rangerovers.pub
The only place for a coil spring is up Zebedee's arse
Member
offline
170 posts

Aragorn wrote:

85L of LPG is 18.7 gallons.

200miles / 18.7 gallons is 10.6 MPG
220miles / 18.7 gallons is 11.7 MPG

So it is.😀 I have no idea why I divided by 70 instead of 85.

Aragorn wrote:

My tank is labelled 92L in the spare wheel well.

Oddly it routinely takes well in excess of 80 litres at most pumps. I usually stop somewhere around 85L myself. I've had on a few occasions the pump cut out around 65-70L, but the vast majority of the time i have to stop manually.

That much gas gets me around 200-220miles, which seems fairly poor given some of the other folks results, circa 11mpg.

Your calculation is a bit pessimistic. You are getting approximately 3 miles per litre which is 13.35mpg.

At 150K miles when my Vogue was overheating in desperation we used three bottles of Steel Seal. This fixed the problem & lasted for over 25K miles until the head gasket started blowing & this time I had the engine completely rebuilt by V8 Developments.

I have had the odd leak locked by a the A/C drain in the past but in the current hot weather here in the UK I have now got icy water pouring into the passenger footwell. A drive of a few hours in 28C heat totally soaked a large bath towel & left a lot of water on to be soaked up by the carpet. I cleared the A/C drains from underneath but it's not helped at all so suspect that there is something at the other end that is blocked or dislodged. Where do I start dismantling to get at wherever it is that this condensate from the A/C is forming?

I have had the headliner refurbished by Alders Classics near Norwich who did a really excellent job for £299. I also had them fit some sidesteps as my wife is only 5 foot & was struggling to get in & out of the car. They are used genuine sidesteps in excellent condition. The car originally had sidesteps but as with so many P38s the brackets that fit the sidesteps to the car rusted away & they had to be removed. Foolishly I had chucked away the original sidesteps. I am really pleased with the jobs they did for me & thoroughly recommend them. Their main business is rebuilding classic motors & they showed me some interesting projects they were currently working on like the body shell of a 1965 Ford Mustang that was being completely refurbished & resprayed.

I was happily driving home after collecting the car when I stopped at B&Q in Ipswich to collect some items. When I came out & tried to restart the car nothing happened but a click. All the dashboard lights were on & there was a beep. Then as I continued to try the key I saw some error messages flash up on the dashboard including the one about the engine being immobilised & needing to use the remote. I called @Gilbertd who is my go to helpline whenever I have a problem with the car.😀 We ran through a series of tests & eventually diagnosed that the starter motor had died. The definitive test that the starter motor was toast was putting a screwdriver across the terminals on the starter motor. Instead of a large spark destroying the screwdriver I just got a very feeble spark.

I had to leave the car in the B&Q car park as I was working the next day but the day after I met up with @Gilbertd who had collected a new Bosch starter motor from his regular motor factor. It was a remanufactured item cost £166 with a surcharge of as I recall about £90 refunded when the old starter motor was returned. Interestingly a sticker identified it as remanufactured in Ukraine.

Fitting the starter motor took @Gilbertd well under an hour & as soon as it was fitted the car fired up as usual. In retrospect I had commented to several people that since I had the engine refurbished by V8 Developments a few months ago that the starter motor didn't seem to have the same 'oomph' as previously. It started the car OK but sounded a bit feeble. I suppose that this should have been the warning to me that the starter was on its way out & needed replacement. The starter motor failing on the P38 really leaves you stranded as there is no other way of starting the car & I had even thought of carrying a spare as pattern parts can be had for about £80. I think that the series of errors messages that were briefly displayed on the dashboard each time I tried to start the car were probably because the starter was drawing current & the battery voltage dropping so causing the BECM to have a wobbly & that the messages were completely spurious. The new starter has the 'oomph' that the dying one didn't't & it now sounds just like it used to.

I want to profoundly thank @Gilbertd for yet again helping me out with the car.

LV proposed £589.36 for the Jag. I got that via www.comparethemarket.com so nabbed meal offers & cinema tickets for the next year. Prima, company that I had never heard of was cheapest at £476.71 with LV second cheapest then several other major companies like the AA & Sheila's Wheels at just under £600. I decided to give the unknown company a miss. Interestingly I'm pretty sure that LV never used to appear on comparison sites.

