It's grim up north....tales from the Primate House

[NorthernMonkey]

As some of you may recall, earlier in the year Saabnut’s P38 was driven many miles south after months of standing around in his field.

Yesterday, finding myself with nothing in the diary, I decided to have a poke at a couple of the minor issues. The main one was a constantly flashing gear indicator panel along with a permanent ‘select neutral’ message on the dash.

Various online Land Rover resources suggested a myriad of possibilities such as a faulty XYZ switch, burnt out transmission ECU, corroded earths etc etc.

Shortly after the purchase, I took the liberty of acquiring a second Rangey from Djimbob of this parish to use for spares....this has been stripped of all useful bits and the remains are currently en-route to a new, better life in China.

Anyhow, first job was to change the XYZ switch which seemed to be the favourite...this sits on the side of the gearbox and tells the ECU what gear it’s in. The old one was covered in crap and came off in several pieces so as you can imagine, expectations for the new one were high. Needless to say, those hopes were dashed when the flashiness and the beeping were still present.

Not to be deterred, I decided to replace the high/low ratio selector motor from the other side of the box. Now the old one seemed to work of a fashion but it was a tad slow to change from one to the other, taking around 8-10 seconds as opposed to the two or three seconds that it’s suggested it should be.

Anyway, the new unit was bolted up, connections cleaned and the car lowered once again....

Success!! It now moves from high to low and back again in a couple of seconds and everything is functioning as LR intended.

The downside is now the error messages have gone from the dash, the trip computer is readable..ave. consumption is an impressive 4.2 mpg!

[NorthernMonkey]

Oh yes, now that’s fixed the drivers door lock has ceased to function off the central locking.... ?

[skattrd]

45 minutes ago, NorthernMonkey said:

Oh yes, now that’s fixed the drivers door lock has ceased to function off the central locking.... ?

The remote on my P38 unlocks the rear doors, but not the front, they work off the key though.

If you've got any tips for P38 with immobiliser probs like you were mentioning with the Blingo let me know, Mine has suddenly gone immobile.

[Jim Bell]

Actually 42 mpg for one of those is pretty good. 

 

 

Ahem. 

[NorthernMonkey]

23 minutes ago, Jim Bell said:

Actually 42 mpg for one of those is pretty good. 

 

 

Ahem. 

Yep.

 

It would be.

[NorthernMonkey]

I’m hoping it’s just from being shuffled around the yard for the last three months.

Double figures would be nice.

[skattrd]

Isn't the ex-saabnut P38 the BMW 2.5 diesel? 

Mine got high 20s on the odd occasion it has worked.

[Jim Bell]

35 minutes ago, NorthernMonkey said:

I’m hoping it’s just from being shuffled around the yard for the last three months.

Double figures would be nice.

This sounds like grounds for an scientific experiment. Drive it a long way to see if driving it gets cheaper the further you go. 

If it doesn't get cheaper, come back the short way. 

[NorthernMonkey]

I’ll try that. I’m sure* it will. Apparently the fuel consumption on these is brilliant on the back of a RAC flat bed.

[NorthernMonkey]

7 minutes ago, skattrd said:

Isn't the ex-saabnut P38 the BMW 2.5 diesel? 

Yep.

 

7 minutes ago, skattrd said:

....on the odd occasion it has worked.

Don’t say that ☹️

This is supposed to be the new WBOD.

[NorthernMonkey]

54 minutes ago, skattrd said:

The remote on my P38 unlocks the rear doors, but not the front, they work off the key though.

If you've got any tips for P38 with immobiliser probs like you were mentioning with the Blingo let me know, Mine has suddenly gone immobile.

As you’re no doubt aware, the key on these drops out of synch with the BECM under the seat.

When mine has done this a couple of times, locking and unlocking the thing with the key has got the remote locking working again and has then disarmed the immobiliser.

I’m hoping this will continue to work as I have no emergency codes or anything...just a sense of hopeless optimism.

