I was just going to take the front wing off to clean all the crud out of the rust traps and underseal the panel, and give myself a ton of room to work ;-) Good shout on tying the steering wheel. I guess some bungies will hold it in place against the pedals or something.
My steering box is pishing oil from the output shaft seal. I've got one from a breaker, which seems in good nick, and I plan on swapping it over in the next day or two.
Any gotchas, that people who have been here before can steer me away from? The section in RAVE seems pretty short and simple, but it says to replace the sealing washers - but I can't find anyone that stocks them. Are they just like copper banjo fitting washers, or what? Do they need replaced every time or is this just a "hey LR mechanic don't skimp on the customer's 80 grand car" thing?
It's that time of year again, and I've been quoted 950 quid to renew my insurance on a 250 quid vehicle.
Who's the current favourite for insurance?
While it's all a bit doom-and-gloom with more LPG places shutting down, it's good to be able to announce a new place to get it!
Simon at Angus Autogas - @GasMan on here - has got a tank in at his yard in Arbroath and is doing Ivanti gas at a pretty reasonable price. So, if you're up around the Dundee area, you've got an alternative to JGas again - it doesn't look like the Shell Eurogarage on Forfar Road is getting their pump fixed any time soon.
Simon's website is here, give him a shout if you are up here and need help with your gas system or if you need to fuel up.
https://angusautogas.co.uk/
That sounds like you've lost a supply rail somewhere. IIRC GEMS should put the Check Engine light on until it receives a valid de-immobilise signal from the BECM.
If you've got some diagnostics that'll do it, it might be worth firing an Immobiliser Sync command at it just in case.
I've got a rumbly noise, which sounds very much like it's from the passenger side when I'm sitting on that side and very much like it's coming from the driver's side when I'm sitting on that side. It goes quieter when I steer left, kind of making me think it's on the driver's side (right).
What about the bearings in the end of the axles that support the distal end of the half-shaft? I don't see them advertised as a replacement part anywhere so I assume they live a gentle and blameless life, would that be right?
I moved recently, and now about the only place I can get LPG is the Shell garage in Dundee where it's just gone up to 99.9p/litre!
Maybe I need to contact Morrisons and see if their big store just down the road will get LPG at the filling station...
Jeez. Bit late to offer now I know, but give me a shout if you do want a hand with the new one.
I picked up another P38 from David Hallworth a couple of weeks ago. He'd modified the stereo to have an aux cable which worked, but my phone doesn't have a headphone socket. On my other P38 I'd modded the stereo to have a Bluetooth adaptor feeding the tape input, and this time round I took a couple of pictures.
This is a cheapy BT-002 Bluetooth board, a couple of quid off eBay. It takes 5V power and outputs stereo audio, and has a couple of extra inputs for controls and a telephone mike for using it as a handsfree thing. I put some heatshrink on it, so it wouldn't short to the metal, and stuck it down with a sticky pad.
Unfortunately the closest to 5V on the board is 5.6V but there's 9V or so to power the audio board (which has been removed) so I fitted a 7805 regulator which you can see here with a couple of decoupling caps.
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The audio leads are soldered to the board where the connections from the tape preamp would go, and when you select Tape then you get your audio from your phone.
The only other thing to do is insert a tape with the actual tape removed, or flick the plastic catch so the mechanism thinks there's a tape in.
This is probably a stupid question but why don't you buy a UK ECU in the UK, and have the seller ship it to Mark Adams, who can then ship it to you when he's done?
That's awful, I'm sorry to hear that. I frequently disagreed with RRTH but he was a good sort and helped a lot of folk.
I've found it harder to get gas when I'm up in Dundee - the one (hellishly expensive) Shell garage in Arbroath has stopped doing it, and the big Asda at Kingsway East has stopped doing it as they switched to an unattended filling station.
There's only the Shell garage on Forfar Road left doing it but because they're EuroGarages they have no plans to get rid, apparently! Good thing too, because even at 64p/l they're still better than nothing.
What I have noticed is that with Shell stopping Autogas, they've switched to Avanti and the pumps are labelled up as "Avanti Propane". Now I don't know if that's straight propane as opposed to an LPG blend - I expect it is - but what I have noticed is that my tired old quarter of a million mile 4.0 goes like particularly dry shit off a teflon shovel on it, compared to the stuff I get at Morrison's.
As for the 80% shutoff valve, mine only worked for about six months and then failed, and now I just kind of go by the idea that if it's empty it'll take about 80 litres, same as when the valve was working. Is there any downside to this? I guess I shouldn't just keep pumping until the numbers stop going up...
Hi, glad to see you :-) What are you needing to do to the suspension?
The "speed limit" setting doesn't affect the vehicle speed, just the maximum you can set the speed limiter button to.
If you've got one that matches the figures in the test in the service manual it's probably safe to assume it's good. You can measure a bunch of GEMS ones and a bunch of Thor ones, and see if you can correlate any differences.
I wondered if it would be possible to fake it by measuring throttle angle and MAP.
You probably don't need to go that far. When mine shat out a liner I bought a 500 quid engine from a breaker on eBay. It was in pretty okay shape when I got it, David Hallworth and I dropped it in, and it was pretty rough and clattery and probably a bit down on power. Over 100,000 miles later, it's not any more rough and clattery, so I reckon I got my money's worth.
The easiest check is to remove the plugs and see if they look "steam cleaned". If water's getting in to the cylinder (which it will) then the plug will look cleaner than the rest. Usually it's going to be number 7 or number 8 plug.
Doing head gaskets isn't that bad a job! It's just like doing them on an old Mini but they're twice as big and there's two of them.
I have literally just done this on mine! The teeth had worn away at the top of its travel. I got mine from a breaker for a few quid.
You will need to get the door card and plastic sheet off, wind the window nearly all the way down, and then look for two "hairpin" clips on the ends of the arms where they slide in the plastic blocks at the bottom of the window. Then pop the ball joint apart with a big flat-blade screwdriver and the window is free to move. Push it right up and wedge or tape it in place. Drill out the four pop rivets (three on the main bit, one on the arm that goes across to the lock side), and wiggle the mechanism out. You might need to wind it up or down a bit to get it into the right "shape" to come out, so unplug the cable last.
Then, "refitting is the reverse of removal", as they say!
If it's used infrequently, could it be a tyre that's gone out of round?
Put a new battery in it.