Aragorn wrote:

All insurance prices have gone up this year, they're using the "cost of living crisis" as an excuse to massively increase their profits (just like every other company)

Last year i was paying £250, the renewal came thru at 450 from direct line. My Skoda went from 350 to 650. They both renew at the same time.

It seems a common theme with Direct Line. Last year I paid £700 for insurance on my Jaguar S-type & I just got the proposal for the renewal at over £1,000. It was expensive because I added my wife when she was learning to drive & ironically she doesn't want to drive the Jag now. I will give LV a call as they insured me previously but refused to insure my wife with a provisional licence. Funnily enough the insurance on our Smart ForTwo went up from £280 to £310 when she passed her test. She is quite happy driving the P38 both in the UK & France. The P38 is French registered & insured at about €500.

Gilbertd wrote:

I've always said the petrol in the tank is regarded the same as the spare wheel, for use in emergencies only.

I was just thinking the other day that in over fifty years of motoring I think that I have run out of fuel more times than I have needed to put on the spare wheel because of a puncture. This probably means that it would make more sense for me to carry a jerry can of petrol rather than a spare wheel.

I have owned my P38 2001 Vogue for twelve years & every year I have to get the A/C recharged. Like the OP I must have a micro leak. I always use the ATS Groupon deal (currently £41.99) https://www.groupon.co.uk/deals/ats-euromaster-6 This year at my last recharge the guy at ATS recommended I use STP Super Seal which is like Radweld for A/C systems. https://www.amazon.co.uk/STP-Super-Conditioning-Nitrile-Gloves/dp/B07RWJT4H6 @Gilbertd installs domestic A/C systems & has endorsed the product too.

Returning to the perennial issue of the sagging headliner I have just done a quick but effective temporary fix. I ordered some of these upholstery pins & they do a great job. The headlining wasn't sagging all over so I only needed a dozen pins to ensure that there was not headliner material drooping & obstructing the view through the rear window. The pins don't look too bad at all provided you space them out evenly so they look neat. At least now I don't get reminded that I need to fix the headlining every time I look in the rear view mirror.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07DBN5BNW?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details

Gilbertd wrote:

Somebody did post it a while ago but I have a feeling the trim codes A, B and C denote the trim level and not the colour, so trim code A would be what was fitted to a base model, B would be something like an SE and C would be HSE.

My P38 is a Vogue.

I used this free VIN decoder which provided the build sheet information "Interior Trim Colours - Lightston/Burgundy [C]" That looks to be accurate as I have red carpets & light cream leather.

https://www.vindecoderz.com/EN/check-lookup/SALLPAMJ31A458723

I'm getting the headlining repaired & need to confirm the colour. On the label under the bonnet I find paint code 696 which is Alveston Red but trim code is C which I cannot find anywhere. The list below of trim codes is quoted in many posts when I Google but does not contain C. I had always assumed it was Lightstone but I could be wrong

Trim Code Colour
D = Dark Granite Cloth
E = Tan Cloth
F = Dark Granite Leather
G = Tan Leather
P = Lightstone Leather
U = Ash Grey Leather
V = Ash Grey Cloth
J = Walnut Leather
X = Lightstone Blue

I have owned my P38 for twelve years but didn't realise until 3-4 years ago that P38s have a battery cover & that mine was missing. I had seen them on eBay for £50-£60 delivered but they often looked a bit tatty or were missing one or more of the three screws. Recently I spotted a decent looking battery cover for £40 with all the screws so on a whim ordered it. Yesterday I got round to fitting it. I suppose that it does make it look a little neater but TBH I'm not sure what other advantages there are. Obviously I'm not going to send it back but did consider that perhaps the money would have been better spent towards getting the sagging headliner fixed.😀

Yesterday the car passed the CT with no advisories. The shiny new exhaust & lambda sensors fixed the emissions & the sticky back plastic plus a bit of adjustment sorted the headlights.

