Apologies, I’ve only just seen this post.
The foam we used came from eBay a long while back for something else and I decided to use it for this.
The Audi core has been fitted to this for a good few months now with no leaks and no issues thankfully. The P38 hasn’t needed anything for a long while now. I did have the steering box rebuilt by the same company who do them for Land Rover as there was a bit of wander in it. I fitted that in the summer and it improved it but didn’t sort it.
My L322 has been a summer project this year so once that was finished I had the P38 back inside this weekend and replaced all of the rubber bushes on it with genuine Land Rover ones and the difference it’s made to the car is superb. It’s really quietened it down over the bumps and has improved the handling too. Definitely a job worth doing. We’ve rebushed every P38 we’ve had now and it always makes a huge difference.
Just needs an exhaust now. Trying to decide what to do though. Does anyone know of a decent mild steel one that fits nicely without any major problems?
David.
7k between MOT’s! That’s a lot of use 😂
Our VSE did 1800 last year. We’ve got an L322 that was bought new in 2012 that’s only covered 26k too!
We’ve been trying to order from them as well.
We want an exhaust for the P38 from them. Website says postage is sensible but when calling them they’re quoting £90 for delivery! Wouldn’t even talk sensibly about it!
David.
It depends on your disposable income I guess...
I've bought old cars that are knackered and repaired them, I've bought old cars that work for very little, I've financed middle aged cars (3 or 4 years old) and I've bought brand new cars.
Old cars that are broken I buy as a project because I enjoy tinkering, I've bought cars that not many people want that are old but working as I've fancied them.
4 years ago I bought a 4 year old Jaguar XFR on finance despite being able to pay it off at point of purchase. Several reasons for that were considered that made low interest finance appealing:
Turns out that my car did well on its residuals and at the end of the finance term I paid it off.
I've also bought brand new cars on finance. I was working full time in an office and didn't have time for tinkering with cars at the time. Having a brand new car that was something a bit out of the ordinary and was covered by a full manufacturers warranty was a comfort.
These days we tend to keep my wife's car fairly new (currently 5 years old but likely to be changed next year) as she uses it daily. My L322 is now 14 years old but has just undergone extensive restoration, my XFR is 8 years old and my other cars are all over 20 years old.
My folks have recently bought a new Jaguar I-Pace. They weren't going down the finance route but the day they placed their order Jaguar had introduced a 0% finance offer which made financing it a no brainer as it's free money.
They've recently completed a journey of nearly 800 miles in the I-Pace. In the 4.4 TDV8 L322 that would be been 2 tanks of fuel. 2 x 105 litre tanks at nearly £2 a litre would have probably been in the region of £360. Granted they could have taken the P38 on LPG which is still 70p a litre around here but you can't always rely on being able to get LPG and I also don't particularly enjoy long trips in the P38, I find the L322 a far more enjoyable place to spend the time. In the I-Pace this round trip cost them around £84 on electricity via public chargers which are akin to buying fuel at motorway services. At home the cost to charge is around £11 to do 250 miles. A 30 minute coffee stop on a rapid charger is enough to get it back up to 90% charge and carry on your journey too. It's taken them a bit of adjusting to as they used to do a journey all in one go, however, it's a civilised way of driving and forces people to take a break - a bit like a taco does for HGV's I guess. I wasn't 100% convinced when they bought it but having spent a fair bit of time with it if I started doing long trips I'd have one in a heart beat.
When I bought my XFR from Jaguar in Mayfair the salesman told me that he gets people buying cars whose salaries read like telephone numbers on their finance applications. Some of them a brand new Jaguar XJ was significantly under 25% of their annual income but they were financing them. Some people prefer to have the money earning them money rather then being tied up in a depreciating asset and I can understand that.
So... from the point of view of someone who has and does own cars at all ends of the spectrum, it's about finding out what works for you and what you're comfortable with I guess.
David.
Just to confirm it has been torqued and the washer on it peened over the nut and the drop arm. Has noticeably improved the drive - much less steering correction needed.
Next job is bushes and it should be great then. Any P38 I buy I rebush the suspension on fairly quickly usually as it makes a big difference and when coupled with a new steering box that I've put on 2 before it should have it driving excellently.
David.
Great - thanks!
I’ll get the torque wrench out and tighten it properly this evening then.
Looking forward to driving it with the brand new steering box on it. Once my L322 is off the ramp we’re going to replace all the bushes on it too so it should be spot on then.
David.
I can't find anything about the torque on the P38 anywhere.
However, Defender torque is 176Nm or 129LB/FT so I reckon I'll just put some loctite on it and go for something similar.
David.
Does anybody know the torque figure that's used to tighten the pitman arm or drop arm (seen it called both) to the steering box?
