The Hankook MF31-1000 is back in stock for £101.38 with free next day delivery. I just ordered one. My current Halfords battery still seems good but is over five years old. I am trying to make my P38 as reliable as possible so am pre-empting problems by replacing items that could potentially fail.

https://www.batterymegastore.co.uk/product/hankook-heavy-duty-commercial-battery-mf31-1000/

JLImmelman wrote:

Goodluck!

Hope the rest of the drive goes as smoothly as it has started 😃

We arrived back yesterday evening without incident.

Yesterday afternoon in preparation for travelling back to the UK from our place in France I checked the oil level & tyre pressures then thought I would have a go at trying to sort out the airlock in the cooling system that I think is the cause of intermittent heater problems. It seems to start off OK but after 45-60 minutes of driving the air blowing into the cabin gets cooler & cooler till eventually it's just external air temperature. As per RAVE instructions on refilling I disconnected the radiator bleed hose at the radiator then lifted the host to my lips to blow & clear any residual coolant whereupon the hose snapped in two places. The 20 year old plastic tubing was presumably flexible when new but is now the consistency of dried pasta so easily shattered.

An initial attempt at repair served simply to prove that gaffer tape does not provide a water tight seal & would not take pressure in any case. There was some urgency to effecting a repair as we planned on leaving the cottage at about 07:30 the next morning to catch the ferry at Saint-Malo approx 120km & 1 hour 20 minutes drive away. Remembering also that it's a Sunday afternoon in France & no DIY or motoring spares place or indeed anywhere else is open.

My initial thought was just to clamp off the outlet from the radiator in some way but before deciding on that I decided to Phone a Friend & ask for advice. @Gilbertd who himself was driving through France but hundreds of kms away advised me that this was a bad idea. If I had thought it through better I would have realised that the whole point of the bleed hose is to vent air trapped at the top of the radiator. He called me back a little later to suggest that if I had some reinforced hosepipe & the necessary fixings that I might be able to secure the hosepipe over the short rubber hose connectors at the radiator end & expansion tank end. I improved on that suggestion by using a 1 inch stub of the pasta-like plastic tubing to stop the rubber hose collapsing. I had bough 50m of reinforced hosepipe during the summer which was about 30m more than is needed in our garden so I had plenty of spare to cut a length from. My neighbour had one jubilee clip of the correct size & I was able to repurpose a plastic fixing that had held a water bottle holder on a bicycle to fix the other end. I tightened up the fixings tight enough to make a seal but not too tight so as to shatter the inner tube & collapse the rubber hose.

I allowed the engine to idle with the cap of the expansion off while intermittently topping up with coolant. Once the engine got almost up to normal running temperature & there was no more space for adding coolant I screwed the cap on tight. The hose didn't bulge excessively nor did it leak. I drove off to our local garage to fill up with fuel (see my previous post) a round trip of about 15kms. On my return the heater was working well & the hosepipe while flexible was not too swollen & the system was up to pressure as evidenced by the almost incompressible top hose on the radiator & the hissing as I gently released the cap on the expansion cap a fraction.

This morning we drove off in the dark & while I anxiously kept an eye on the coolant temperature for overheating & the bonnet for any signs of steam we covered the 120kms in good time. The heater worked fine for the entire journey. I am now sat in our cabin on the ferry while we make the crossing to Portsmouth. I had a look under the bonnet prior to boarding & the hosepipe looked OK so fingers crossed it all holds together for the second half of our journey of 3 hours & 150 miles from Portsmouth to North Essex. I've got a few meters of spare hosepipe in the boot just in case & have a 5L container of water.

I will update this this post in the evening.

Filled up with a full tank of petrol & was very disappointed to discover that fuel consumption over the last 500+ miles had been barely over 12mpg. Surprised as I had even on impulse treated it to a bottle of STP snake oil during that time & it seemed to be running well & revving freely. Then I remembered that I had topped up with 2 x 30L since I last rest the trip odometer not the 2 x 60L that I had used in my calculations. Happily it's been doing a healthy 18.11mpg.😀

I have previously considered a DAB radio but all the stations & more are available streaming over the internet so I just use my iPhone (which is always on the dash running the TomTom satnav app). I use this Bluetooth adapter which tuned to 108.0 MHz gives a nice clear sound. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07V7YN8PF/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I would prefer a proper Bluetooth input for the radio but I don't know whether this is possible.

