So it looks like I need to learn another skill over the next few days. My front to back and both rear little solid pipes are corroded, and they do look pretty nasty.

What I can't fathom is the point of the little solid lines? Why can the lines from the front not go straight to the long flexi hose brackets on the car?

http://workshop-manuals.com/landrover/p38/p38a808.png

Mine is like the top box - on my phone and chrome won't play nicely with the insert image box!

I can rarely flash my headlights without latching my mainbeam on and having to pull the stalk to turn them off again.

I assume this is a(nother) fairly common P38 thing, as both my own P38s have had dodgy stalks, and a bit of Googling brings up a few posts. Having a spare, I cracked it open and couldn't reliably get the flashing function to work without being unable to then trigger the 'main beam latch' buttons on the PCB. That may have something to do with me having read the wiring diagram backwards and I was testing only with a multimeter. So what I thought was the flash wire was the main beam, and vice versa.

Gave up on that plan having not realised, and decided I'd use the speed limiter button as my flasher control instead. I find the speed limiter relatively useless, given it doesn't limit speed, and setting the speed at which it beeps isn't great.

I actually made two attempts at this, as I cocked up and got it reversed the first time. On this stalk, during my attempts at spacing the mechanicals inside out to get the buttons pressing properly, I actually stopped the main beam button from being pressed entirely, yet seemingly managed to get the flashing pads working. I have no idea how I did that, but hey. That left me needing to swap the flash and main beam functionality around, which was easy as conveniently the flash and main beam pins on the socket are next to each other. So all you have to do is cut the leg at the bend on the second in pin, bend it over slightly to the left, and solder together. Then, take wire #6 from the PCB, and solder it onto the back of the pin whose leg you just cut.

Now I can flash by pressing the limiter button reliably, and a short or long pull on the stalk turns on/off the main beam.

I'll have another crack at repairing the now spare stalk, but it seems like a pretty poor design. Makes more sense on other cars that pulling forward flashes, pushing back puts main beam on...

So a couple of times my Bosch P38 has refused to start - not immobiliser related, as it would sometimes start and die, or attempt to fire and fail etc. Until yesterday, it hadn't done it for months. I figured yesterday, it was because it was reallllly low on petrol and on a slope. Forced it to start on gas, and with my foot on the floor, it eventually went, but ran horribly for a little bit. Figured that was normal - cold vapouriser etc. It started fine once I'd moved the car, so I thought nothing of it.

Went to leave work today and..... it wouldn't start. Not on petrol or gas. I leave the Nanocom in the car now, so I plugged it in and initially went to check the immobiliser when I noticed...

For a cold engine... and even an up to temp engine, something looked a bit amiss here. Popped the bonnet and poked the sensor wiring/plug a bit as best I could. Got back in the car, and the reading had dropped to a far more reasonable 28c - car had been sat in the sun, so I went with it. Started straight away. I left the Nanocom plugged in though, and I noticed on my way home the reading would only ever show 59c, usually when at a standstill, or 85.5 when on the move. The gearbox had also resorted to jolting forward when coming to a stop - something it used to do a few months ago but stopped without me noticing. The idle would also jump up 2-300revs when the reading dropped too, which it often does randomly when its damp out.

Back home, A/C compressor unbolted and out of the way, I could actually get at the plug to check it out. Think I found the problem:

Red and green/blue wires both suffering insulation breakdown and shorting out on each other.

And fixed. Cut the plug off, soldered on some short flying leads and then reattached to the loom. I drowned the joints at the plug in resin so any vibration shouldn't cause any breakages etc. Best I could do without a replacement plug from another loom, short of just taping up the broken insulation and hoping for the best.

Coolant temperature faults cleared in the engine and gearbox ECU and all is back to normal, and my slight idle vibration also appears to be gone! Idle hasn't been shooting up either, though we'll see tomorrow when its cold and probably damp again if this was also causing that. Amazing how many problems a little bit of dodgy wiring can cause. I love how the Nanocom description states the fault would light the MIL. Nope. Even unpluged, no MIL - and it does work.

Pondering a little lighting modification.

Are the front fog lights driven by a relay or a mosfet in the BECM?

If its by mosfet, does the BECM recognise when a bulb is blown, or does it just remain blissfully ignorant of the condition of the front fogs?

