P38 Work in progress

Hello all, This is my second post on this forum and I thought instead of just firing my newbie questions I will use the search button first. I managed to sort out things within my limited skill and leaving the rest to the expert later. Long read for you or just skip to the pictures

I had the P38 for a couple of months now and I bought it as a project and my second car, most of my friends think I am mad for getting a P38 but I do like a bit of project work to take my mind off things in life

It is a 1995 P38 with the front conversion with a range rover sport, not everyone cup of tea but I do like it. It came with some 20" wheels and wide tyres which I got rid of last month, instead of orginal 18 I gone for the range rover sport wheels. At £250 with 5mm tyres all around I think is a bargain, again most people think 18" is the best but I like bigger wheels and as a second car and less than 3000 miles a year I think thats not an issue.

It came with coil suspension and I think the last owner didn't care for the car very much, I would love to have the air suspension back unless I can lower the car by 2". The coil spring is ok but I think it is design for car which will still be used for some off road use, I live in London and drove 99% on flats so the high ride just means bouncing around town......

Enough intro, This is when I picked it up in May






New wheels , got the spigot rings and nuts to fit them.







Wet foot well and over heat when idle, investigated and found out half the radiator don't get hot....O ring already been attempted to fix but last owner and a very bad job. New rad, new Audi heat exchange on the way. I won't be suprised the last owner put those radiator fix thing in to the system and the gunk clog up inside......:bolt:









The rear window is tinted and the auto dim mirror does not work....I like the idea of having a car black box so why not have a black box rear mirror powered by the auto dimm? never done before "I did use the search button but no answer" here we go



The last owner lives in the farm and I think the car been used to transfer horses around..looks like the horse been in the boot and rear seat by the looks of the trims.....leather re-dye









Out standing list of things to do

1. ordered 3 new washer pump, only rear washer working and when I remove Job donethe pumps for testing the nipple broke into pieces in my hand....
2. ABS and TC lights on dash Fixed Clear fault and warning gone
3. No air con and book symbol, auxiliary fan sized Fixed New condenser fitter, aftermarket electric fan, Kwik fit re gas
4. Heating control display half working
5. re-spray door card and trim to black Job done
6. parking sensor and reverse camera instal Job donel Ebay reverse camera hook up to Flip Head unit, cheap £20 reverse sensors just below rear bumper
7. Revert back to air suspension or lower car by 2"
8. Reverse selected the side mirror dip but it will not move back up when drive or park selected. Disable the stupid function for now

Since I fixed the overheating and wet footwell the car has been fantastic to drive. £20 LPG get me around 100miles in town so is not overly expensive, I had a SupraTT and M3 so I am used to high MPG :crazy_driver:

Cheers and if there is any pointer to OBDII and software to ABS/TC advice please let me know. I have a laptop with OBD lead which I used for my M3, I am hoping it will work on the P38a

Many thanks

Welcome and well done on what you have done so far.

Don't think obd will work on most p38 systems but maybe someone near you may be able to help with diagnostics.
When my abs tc lights stayed on it turned out to be the ecu under the passenger footwell, which had been damp and had to be replaced.

rodntod said:

Welcome and well done on what you have done so far.

Don't think obd will work on most p38 systems but maybe someone near you may be able to help with diagnostics.
When my abs tc lights stayed on it turned out to be the ecu under the passenger footwell, which had been damp and had to be replaced.

Click to expand...

Cheers rodntod, I did read somewhere that P38 have OBDII but the codes or interface is not the standard other car uses... most of the diagnostic tools are expensive.

Welcome to the club, i'm a newbie to P38's as well and also have my hands full trying to get it ship shape and reliable????
It looks in good shape externally for a 95.
I'm not usually a lover of the front end conversion but it looks good on yours, maybe the colour helps carry it off?
Anyway, good luck with your project and keep the updates coming.
When i get the time i would like to post my experiences as a newcomer to the P38 so other new owners can have a head start on what to check, replace and where to buy and also tips on how to prepare for fairly certain eventualities that will befall a P38 owner.
Standard ODB scanners dont work, cant think of the name of the software RR use but you need a Nanocom for portable scanning.

BensonP38 said:

Cheers rodntod, I did read somewhere that P38 have OBDII but the codes or interface is not the standard other car uses... most of the diagnostic tools are expensive.

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I can't remember exactly which,but i think OBD/11 will read a couple of the basic functions on the p38 but all others are bespoke to LR.
I bought a nanocom for mine,and to be honest have only needed to use it twice in the past year,but have been able to help another couple of local RR owners in the process,so it's handy to have if a little expensive.
You are doing a top job tidying up your car, keep up the good work.

Ed

Check the brake light switch for the ABS and TC lights on

Nice looking car!

