Well it's either I am rescueing a P38 or I need rescueing from a P38 ! LOL
I figured its time to let you guys in on my project.

A little background, I am best described as a mill wright but I am basically a grease monkey. I can make everything from production machinery to watch parts and can fix most things without bleeding. My wife is a retired teacher and accomplished actress who has been disabled for several years now, and I am her full time carer. We have very little income and survive on our whits. This is just to let you know how crazy a decision I made and not for sympathy.

We have always had nice cars, well turned out and unusual, the sort of thing that gets noticed, but _uietly. For example, a series III 88inch ex-life guard tender with 35,000 miles on it. It was repainted and didnt show its history, just a smart, clean, old car. But I saw people looking! or our 81 BMW Baur convertible. only 4,000 made but you wouldnt know it was that rare, again just a smart old car that you dont see everyday.

Times have changed, we cant afford the 1 off car, but we still appreciate some level of comfort and _uality about what we drive. Now here is where the 'hammer to the head' jokes start.

We HAD a 2002 volvo v70. It ran well, was in good condition, I had made some, what I call 'wear item', repairs and all was right with the world. We bought this car after loosing our Disco 1 3 door 300tdi which was in lovely condition in every way except for one small insignificant problem. There were only 2.5 bolts holding the body on the frame! We bought the volvo cheep, I mean really cheap, as a stop gap while we looked for another Land Rover. I start seeing P38's on teh internet going for around £700 and think to myself , ''well..I do have some years behind me and after all, I wouldn't mind a challenge to keep me busy'' ok so not so bad right?

Only problem was in our position I couldn't afford to buy one and fix it in one go or one that didn't need fixing. So i spent 3 months trolling the internet to find this one that had the RIGHT kind of broken that I could get cheap and fix for the cost of the volvo if sold. I found a 1997 2.5 DSE with 4 months MOT, 2 advisories last mot for deteriorated ball joint dust covers and 119,000 miles 2.4 owners. Down side, diesel pump wasn't working after the .4 owner took it apart to change seals. Otherwise the truck is in beautiful condition. (for its age) It has the winter pack, leather interior, 5 matching alloys, working air suspension, some electrical probs but nothing I was afraid of. £550.00 Can sell the volvo for £600.00 after my work on it so ok. I sell one of my lathes, I don't need anymore, and I have some cash to sort it out. should take me two weeks.



LMAO!!! Ok so yeah I sold the car, sold the lathe and 3 months later it still isn't running! We live in a small village in Scotland and we only have the one car. So it has been a stretch on...um....everything. Surprised she hasnt killed me yet. I can tell you this, I wont be saying ''of course I can do it, no problem, we will be driving again in noo time!'' again anytime soon!!

I dunno how much it'll be, but it certainly looks the real deal - and the folding mirror still works... What's left to do? And since it's cropped up in other threads several times today, would it help if we sent cake?

Well done that man truly mad as we all are for keeping these old ERM......cars running.

Looks good! Hope you get the old truck running soon!

Keep seeing P38s and wondering how hard can it really be to get one back to full health?

rob_bell said:

Keep seeing P38s and wondering how hard can it really be to get one back to full health?

Click to expand...

Same here^^^

Good luck with the recommissioning!
I'm certainly interested in seeing it progress. It looks like a nice old bus!

Rich

Hi guys, sorry I have been away. Took the head off and found more so been throwing the bones and reading tea leaves to figure what to do next!
to answer the _uestion,

rob_bell said:

Looks good! Hope you get the old truck running soon!

Keep seeing P38s and wondering how hard can it really be to get one back to full health?

Click to expand...

and

boguing said:

I dunno how much it'll be, but it certainly looks the real deal - and the folding mirror still works... What's left to do? And since it's cropped up in other threads several times today, would it help if we sent cake?

Click to expand...

yes!! cake will definitely help ! lol

Non runner suspected FIP fault no diesel to injectors. offered for £550.00

first inspection found missing front prop shaft bought 97 DSE for £500.00

second inspection found no fuel from in tank pump new lift pump £53.00

third inspection ran into some deep doo doo still no fuel from the pump. followed the procedure I wrote up in a post the other day and found the woodruf key on the FIP drive sprocket gone! well it was there but now its part of the shaft. second hand pump with 30 day warranty £150.00, new key £4.00 new drive sprocket £63.00
new timing chain tensioners £60.00 tools £60.00 filter service set £22.00 oil/water £60.00


fourth inspection now I have fuel but no start. compression test 9 bar instead of 20 bar. head gasket set including valve seals and bolts £120.00 new thermostat £30.00
tools £30.00 (my trusty ratchet of 20 years finally broke RIP clicky you were my
constant companion) NOS glow plugs £10.00 (just because old ones 'looked' fine)

fifth inspection head gasket was truly gone. water in the head bolts. no real damage thank god the car only has 119,000 on it. But SERIOUSLY, all this damage 2.4 owners and 119,000 miles?
took a close look at the head and found hair line cracks. 3 of them. 2 in number 3 and 1 in number 4. still working out what Im gonna do here so no cost yet

other work done while waiting for parts

new battery £65.00

repair to tail gate This one is a bit annoying. Battery died and alarm kicked in. shmuck decides that using a crow bar to open tail gate was smarter than lowering back seats!! new/ old centre latch £25.00 (gonna fix the body work as it isnt too bad)

rebuilt centre console window switches. no new parts just patience and time. free

eas fault.not really a fault. truck was moved without setting to travel mode and comp said WAIT A MINUTE HERE!! pump, air bags atc. all working as they should. suspension has held air for 3 months now without drop. bags look good and all sensors behaving. eas software £24.00

front prop shaft. always always always grease your universals!!!! rear UJ failed, prop came free and smacked the tranni. fortunately the centre support beam took the hit and only a small dent is in the trans sump pan. was a bugger getting the bolts out as the threads and nuts of the mounting bolts were press welded together by impact. new/old shaft £25.00


known faults still to fix

hevac test book showing on whats left of the pixels. no fan and a/c pump had its belt taken off. not sure what the story is here. Will get it running first and rely on the heated windshield until i can investigate the hevac.