It would genuinely be quicker to list the things on my car that don't either leak fluids out or let them in... I think the only thing that thankfully hasn't been leaking so far is the petrol side of things! Otherwise, coolant, oil, ATF, rain water, refrigerant... everything has either been leaking into or out of the car. And now I've (hopefully) sorted the air con, I braked a ltitle sharply earlier today and a small downpour made its way out of the heater box into the passenger footwell.

Guess I'll be checking the condensate drains tomorrow... unless its the freaking pollen filter/blower/scuttle panel. Pretty sure it was condensate from where it came from and the fact it hasn't done it at all on that side till now.

I'm looking for some replacement door speakers - the 6.5" woofers. All four of mine are in various forms of buggered - either seized or torn foam surrounds. When I've had a working (or mostly working) set the sound has been very good and I'm happy with it. I replaced my two front woofers with those from a cheap FLI Comp 6 component set (not using the included crossovers or tweeters) and at low volumes it was good... but at reasonable-high volumes it was rubbish. Lacked any sort of mid-range bass. Comparing one of these FLI units to a working OEM one, the OEM woofer responds far better to a greater range.

Plenty of suggestions when searching online for replacements, but I can't find any that mention speakers I can get in the UK.

Have any of you fitted something I can get locally that work well? I want to avoid buying used OEM items as of the 8 I now have had / still have, only two are in good enough shape to use.

Went on holiday for 8 days and sadly didn't account for the battery lasting. So im expecting fun with the EKA, which I have for my VIN, but I have a feeling the BECM may have been changed at some point - not entirely sure mind you.

What's the best way for avoiding angering things when it comes to powering up etc? It was locked by the fob before I left which I think screws me over a bit if I have the wrong code.

Key in ignition in position 2 the best way to go?

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...

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?

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?

Made a bit of a cock up and have removed the fusebox and enough other bits that it would be a pain to put things back now just to open the tailgate.

Is there a way of pulling the solenoid from within the car to open it? I figure remove the carpeted panel and hopefully it'll be there in front of me, but I can't remember if you can actually get to it now, or if the panel will actually be removable from the inside. Any ideas?

I guess they could leak?

Mine doesn't, but it is really eager to lock up and drive the fan an awful lot. I'm wondering if this is a trait of cheaper viscous couplings - both the Britpart one I put on my first P38 and whatever unit is on my new one do the same thing. It drowns out the V8 completely :(

Firstly, the engine isn't overheating, building any excessive pressure or really doing anything out of the ordinary (then again, it is a Rover V8, maybe that isn't normal). It can sit for a couple of hours at "70" and behave itself, and I can sit in traffic for ages barely moving without any issue.

My commute is say 20 miles on the motorway and then 8 miles or so minor roads through town etc. As soon as I come off the motorway, the fan will lock up, and then never shut up at low speeds. I get that is sort of the point - but its 5c outside, I wouldn't have thought it would take long to appease things and let go again. It will do the same from cold if I'm driving around town for long enough.

The red P38 we have doesn't do this... the fan will lock up from the heat soak in the engine bay if you stop and restart it a little while later, and then cool off fairly quickly and go quiet again. Otherwise it remains quiet - even after a run on the motorway.

What's your experience?

I have a couple of issues with my HEVAC that I've yet to work out.

The one I'm stumped on currently is the LCD backlight is dead - it's not the bulb, I've checked and replaced it. I've checked all the connectors are properly seated and reconnected them just in case. Also checked the plug to the instrument cluster, and that's fine too.

Someone has replaced the original 97-98 unit with a 2001 part at some point. I thought the A/C compressor and software were the only real changes between earlier and later units? Is there anything that might explain my lack of light?

My car is a bit odd, but every other date stamp I've come across is either 97 or 98 so far.

A glorious sounding problem.

My first P38 sulking at the back slowing undergoing weight reduction, my parent's red Bordeaux in the middle here for me to fit a towbar, and my latest silver R reg with a Bosch engine up front. A strange vehicle it seems, ignoring the engine, it has side airbags too, which I thought didn't come until 99-00 onwards? Seems Land Rover owned it for the first two years of its life going by the service history.

In my quest to discover more working horses, I'm wondering if this is normal, seems to have gone unanswered 'over there'.

Most times when I stop the engine, I get a strange sound that seems like something is being released, but it isn't the EAS. Sometimes it can be heard as a sort of ongoing noise while the engine is running after starting. It is loud enough you can hear it inside the car. It does seem to be coming from right side of the bay (when looking at the engine).

So, does your GEMS make any odd noises at all when you turn it off?