Interesting story & an ingenious solution. I think that I would just have driven on the bump stops as despite the order not to exceed 35mph it is possible to do 50-60mph although it nearly shakes all the fillings out of your teeth. I've only had to do one journey on the bump stops when it went into fault mode & I was about 60 miles from home & while uncomfortable it is possible.

The story was also a bit unsettling as I am driving back to the UK from France today. Happily it's not far from our place to Saint-Malo to catch the ferry & only 220 miles in total back to our other home in North Essex. I have previously driven back to the UK catching the ferry at Caen with EAS FAULT & all the lights flashing but that time the suspension stayed up although in an unrelated episode the cooling system boiled over while we waited in the queue for the ferry. It was a transient EAS fault that as I recall Richard cleared with his Nanocom (or possibly we used EAS Unlock). I have a brand new Nanocom that hasn't been used in anger yet but fingers crossed it won't be needed. I must get a set of Schrader valves to keep in the car.

The OBD port is on the right hand side of the passenger footwell on a RHD (UK/Ireland) P38. It doesn't need any panel to be removed you just plug in the cable.

I'm just taking advantage while I can of E85 at 69c/L as I am sure that over the years the price will slowly but surely creep up.

Before I went out in the P38 today I checked coolant & topped it up with about a pint. I made a trip of 15-20 mile trip to fill up with E85 at 69c/L & get some shopping done. The heater kept us nice & toasty all the way & on return home I lifted the bonnet to heck the heater hoses & both inlet & outlet were really hot. It looks like I have chased out the last bit of air from the system & all is functioning as it should.

nigelbb wrote:

I also fitted new wiper blades all round. I bought them from https://www.wiperblades.co.uk. I went for the Michelin Radius Retrofit Beam at a total of £39.10 including next day delivery. They are lovely soft rubber & do a great job in the rain very quietly.

I had used the wipers on many occasions since fitting them so was surprised as we negotiated a roundabout in Normandy to have the driver side wiper fly off. I quickly pulled the car off the road & retrieved the wiper blade. It was undamaged so I fitted it back & carried on driving. I can only assume that I: hadn't pushed the wiper blade quite far enough into the loop of the wiper arm. This time it did 'click' into place properly. I have always thought it a bit funny & a potential point of failure to have the blade just pushed into the loop at the end of the wiper blade.

Both the radiator & heater matrix in my 2001 Vogue have been replaced by @Gilbertd & the hater has been working fine. However during our journey to France a couple of days ago the heater was working fine when we left home & when we got of the ferry in Cherbourg but after a 3 hour drive to our cottage I noticed that the hot air being blown into the car was barely above ambient.
I investigated yesterday. There was no book symbol on the HEVAC so it didn't look like a blend motor problem. I suspected an so lifted the bonnet took the cap off the header tank then started the engine. I put about a pint of coolant in as I brought the engine up to working temperature then put the header tank cap back on.

I felt the hoses that go to the heater matrix. Looking towards the rear of the engine the hose on the right was hot as though full of near boiling coolant whereas the hose on the left (presumably the return hose) was cool in comparison. I loosened the clip & pulled the left hand hose off. It was full of air then a tiny trickle of cool water came out. I had the engine running all this time. I squeezed the other hose a few times & eventually very hot water came dribbling out. I checked inside the car & hot air was coming out of the vents. Thinking that it had been an airlock that I cleared I reconnected the hose & put the clip back on. Then went back inside the car to find the air from the vents was cooling down & in a couple of minutes was barely above ambient again. I went under the bonnet & pulled the hose again & there was just a tiny trickle of water coming out. I squeezed the hot input hose a few more times but there was still only a dribble of hot water coming out of the return hose.

Thinking the problem must lie elsewhere I took the car out as we needed to collect a piece of furniture my wife had bought on Facebook. After a few miles the heater started working properly with very hot air coming out when switched to HI. It also pushes out very cold air when switched to LO.

The root cause of the problem must have been an air lock in the heater matrix that I somehow managed to clear by squeezing the hoses. We got back in the dark so I haven't checked the coolant level with the engine cold but will do that this morning & report back.

