I noticed at the top of my grill where it hadn't faded you could see the original colour.
After some digging around, it turns out that the colour on the top of the grill is a good match with Land Rover Stornaway Grey. I ordered some up and the cap on the can is almost identical.
I've rubbed it all down and have so far applied 3 coats of primer.
Once it's had 24hrs to cure I'm going to start building up the layers of paint. I'm hoping 3 coats will give it a nice finish as that seems to be roughly what I can get for all 3 parts from a can. Once another 24hrs have passed I'll start building up the clear coat on it too.
Hopefully we'll get a decent result!
David.
That's really, really nice! Well done mate!
Have you got a link to the leather dye and varnish that you used?
David.
On another note, does anybody know what is directly behind the bulkhead? Could you safely put tech screws through there to secure a gas pipe?
Today was spent tidying up the LPG installation.
The ECU has been moved to the slot behind the battery where the GEMS ECU usually lives. Thankfully, on a THOR car this is an empty space.
As I've moved the ECU some of the cables weren't long enough, as I've moved the reducer I had to reroute the temperature sensor as it was on the other side of the car with the safety solenoid and there was so much excess wiring that it was driving me nuts so I've cut a load of it out and remade it with new wires, some braiding and a ton of heat-shrink.
I was going to run a new gas supply pipe up from the tank to the drivers side of the car where I've mounted the new reducer but instead I've left the safety solenoid on the near side and have relocated the reducer to the drivers side to keep the house run to a minimum as the old hoses used to run across the bulkhead and it looked a mess.
The copper pipe we've got has a white plastic surround on it which is driving me nuts as it stands out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately the LPG Shop online were out of stock of the black coated stuff when we ordered which was annoying.
Anyway, I'm going to finish connecting the LPG back up tomorrow and if I get time, I'm hoping the engine will be back on it's mounts too!
I spent ages feeding the cables through black braiding and then put heat shrink on the ends.
I shortened 2 metres off the plug for the reducer temperature sensor and tidied that up too.
The cables going from the LPG ECU to the engine ECU weren't long enough after moving the LPG ECU so I made a new loom for them. The existing connections onto the Engine ECU were twisted around the cable, soldered and then taped over. I removed the pins from the plug on the engine ECU today, remade the connections and slide some heat shrink over them rather then using tape.
Both of the new braided looms fit into the existing clips on the bulkhead which is nice as it keeps it tidy and it almost looks original.
After reading online, it turns out the new reducer can be mounted vertically or horizontally which was handy as it fits really well on it's side beside the brake accumulator.
Finally feels like I've made some progress today!
David.
Excellent how to!
I can't wait to see the finished pictures as both of our steering wheels need this treatment. There's a lad on the Facebook Group who does them but I'm reluctant to spend a couple of hundred quid having 2 steering wheels refurbished.
David.
Well, I'd been keeping an eye on a 2002 Westminster that was going through auction this week. The cars MOT has expired in December and at it's last MOT in December 2018 it had covered 150k and the 4.0 V8 was in the boot.
When I found the car it was sitting at £300. I had a good think about it and given that I'm a bit OCD mechanically and like my cars to be just right decided that I'd end up spending a fortune on it like I have done on all my other P38's. Don't get me wrong, parts are cheap, but when you start changing everything that wears to get rid of all the little annoyances you end up spending a lot.
I decided that I was going to set myself a limit... £700. However, if I needed to I'd go up to £800 as the car was only 40 minutes from me and I could collect it whilst I was off work this week.
Don't get me wrong, having 3 P38's and a breaker already, I needed this like I needed a hole in the head but it looked to nice a car to break for parts.
I'd checked on the price of the car a couple of times a day, usually during my morning coffee and later in the day. Yesterday was no different, except last night it had jumped from £390 to £1010. The auction site it was on charges £50 even for the opportunity to bid, then with fees on top of that it would have ended up costing me a minimum of £1250 assuming nobody else started bidding against me.
Anyway, long story short, I now no longer need to swap a 4.0 to a 4.6.
I hope it's gone to someone who is going to sort her out rather then break her for spares as she did look a nice car. Unfortunately though, it just wasn't worth what it sold for to me.
David.
Are there any marks or grooves around the combustion chambers on the heads? If any of your liners are moving they’ll likely be hitting the head.
Our P38 ran great, didn’t use a drop of oil or water but had a tappet like noise which turned out to be the liner battering the head.
David.
