Thread: P38 NVH characteristics

What setting do you run your EAS at?

hi Grumbles, had it locked at normal height for the corrugations due to the need for ground clearance. tried it for a while at freeway height but made no difference.

I havn't experienced a 38A on corrugations but here is my 2c worth.

Remember you are swinging a bloody great big lump of iron under the front of a 38A vs a Navara with independent front.

How far into the corrugations did roughness start? Straight away or after a while. Boges will fade pretty quickly under these circumstances. Bilsteins are the only stayers.

When I drove a mate's 38A admittedly only slowly and on rough bitumin, I was very surprised by the small bump "jiggliness" vs my old RRC. I think the airbags let more harshness through. Contrary to accepted wisdom but there you are.

When you say "slightly reduced pressures" , what do you mean . I run mine on corrugations at 24 front 30 rear ( fully loaded and towing a camper)and this makes it a lot better. You should keep under 90Kmh doing this. on my RRC a drove thousands of Ks at these pressures with no tyre problems. Lightly loaded I think you could lower the back a bit more.

I must say I am surprised as I had a view that Jap utes would feel as if they are falling apart on corrugations. Just goes to show you shouldn't assume.
Regard s Philip A

G'day Hoges. You are operating your EAS correctly by running it at the "locked in standard ride height" for harsh dirt road travel so all is good there.

PhilipA might be on the money with his shocker comment too.

But there might be an alternate cause for your excessive NVH as I have just recently discovered. My LSE [same EAS as your P38] rode badly on dirt roads etc. The NVH was offputting to be frank so more and more I tended to avoid it. But recently I had my EAS compressor refurbished as it became noisy virtually overnight although the EAS still worked okay - or so it seemed.

But it wasn't. Since having it refurbished the NVH has diminished considerably to the point where I again enjoy driving on a chopped up dirt road. The wear inside the compressor was considerable and I was surprised that it could pump at all - but it did - but as I now know nowhere at normal capacity.

What I assume happened was that although the EAS compressor still worked it was at a much reduced rate and capacity. That it couldn't keep up with the demands of an EAS system working at full load for long periods on rough surfaces. That the system used air faster than the compressor could fill the tank so the air bags were not properly filled which gave a harsh ride. But this wasn't obvious travelling around home on good roads which didn't stress the system.

With your P38 EAS compressor now getting on in time and use perhaps it too might not be functioning as well as it should.

If your problem was bushes etc I would have thought that this would have given some indication of wear/problems etc in general driving conditions whereas the EAS compressor would cope pretty well with normal daily errand/travelling round sort of thing.

Just a thought here - hope it helps.