It's the big 40mm nut that's on the bottom.
Have searched RAVE but can't find it for some reason.
David.
It does indeed inject into the supply pipe from the reducers to the injectors.
It had been done quite neatly but in 77k miles it's still caused problems. I had a quote of around £2k to do the valve seats but given the fact I'm doing 4-5k a year at most it's just not worth the hassle/expense I don't think.
David.
Thanks Simon.
I’m not sure on the dimensions of the tank off the top of my head.
It’s a 94 litre 4 hole tank that lives in the spare wheel well on the car. It was filled the day before I dismantled my car back in February so wouldn’t be able to courier it.
David.
I’m fairly certain it’s a 4 hole tank that’s fitted but not 100% as its been a while since I’ve had a look at it.
One thing that is intriguing about this kit is the pipe work from the tank to the solenoid at the front and to the reducers… it’s rubber, not copper.
Makes it a joy to remove but I’ve never seen it done in rubber before.
BrianH wrote:
You say your going to remove it - if its still installed, is there a good reason why your not using up the lpg in the tank first? It would make it easier to deal with as it would reduce the weight of the tank. Or is it only partly installed now and not possible to do so?
I started doing work on the car a couple of months ago. I’ve replaced every single bush and ball joint on it, replaced both diffs, all 4 wheel bearings, etc.
Ever since I’ve had the car it’s had a bit of a misfire when cold for a few minutes until it had warmed up. Once it had warmed up it ran perfectly. After I’d done all the suspension work I had the car running on the ramp and the misfire started to really annoy me so I started checking thoroughly for vacuum leaks. I found one under the charge coolers so removed them. Whilst they were off I decided I’d replace the valve cover gaskets as they were weeping oil.
When the valve cover gaskets were stripped off I checked the valve clearances and found that on cylinder 1 (the one logging the misfires) there was zero valve clearance. In the end I removed the heads and you can actually see the way the valves have recessed into the heads despite it having flashlube installed.
It’s a common fault on these engines with LPG fitted. This one has done around 77k on LPG according to the service history.
I managed to get a brand new set of cylinder heads from eBay so I’m fitting these and am not refitting the LPG hence not being able to run the tank down before removing it. I could put 12v to the solenoid and use it for the BBQ though I guess. 🤔
David.
Just out of interest, what is a used LPG kit worth?
Includes tank (full), wiring, ECU, injectors, inlet ports for a 4.2 Supercharged Jag/Land Rover, Flashlube reservoir (full) with pump and plumbing, reducers (4.5k miles on them), and all associated pipework.
Good point, Brian.
I’m in Glasgow but could meet somewhere between here and Manchester.
I'm going to be removing the LPG kit from my 2007 4.2 Supercharged L322.
It's a BRC kit with a Fly SF ECU. It's got twin BRC Genius MB1500 reducers (less then 12 months old) and a pumped flash lube system with it. I believe the tank is around 95 litres in capacity and isn't far off full either!
Is anybody interested in purchasing the kit once it's been removed? It will be removed carefully with nothing cut or broken.
David.
Replacement heater panel sourced from a local breakers yard today for £20 :) Going back at the weekend when it’s not blowing a gale and chucking it down for a few more odds n sods.
Ordered 5 LM272’s from eBay so will repair the old panel when they arrive too as you never know when a spare might come in handy.
David.
I saw the melted LM272 chip when I stripped it. I wondered about replacing it but am not sure if there’s another fault somewhere on the board as it wasn’t driving the blend motor before I blew it up.
Might try and find a later control panel so that I can keep it original.
Had a proper look at this today. The heat coming out of the passengers side when set to the windscreen was actually coming from the drivers side. The passengers side blend motor wasn’t moving and was on cold.
I stripped the motor and checked it over. When trying to calibrate the motors using Testbook this one wasn’t trying to turn at all. I put power directly to the motor and stupidly forgot it was connected to the HEVAC panel… it didn’t like that as it promptly dispersed a puff of smoke.
I had a spare panel in the workshop that the fascia PCB was faulty on so swapped the main PCB from one to the other and reassembled it in the car. The blend motor then start started turning as you’d expect so i reassembled it and refitted it and it’s working great after a recalibration so it looks like the PCB was the cause of the fault before I fried it further.
When I press AUTO now I get a fault code stored “Compressor Clutch Control Circuit Fault (O/C or S/C 0v)” am wondering if this could be a compatibility issue with the panel as it came from a 1996 car and is now in a 2002 car or if it’s because there’s no refrigerant in the A/C. The last panel was on the car with no gas in it and it never flagged a fault but am unsure if it’s maybe a difference in the firmware.
Time for a bit of Googling I think.
David.