I had almost forgotten that prior to the first CT two years ago I had also adjusted the position of the headlight bulbs on advice I found on Landyzone. The H4 bulb has 3 tangs that control the orientation of the bulb. On the P38 headlamp, only the upper most tang controls the location for RHD, the other two tangs are in a wider slot made for either LHD or RHD. To convert RHD to LHD you simply need to bend the upper most tang to 90 degrees so it does not engage and then rotate the bulb to the alternate position as controlled by the other tangs. This gives a reasonable LHD beam pattern especially with the left headlight adjusted to point a little more to the right and down a bit.

leolito wrote:

Yeah, agree, better not mess around with it anymore!
There will be some other problem area to deal with in time .... :-)

Speaking of which...

Yesterday morning it was raining hard & after a forty minute drive I noticed the carpet in the passenger footwell had got rather wet. The water wasn't icy this time & the volume of water was greater so I'm guessing that this time it was rainwater getting in rather than water condensing on the AC. It still looks to be running out through the heater box. Last time I changed the pollen filters I applied generous amounts of sealant on the covers & screws but it looks like I may have missed somewhere.

On that diagram I can't find the corrugated drain that takes the icy water from the heater box down to the drain under the car. I think that the kink in the corrugated rubber drain was what was preventing the icy water draining away. The split in the tube doesn't seem to be allowing any water to escape.

I'm happy that I've fixed the problem so am not going to fiddle about with it any more.

Gilbertd wrote:

https://new.lrcat.com/#!/1234 or https://parts.jaguarlandroverclassic.com/land-rover-range-rover-1994-2001-parts/

I can't find it on either of them though. The only one that looks similar on the pictures is shown as the hose to the rear ducts. I can't see it being dual purpose but who knows?

The piece that looks like the part I am referring to is labelled 11 in this diagram https://parts.jaguarlandroverclassic.com/btr9224-duct-face-level-vent.html?code=L7K01040
This is about 10cm in diameter while the hose to the rear ducts is about 30cm in diameter.

Gilbertd wrote:

Take the side panel off the centre console and you'll be able to see the hose. It may not be connected at one end or the other. Maybe it was disturbed when the dash was taken out by someone (that'll be me then....).

I took the side panels off the centre console & found the left hand (passenger) corrugated hose that goes from draining the AC housing to the actual drain was kinked & had a hole in the side through which I think the water was dripping out. I unkinked the rubber corrugated hose & twisted it around so the split was upwards. I then drove with the side panels off for thirty minutes to a local town for some shopping then thirty minutes back 7 didn't have any water dripping in the footwell although it was pouring out under the car through the two AC drains.

Have you got a link to the parts diagram so I find the part number of the short corrugated rubber hose that has the split in it?

Chasman wrote:

The the "radio" isn't working from any source. Total silence. It made a very loud pop in all speakers (esp the subwoofer) when I turned on the ignition a few days ago and hasn't worked since.

I checked all the under seat fuses. All good

I assume I've blown up my main amp and a professional installer has told me a) they blow up often, chiefly due to water damage b) Harman Kardon units are NOT repairable.

Prices on eBay are wild... From £50 to £300.

Please tell me what I need to know...

If you have the high end Harman Kardon DSP amp XQK100340 in the rear then they are unobtainable new (although JLR have them listed at £1,165.40 they are out of stock). They cannot be repaired & used go from £200-£430 all with little or no warranty so you could pay £400 & have it crap out in a couple of months time just like your 20+ year old DSP amp did. Even non-working 'for parts only' are on offer for £50. Who on earth is paying £50 for a broken amp that cannot be repaired?

Apparently the Harman Kardon DSP amp XQK100210 from the Disco 2 is plug compatible but only the front speakers & sub woofer will work. These amps are still available new. One listing on eBay is rather optimistically offering a new one at £249 while another seller has them new for £50. Used but working examples are £30 & upwards. I bought a new £50 one as my HK DSP amp failed a few weeks back but I haven't had the chance to fix it in yet & left it in the garage in the UK when I travelled over to Brittany. I will be back in the UK next week so hope to get a chance then.

I had the A/C recharged & it's working perfectly now. We have hot weather in Brittany at present but it's nice & icy in the car. The problem is that icy water is dripping down in the passenger footwell (RHD). I have been under the car to clear the A/C drains & managed to poke a screwdriver into both but I wasn't rewarded with an of armful of muck & dirty water. There is water dripping from both drains although there is more from the right hand (driver's side) drain.
Am I missing something? Do I need a longer screwdriver or do I need to start taking the dashboard out to make sure the A/C drains are connected properly at the top end?