hang on to one of them in case I ever need a core for a replacement for my silver P38, I guess the worse of the two. Might even find the replacement in the green one is a top hatted block already... not sure how I'd tell until removing the heads. That would be a nice surprise :)

Ah temptation, I know it too well... looks at all the crap around me

Do you still want either the of the two I have here?

It's a 1996 GEMS, but with clear lights, the later 5 bar grey leather (though I believe without airbags, and the heater elements don't work). Radiator is basically brand new, probably done 1500 miles.

Let me know what you need and I'll see what I can help with :)