[skattrd]

I checked the paperwork on mine... it's on it's third engine and currently has possible HGF/mysterious overheating issue.
It's also on it's second gearbox.
It has decided to stop doing everything now though, I think the immobiliser is having a fit. Apparently they can loose sync or something.

It has done almost 150k, so it did work for quite a bit of the time, just not recently.

 

 

[skattrd]

2 minutes ago, NorthernMonkey said:

As you’re no doubt aware, the key on these drops out of synch with the BECM under the seat.

When mine has done this a couple of times, locking and unlocking the thing with the key has got the remote locking working again and has then disarmed the immobiliser.

I’m hoping this will continue to work as I have no emergency codes or anything...just a sense of hopeless optimism.

yep, I did that when it did it before and it worked again, but not this time.
I do have the EKA code as well, I tried that and that did nothing
It was whilst looking for the EKA code I discovered the history of replacement engine and gearbox on mine.

[NorthernMonkey]

12 minutes ago, skattrd said:

I checked the paperwork on mine... it's on it's third engine and currently has possible HGF/mysterious overheating issue.
It's also on it's second gearbox.

Bloody hell...someone was committed to it!

I presume it’s the V8 with it having overheating issues....that’s what ultimately  finished my spares one off. It would run quite happily for 30 miles or so but switch it off and restart again five minutes later and it would smoke like a lab full of beagles and chuck all it’s coolant out. Let the smoke burn off and top up with coolant and you were good to go again.

When I brought it back over the hill from Djimbobs, it filled the town with smoke for ten minutes until I was about to pull over and call for recovery whereupon it cleared up beautifully and was fine for a couple of days.

[skattrd]

Sorry .. M51 diesel, same as yours, and the same as my 200k (on the original engine) e36.
New radiator, new water-pump, blah blah, still overheats … It's had a lot spent on it.

I'm just doing a thread in ask a shitter to stop hi-kjacking your thread

[Saabnut]

Glad to see the P38 is maintaining its standards! It never actually FTPed on me, but ALWAYS had to be fixed before I could use it again.  I would never have found that gearbox flashy light problem, mainly because it did not stop it being used. The door lock have always been troublesome. The day I collected it on a trailer I left the keys in the ignition so I would not lose them. When I got home, the central locking had triggered and every door was locked (they were all unlocked when I collected it). I bought a "break in kit" off ebay and got in, opened the doors then opened the bonnet. There was no battery fitted, so how did the central locking work? I had to use the break in kit a couple of times, once when it was happily ticking over on my drive. I had the key rebuilt and always left a window open if it was running. I solved the door lock problem by just never locking it!

Fuel wise, driving like Miss Daisy I got 31mpg, driving normally 27ish and towing 25ish.

[Saabnut]

Forgot to say, the engine was a replacement with a brand new one at about 80k and about 8 years old. Not documented, but that is what the PO was told. I had a new water pump fitted about 1500 miles ago when the old one failed, but I caught it in time.

[NorthernMonkey]

1 hour ago, Saabnut said:

Forgot to say, the engine was a replacement with a brand new one at about 80k and about 8 years old. Not documented, but that is what the PO was told. I had a new water pump fitted about 1500 miles ago when the old one failed, but I caught it in time.

It actually wouldn’t surprise me...the engine is as dry as the bottom of the budgie cage and sounds really sweet.

[Saabnut]

The engine was/is superb and the only reason I kept it as long as I did.

[Tayne]

On 7/18/2019 at 5:03 PM, skattrd said:

I checked the paperwork on mine... it's on it's third engine and currently has possible HGF/mysterious overheating issue.
It's also on it's second gearbox.
It has decided to stop doing everything now though, I think the immobiliser is having a fit. Apparently they can loose sync or something.

It has done almost 150k, so it did work for quite a bit of the time, just not recently.

 

 

 

Cracked cylinder head.

[NorthernMonkey]

Time for a bit of a fleet update.