I've always been able to get my old ones apart and back together without any problems but they've never performed right after being rebuilt. I've done 3 or 4 now. I'm pretty sure Simon (might have been someone else) told me that rebuilding them is a waste of time anyway :)
David.
The new height sensors arrived today so I fitted them and got Testbook out to calibrate it.
I got a couple of niggles during calibration and my Suspension Inhibit switch was constantly illuminated despite not being latched. I had a new switch delivered and changed that over to no avail.
Thanks to a nudge from Marty I had a look at the plugs in the NS footwell and found a bit of carnage going on there...
There was a pin so badly corroded in each plug that it had snapped so I've soldered them this evening.
I sorted them out and much to my annoyance the inhibit switch was still illuminated.
I then decided to change the ECU for a spare that I'd decided to buy from a breaker recently. Hooray! The light has gone out.
After that, I managed to get it to take a calibration properly using Testbook and it's now sitting nice and level again.
I had a very brief run up the road as the tracking is out and the steering wheel finally feels like it's connected to the front wheels! If I had to put my money on one component for causing it I'd put it on the steering link arm from the column to the steering box. Holding the link in the vice and twisting it with a spanner you can see the rubber piece in it flex. Not much and it needs a fair bit of effort but I can only imagine that with the extra weight and force exerted on it when in the car it was awful!
Anyway, tracking next and then hopefully one car is nearly finished!
David.
I'll be up for this. Depending what I'm doing I might even be using my mobile whilst getting the engine back in the VSE!
David.
Well, as per Simon's recommendation the new reducer turned up today. It's very nicely packaged and is really quite small and refined.
In the manual it says it supports up to 350bhp when using both LPG outlets or 250bhp when using a single. As our engine has been fettled with and there's a possibility it's going to be remapped as well I'm going to fit the second outlet and run one to each bank of injectors.
NGK Plugs, Magnecor KV85 Plug Leads, and a new MAF have all been ordered today as well. Hopefully it all arrives quickly so we can make some progress!
David.
Harv wrote:
https://imgur.com/wOc6E7p
Hopefully the photo connects. This was us on Saturday.
I had to double take then to see if there was a chassis under that or if the body was just sat on the ground!
The replacement steering box arrived today so i could swap it out and get the engine back in and look to rebuild this one at my peril.
I’ve made a shopping list of the last few bits I need tonight. I’m going to get these ordered this week and I’ve taken next week off work to try and get this buttoned up once and for all.
David.
Heaviest load I've moved with a P38 is a P38 on an Ifor Williams CT166. Trailer is around 900kg with the winch on it and sides removed.
If I do go for a 4.6 conversion then I'd probably take a gamble and leave it with the 4.0 gearbox.
From what Gilbert says above it doesn't sound like it would cause much of a problem!
David.
That's great news that it's running as well as it is! She's a nice looking motor too!
Thanks Gilbert!
Sounds like it'll just be a case of source a 4.6 engine and jobs a gud 'un!
Just need to decide if I really want another engine swap now!
David.
Evening Guys,
I'm pondering my next project and was just wondering about the difficulties when swapping a 4.0 Thor for a 4.6 Thor engine.
Obviously you'd need to change the ECU as it would have the mapping for the 4.0 engine.
The gearboxes were different as well, the 4.0 has the 4HP22 whereas the 4.6 has the 4P24, but I'd guess these days that most 4.6 engines are probably only putting out the power a 4.0 did when it was new lol.
I'd guess the bell housing bolts are the same across both engines?
I've got a 4.6 gearbox and torque converter here from a 96 GEMS car, would this suit to be mated to a THOR 4.6? I guess the gearbox ECU would need to be from a THOR car as well.
Any thoughts would be appreciated!
David.
Speak to Simon (LPGC).
The LPG was fitted on my VSE but wasn't working when I got it. I replaced all the filters and the reducer but the auto calibration on it used to just stall constantly.
We tied in a trip to visit Simon in Yorkshire whilst we were away. Within minutes he'd diagnosed it as being an ECU fault. The ECU was swapped, a new changeover switch was fitted as the new ECU needed a different switch, and it was then running well on LPG at idle. We then spent an hour driving the car with Simon fettling the LPG from the passengers seat.
The result... there is now no discernible difference in the drive/performance of this car between Petrol and LPG. This car has only done 650 miles since it's MOT in July last year so it's not a massive financial saving for me. I do like filling up at 50p a litre though! The other major attraction is just how clean the oil stays.
David.
Ah ha! Thanks Richard.
Got it all printed so I can take a copy into the workshop tomorrow.
David.