It's very quiet in this section of AULRO. I suppose that P38s are dying off a bit generally now they're all at least 18 years old. Still seems to be a lot of enthusiasm in Facebook groups, though mostly UK-based it seems.
I'm probably posting this for just about no-one to read or respond to but what the heck, why not. I'm bored. Maybe it'll get some interest and discussion going on P38s again.
I wish there were half the cars being wrecked here as there is in the UK, because getting good used trim parts at a reasonable cost is hard in Oz. I actually bought a used parcel shelf in good nick out of the UK on eBay. eBay seems to subsidise postage on some international items, so the whole thing landed was about $150 cheaper than I could buy here. There is a certain yard in the south of Australia that has plenty of used P38 parts but quoted me some really high prices.
I've been keeping fairly busy working on my MY02 Vogue. The roof liner seemed to take me a long time to do, I think because I had so many interruptions and stopped work to allow time for glue to set on the broken trims I had to repair, and the sunroof cassette had me foxed for a while. Don't you love it when you assemble stuff the wrong way (like seatbelt bolts before the trim that goes around it
) because you're pushing on trying to finish something after a long day at it already?Anyway, a great result and now the interior looks very good. I was lucky with my car that by some miracle the leather seats came up really well with a clean, almost look new, even the driver's seat.
I had a noisy engine pulley and discovered that they all have some play when new to allow for heat expansion. So while I replaced the tensioner/idler assy and the idler under the alternator, still not sure which was the culprit. I'm keeping the old units in case I need to reuse with fresh bearings. Only discovered you can replace just bearings alone too late.
I drove a 600km round trip for work last week and the P38 went well. It averaged 12.5L/100km on the highway, overall average of 13.2L/100km including some off-roading. The steering started to kick a lot more than usual when off-road, and of course later found the steering damper leaking. It was the original one, I think, with "LAND ROVER' and MADE IN SPAIN" stamped on it. I suppose 19 years is a good run for a steering damper.
Main jobs to go are to pull the dash to repair sticking blend flaps (and replace one blend motor with gear damage as a result) and probably replace heater o-rings while I'm there. In two minds with going for OEM o-rings or Viton o-rings. Viton are apparently much more durable? Also have a noisy fan motor or two: plenty of leaves and disintegrated plenum foam in there, I think I've cleaned all up when replacing the foam and pollen filters, but it sounds like the motor bearings are shot.
I replaced rear rotors and pads and fronts look okay but I wonder if the accumulator is on the way out. The servo motor doesn't power up excessively often -- I think - but brake pwr assist could be a little stronger. The brake fluid reservoir sits at the top mark when the car has been driven, but when left for a while fluid is maybe 5mm over the full mark. Not sure what that means -- failing accumulator or just normal.
The cooling system is behaving so I'm loathe to go in there to disturb it yet. It has green coolant in it, should be red/pink OAT. Just before my work took a nosedive a month ago I bought new coolant and as many of the coolant hoses, thermostat etc I could, but some hoses were out of stock. Not sure if I can justify the $ to buy the hoses I don't have just yet and get stuck into it.
I love the colour combination of my car -- Oslo blue with the lightstone beige interior -- but the paint has seen better days, esp on the roof and bonnet. There are many stains from tree sap and bird poo and the clear is coming off here and there. I'm going to rub back the serviceable bits with 2000-grit wet and dry and buff. It'll come up well overall, but really it needs fresh paint here and there to get to the standard I want. That's not happening for now though.
Well that's all from me. Hope your P38s are going well at the moment, and that that continues for at least a few trouble-free days
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