How do people reliably remove airlocks from the system? I had no problem when I replaced the water pump a couple of months ago. I just followed the directions in RAVE ie run the engine with the cap off the header tank & top up as necessary as you run the engine up to working temperature.

I took my P38 through a car wash today after filling up with fuel. It looks nice & shiny now even if there are a few bumps & scrapes that it's picked up over the years.

I also fitted new wiper blades all round. I bought them from https://www.wiperblades.co.uk. I went for the Michelin Radius Retrofit Beam at a total of £39.10 including next day delivery. They are lovely soft rubber & do a great job in the rain very quietly.

I've been with the RAC for years & always been happy with the service when I have needed them. The last time I needed them was about six months ago when my new to me Jaguar S-type had a puncture while I was on my way to work. It was dark & pissing down with rain & I had to wait a couple of hours for them to arrive but I didn't fancy getting soaked & dirty changing the wheel with a jack & wheel nut spanner I had never used before. If I hadn't been on my way to work I would probably have changed the wheel myself.

About four years ago I had to call out the RAC several times for a flat battery on my P38 when I ended up needing to use the EKA & synchronise the key fob. I had the same guy each time & he was quite knowledgable about the P38 & got me going each time. I searched around the forums & discovered that my flat battery problems where caused by the remote receiver waking up the BECM all the time with spurious radio signals. I had previously lived in a rural area away from other houses & it was only after I moved to town & had to park the P38 on the street that I encountered the battery drain problem.

Other call outs I have had over the years that I can recall are:-

The clutch cable on my Citroën BX snapping as I approached a toll booth on a motorway in the south of France on a Sunday afternoon. We were recovered off the motorway then taken to a small family garage where they fabricated a new cable & fixed the problem.

The water pump on my Audi A6 ruptured when I was in a rural area in France on a Sunday. We were recovered to the nearest Audi garage & provided with a hire car. It took about three days for the car to be fixed & cost me €800.

The offside front tyre on my Audi A6 went 'Bang!' as I was driving along a fast A road. I was able to pull over partly onto the narrow grass verge. I put my warning triangle back down the road & had the flashers going but really didn't fancy trying to jack up the front of the car & change the wheel while traffic was passing so closely. The RAC guy parked his van down the road & quickly lifted the car with a trolley jack & had the spare wheel on within a couple of minutes.

I've always been satisfied with the service I've had from the RAC & they are the only operator that offer European breakdown cover on twenty year old vehicles like P38s.

I now live in France more than half the time & have re-registered my P38 on French number plates so cannot have breakdown cover from the RAC or any other UK service. There is no equivalent of the RAC or AA in France as breakdown cover is included with your car insurance but this isn't roadside assistance just a recovery to the nearest suitable garage & a taxi home.

To follow up on Richard's report after I collected the car & was about half way home the SRS AIRBAG FAULT came up on the dashboard. At Richard's suggestion I read the error code with my iCarsoft CR PRO which I've never used in anger on the P38 before (I bought it for my Jaguar S-type) which was reported as "Short circuit fault in driver airbag circuit". This seemed odd as it seemed most likely that if the fault was related to the recent work it would a loose connection as the wiring got disturbed. I unplugged & replugged the airbag connectors under each seat after applying some circuit cleaner but without success. It still seemed most likely that it was a disturbed cable after having the dashboard out but I started depressing myself by reading forum posts about intractable airbag faults.

As luck would have it I had managed to leave my Jaguar car keys in the central console of Richard's P38 Ascot that I borrowed while mine was in pieces. It's a 180 mile round trip from my place to Richard's but only about 10 miles from where I work 2-3 days per week. I normally commute with my 2.7 diesel S-type as it's so much more economical than my 4.6L P38 so leaving my keys in the Ascot probably cost me £30 as I had to drive to work in the P38 yesterday! However it did mean that I could pop over to see Richard who was able to read the error codes with his Nanocom which was reported as an open circuit fault with the driver airbag which made more sense.

Richard whipped off the access panel under the steering column then unplugged & replugged the airbag connector switched the ignition on & the error code was gone & hasn't reappeared. Result!

What is the advantage of the Faultmate over the Nanocom Evolution? The BBS website isn't very clear. They have a comprehensive list of what the Faultmate can do https://blackbox-solutions.com/shop/product/mp015 but almost no information about the Nanocom.