The ex-Saabnut P38 is still here and although it was originally intended as a stop gap runaround, it has sort of turned into a bit of a restoration project. I managed to rectify the flashing gear selector/transmission error by transplanting the main shift solenoid and the XYZ switch from the parts donor acquired from djimbob and since sent to the fragger. That one donated plenty of spares as well as a decent set of alloys which sold well on eBay and actually resulted in a slight profit once all the sums were done.

The problem I have with it is it’s actually too nice to patch up and bodge...everything works as it should, even the sunroof, the headlining is in good nick, the interior is immaculate and the engine is very sweet indeed.

As a result, it’s currently in the middle of getting a full overhaul and rustproofing with the intention being to eventually give it a respray and bring it back up to a good standard. 

This meant that a new WBOD was on the cards. Those of you who were paying attention may remember the collection of a certain V6 Freelander a month or so ago. That met the requirements of 4wd and dog carrying capabilities nicely, and was a perfectly pleasant place to burn copious amounts of unleaded whilst wafting around.

Note the key word there, ‘was’. In true LR fashion, one of the heads decided it was no longer up to the basic requirements of keeping water, oil and combustion gases seperate.

In the meantime, a roffle win of a certain red Ford Galaxy was exchanged for an E36 saloon which in turn was swapped for a lurid green Vito van. This rapidly gained an immense place in my affections by combining being extremely pleasant to drive and excellent on fuel with looking absolutely shit...not just a bit tatty but properly hanging.

This took the place of daily transport, taking the dogs out, shopping, tip runs etc. All too soon however, the MOT was almost up. An examination revealed a couple of places that would need attention with the welder. 

Normally, I’d have called it a day and weighed it in but it seemed a shame as it’s had lots of welding done in the usual places to a good standard, there’s excellent tyres all round, the discs and pads are all very good indeed and the engine is as dry as a bone with no leaks and plenty of get up and go. It was decided to spend a couple of hours tidying up the front jacking points which were a bit crumbly and get it tested.

Needless to say, this turned into a couple of days as I kept finding other bits here and there which might as well be done whilst the gas bottles were out, but eventually all slightly suspect areas were replaced with fresh metal and along with two wiper blades and a new horn, a fresh ticket was obtained.

After all that work, I did the only sensible thing and proceeded to sell it to @Bucketeer to live in, since the poor bugger had lost his home to a treeing coonhound.

Meanwhile, a very well respected shiter posted something up for sale that caught my eye. Something which I never really knew existed but according to @snagglepuss is apparently right up my street.

We’ll find out one way or another tomorrow, as a deal has been struck and train tickets have been purchased.

[The Moog]

Definitely up your cobbled strasse.

Bearing in mind I have never sat in one let alone drive one. But definitely you

[Saabnut]

So pleased the P38 is getting a new lease of life, before long there will not be many of these left and I had got quite attached to this one until the frustration of having to fix it after every run got too much. Once sorted it should be a super car, and of course at that point I will instantly regret parting with it!

[HMC]

Glad to hear the green Vito lived on. I really miss it! 

[loserone]

Hopefully that means it's getting boarded out and fitted with a bed/bike storage etc.  Top work!

[Tickman]

Looking forward to the collection thread, hopefully a nice lengthy one to allow plenty of guesses from us all

[The Moog]

Hopefully that means it's getting boarded out and fitted with a bed/bike storage etc.  Top work!

It is in action ... I have suggested a certain gentleman should start a new thread for it.

[NorthernMonkey]

12 hours ago, Tickman said:

Looking forward to the collection thread, hopefully a nice lengthy one to allow plenty of guesses from us all

Really? If you insist....

Having spent most of the night awake with a throat that feels like I’ve been swallowing razor blades and broken glass, I finally dropped off to sleep about two hours ago.

Joy.

Anyway, the first train doesn’t depart until 08.57 but Mrs NM departs for work in the next 15 mins so if I want a lift, it’s now or never.

[NorthernMonkey]

Today’s breakfast of choice...

swiftly followed by a taxi to Blackburn

[Tickman]

Love the breakfast shot