How hard was it to replace the heater matrix with the Audi one? No o-rings sounds great, but how much of the dash did you need to remove in order to do it?

You put a lot of work in. But one small point, the tyres sticking out beyond the arches are illegal. It should fail an MOT for that.

wammers said:

You put a lot of work in. But one small point, the tyres sticking out beyond the arches are illegal. It should fail an MOT for that.

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Not any more, I got rid of those rubbish alloys.








I had a look at the rear brake light switch and I can see my rear brake light is working and when I press the brake pedal I can hear a click from the computer under the seat. However, I found 2 switch and not sure what the other one does........it has a hose connected to it as well as wire, both switch seems to be connected together some how.

I can hear the pump working after pressing the brake pedal a few times.






speedyyellow, its not hard if you know what you are doing, there is lots of pic instruction. not for the faint hearted as you WILL need to butcher the metal frame and ducting :jaw: . Do it if necessary and only as last resort. The last owner attempted to replace the O ring and I guess over tighten the screw and cracked the plastic housing. I didn't remove any dash trim, only the side of the console and the panel under the steering wheel. Very tight space.

Fair do,s.

BensonP38 said:

Not any more, I got rid of those rubbish alloys.

I had a look at the rear brake light switch and I can see my rear brake light is working and when I press the brake pedal I can hear a click from the computer under the seat. However, I found 2 switch and not sure what the other one does........it has a hose connected to it as well as wire, both switch seems to be connected together some how.

I can hear the pump working after pressing the brake pedal a few times.

speedyyellow, its not hard if you know what you are doing, there is lots of pic instruction. not for the faint hearted as you WILL need to butcher the metal frame and ducting :jaw: . Do it if necessary and only as last resort. The last owner attempted to replace the O ring and I guess over tighten the screw and cracked the plastic housing. I didn't remove any dash trim, only the side of the console and the panel under the steering wheel. Very tight space.

Click to expand...

One switch is brake lamps other switch cancels cruise control and releases vacuum.

I made a trip to Ikea lakeside with the P38 on Saturday, with the seats folded up the cab size is FANTASTIC!! It was a hot day and after motoway driving and traffic slow start and stopping for 1h there is no over heating, the radiator and new thermostat seems to cured the overheat problem.



The door card is getting tired and colour fading, tried to clean it up but no luck. I took out all 4 door cards and spray them all gloss black with clear final coat.





However, it rained when we pull out of our driveway in the cab. Water coming out from the interior light housing. My wife was laughing when I took the housing out and got myself all wet due to trapped water. Never happened to me before but it is the first time I parked on my drive with the car front slightly raised. Time to silicon the seals I think.

Today is nice and sunny so I decided to fix the washer pumps. A five minutes job, now front and back have water jet. The car has range rover sport front conversion but no headlight washer!!!! Where to get one?



Any one around Orpington Kent area with diagnostic tool? I need to find out what is causing my ABS/TC light.

Cheers

Looks good - it's a pretty special colour...

What did you use for the door pillars ?

Mine are shot and quite like the look of carbon fibre ...

where did you get the dye from ?

ebay...

Air con never worked when I bought the car so drove to Kwik Fit and ask them to vacuum test and re gas. After 45 mins the guy said Mr Chik your range rover is done, air con is nice and cold but your air outlet is weak......

Fixed

I paid up and took the key and try out the air con. The blower stopped working !!! but I can feel nice and cold air from air vent. Drove back home which is less than 3 miles and when I parked up and switch off engine I hear hissing noise from the front



Hot vapour and green liquid spilling out from all over the condenser, no wonder the air con never worked. Why would Kwik fit not tested for leak before putting in the gas? Anyway I didn't have time to go back so went on computer and researched for fix.

Bought new condenser and electric fan (the old ones are broken)



May be I shouldn't bother as most people say it never get turned on, tested them by using the pin 3-5 trick and both work.



Old one out and new one in, took me around an hour. The most difficult part is getting the hose off the old condenser, very tight space and I don't want to damage the new condenser...I know the old one is damaged by corrosion over time but I can't help to think the condenser is weak as paper.

Went back to Kwik fit and explained all gas leaked in a few hours, the same guy served me earlier in the week seems embarrased and said no problem, we will re gas it right now. I told them to make sure vacuum test it for half and hour and only re gas if it is ok. 50 mins later the same "Mr Chik your range rover is ready" tone. Nice and cold air from the vent for the last few hours, time will tell if there is any more leaks...

After putting in the Audi heat exchange and changing the radiator my car never over heat again. The top radiator hose seems to be hard when car is warmed up, being a paranoid I search on line and got myself worry if the head gasket is gone and gas build up in cooling system.....

Borrow one of these from a friend and tested the expansion chamber



Don't seems to be any gas in the cooling system, is the top radiator supposed to be hard? How hard is too hard