BTW I see why you bought the single VIN software as the full fat version is €1,783.81 versus €345.04.

A few years back I got some new tyres at ATS & they offered for a price to inflate my tyres with nitrogen promising some magical benefit. I declined on the basis that air is about 80% nitrogen already so that would be good enough for me.

KCR wrote:

Another diagnostic option is the RSW suite v4 for a laptop / tablet. That's usually my first and preferred choice.

I have used the free older version of the RSW Unlock software on the EAS & it's brilliant. I hadn't realised that the paid for version had Nanocom like capabilities. It's a lot cheaper than buying a Nanocomm but does it do everything that a Nanocom can do?

I put my P38 through a final MOT about a month ago. I have re-registered it in France so now it is due a Contrôle Technique every two years but thought it useful to have a third party look under the car & warn me about any developing problems like split rubber boots. Apparently it only just passed on emissions but the only advisories were a "oil leaks - unknown" (it's a P38 so of course it has an oil leak:-) & "tappet knocking in engine (may effect the emissions)". There has been a very loud tappet noise for about eight years so I'm not worried but it's the first time I've heard of that as an MOT advisory.

The lights look fantastic but if they are powered off the trailer auxiliary plug how do you switch the lights off?

Just to update. The parts arrived & it was a pretty straightforward job to put everything back together. I found that tightening up the left most bolt on the water pump (viewed from front) was only possible after I removed the idler pulley that was blocking the path of the socket wrench. It was much easier replacing the belt with the fan removed & I now appreciate why RAVE describes this step.

Removing the fan was easy as the water pump was seized & it just need a little loosening with a 36mm spanner then the big nut spun off easily with my fingers. Replacing the fan however was an absolute pain. It needs to be offered up at exactly the right angle to engage on the threaded shaft on the water pump. I took 10-15 minutes of fiddling about before I finally got the thread started then it was easy to spin the fan round & tighten up.

The first day when I took it apart I was wearing a T-shirt & ended up with extensive scratches on both forearms that still haven't healed. Learning from this I wore a long sleeved rugby shirt when putting it all back together thus protecting myself from the multiple hose clips & other sharp edges.

Speaking of hose clips. I struggled with using my Mole wrench to compress the clip on the hose attached to the water pump. I managed it eventually but this would have been so much easier with the correct tool which @Gilbertd tells me is https://www.amazon.co.uk/FAVENGO-Pliers-Flexible-Maintenance-Radiator/dp/B086QHZRVH/ I notice in the photos demonstrating use of this tool the mechanics are wearing protective leather gloves!

One irritating mistake I made was in replacing the plastic cover over the belt & pulleys at the top right (viewed from the front). It's held in with two bolts & there is a 3" spacer that the left hand bolt runs through. I managed to drop the spacer three times. The first two times it dropped clear through the engine compartment onto the ground where I recovered it but the third time it disappeared behind/under the alternator somewhere never to be seen again. The spacer is just a metal tube so should be easily replaced. I hadn't noticed that the two bolts holding the cover down are different lengths so I messed up the thread on the longer bolt by over tightening it as I had it in the place where the shorter bolt should be. The cover is secure & it's not touching the belt but none the less the fact that it's not right is annoying.

The radiator shroud needs replacement but the repair with gaffer tape will do for now.

I was well pleased when I started up the engine & all worked as expected. I had no problems at all with refilling the coolant. I had read of others who had issues with air locks so was concerned. I filled up with 50:50 OAT as per the instructions in RAVE ie run the engine with the cap off the header tank topping up as required then when the engine was up to temperature switching off & allowing the engine to cool down still with the cap then filling up once more.

I was particularly pleased with myself as this was the first proper work I have done on any car for over 30 years. When younger I did all sorts of work on Minis & Mk 1 Ford Escorts (engine replacements, head gaskets, brake callipers, bodywork etc) mostly because I didn't have the money to take the cars to a garage. As soon as I was earning enough money to pay a garage to do the work for me I figured it made more sense for me to spend my time earning money to pay a garage to do the job for me. This has been particularly the case as cars have got more & more complicated & difficult to work on without specialist equipment. The P38 might have some complicated electronics & the EAS is ingenious but they are still accessible & have rugged old fashioned mechanical components that mean the amateur mechanic still has a chance.