Other than that there is a dent in the front bumper which I think will be cheap to bend back but brakes are good, tyres are good, no rust, even the exhaust is in good shape, and it seems to be water tight. Its just this head now. So if anybody knows of a decent 2.5 head for a 97 I would be interested. At the moment I'm in contact with some companies to get my hands on a new casting that I will build up with my cam etc. but money is tight and im looking at another month or two without a car :/

I have some one with a running omega going cheaper than you can get a head for engine is a straight swop

is the head on that the same? I have seen the head gaskets etc sold as bmw/rr/omega but I havent looked further. Other problem is I am in scotland so getting a whole engine here a bit more expensive than a head. whats he want for it?

He is selling the whole car as is ill health means he can no longer drive at just 62 so travel down buy it drive it home

ok ty for that. yeah thats not gonna work out for me. I dont have the space for a second car let alone one I just pulled to bits. the cost of coming down there, driving back, taxing, and then getting the carcass removed will be far more than a second hand head. cheers for offering though.

Sounds as though you've made a fantastic start getting to the bottom of all the problems. Having so many cracks in the cylinder head seems desperately unlucky. Is this a known 2.5DSE fault?

yeah rob but it is usually followed by an over heating issue. In this case however, I suspect that he has run bio diesel that was methanol based ie..home made. There is evidence in the cylinders above the compression line of a moisture and acid production during combustion. I have also seen evidence in the exhaust side f the turbo. Add that to the simultaneous failure of both fuel pumps with the seals being gone at 119,000 miles and the cracked head showing excesive heat, and the evidence adds up to methanol.

on the plus side, I have a head coming!! second hand head in good condition £145.00 (with the poss of return if I'm not happy with it)

I also forgot to add towing the truck home from where I bought it to the cost so far. towing 60 miles or so £120.00

Apologies for last post - touch typing on the iphone!!!

Yes, home made fuel with too much methanol does start to make sense of all the problems (and satisfies Occam's razor!)

£145 for a new head sounds like a very good deal to me. Hopefully your P38 will be running again soon!

Just an update. The new /old head has arrived today and gosh darn it its good! gonna lap the valves and r&r the valve seals. Really want to do the valve guides and cam bearings but I'm way over budget so its gonna have to do for now. I'm confident it will run, if all be it rough, and give me time to save up for a proper rebuild down the line. I still need to drive the thing and see what else needs doing before I do that.

Point of interest, the head I bought is off an Omega and it is identical to the head in my 97 with alli intake plenum. It even has the extra holes to switch the intake studs for the other engines as does mine despite the engine builder I asked telling me otherwise. I'm guessing there was a switch over period somewhere in the late 90's where the two heads were changed regarding intake studs. So somewhere in 98 maybe, the extra holes arent there and you would need to machine them in to do the swap.

I had one of these engines in an omega. It was a really nice engine, very smooth. Vauxhall in their ultimate wisdom though fitted the same autobox as their 2 litre petrols, which couldnt handle anywhere near the torque fomr the BMW engine. BMW used an uprated version of the same box, which had extra clutch plates on the main forward clutch. Instead of using the uprated box, vauxhall just de-tuned the engine to miserable 90BHP. It still had bags of torque thugh, so at usually 100K on the nose, the forward clutch would go on the gearbox. There was also a little plastic part in the FIP that was notorious for going at around the same mileage. It was a £2000 repair. Mine had both problems. Eventually the forward clutch gave up altogether. Luckily I was about three miles from my uncle's house so I reversed that 3 miles, dumped the car there and got the scrappy to pick it up.

Should you ever need a new ECU, go for the BMW one as I believe it was the most powerful output, then the RR one. Never get the vauxhall one as you will find that you have no power!

gill

Yeah I have had my suspicions about the rr being de-tuned for a while. Lots of posts all over the Internet about using a psi motorsport chip set and seeing returns a 38 mpg. Once I have the engine rebuilt I'm thinking of remapping.

ok so I rebuilt the head, lapped the valves, changed the seals etc. and still no start. I was getting smoke from 1,2, and six nothing out of 3,4, &5. So I turned it over a few times and pulled out no. 3 and sure enough, dry as a bone :/ I also discovered that the fuel pump relay burned out so I need to investigate why there is a constant live to the relay. (not the switch side, the key side) wammers thinks It might be the fuse box itself. Ill look into it after rebuilding the injectors.

6 new Pintaux Nozzles £50.00 plus £5.00 shipping

not too bad. a lot better than £150.00 an injector!
so I'll let you know what happens next. Money is starting to add up but I guess I still have a bargain when you consider how much has been rebuilt so far. I could easily spend this much on another one and still need to do all this work on it so mustn't grumble!

More DIY diesel trouble???

rob_bell said:

More DIY diesel trouble???

Click to expand...

yeah..contamination in injector 5 and heavy deposits sticking the needles in so no spray. This problem has more to do with the fuel he ran in it than dyi to be fair to the guy, but thats as far as Im gonna be kind to him LOL. Im discussing the injectors in another thread if ya want a look...the thread is p38 diesel injectors. gonna put some pics there later.

Great thread
Any updates?