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Project P38 EAS With Shenanigans


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Posted

After hours of sweating and swearing at them, the dreaded shields are off.. 

they gave one hell of a fight, but they yielded to a hammer and screwdriver eventually ;) 

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Next down the list is the bi hex 12mm bolts that hold on the manifolds.... 

 

Tight as shit they are, hopefully they don't strip.. ;)

 

  • Like 2
Posted
On 7/14/2023 at 10:26 PM, Cooper1 said:

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do the side go higher for more wind protecion?

Posted
25 minutes ago, stuboy said:

do the side go higher for more wind protecion?

I'm thinking of raising that side to give more wind/rain protection, it tends to blow in at the moment. 

Posted

30 or so minutes today.. 

Managed to strip off all the front accessories along with the upper intake manifold. :) 

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I'm keeping most of the parts inside of the car, just helps to keep everything organised. :) 

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And finally all the LPG stuff is being removed. :);)

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:):)

 

 

  • Like 3
Posted
On 7/19/2023 at 9:53 PM, Cooper1 said:

I'm thinking of raising that side to give more wind/rain protection, it tends to blow in at the moment. 

i would recommend it

Posted

Got a bit further today..

Upper intake manifold removed along with the coils and HT lead spaghetti. ;) 

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Then the manifold itself, the fuel line in the back is a pain in the arse to get at, but got it off eventually ;) :) 

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Valley gasket out next just two 13mm or 1/2 inch bolts. 

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Rocker shaft removed next. 

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Pleased to see the old V8 is nice and clean inside, quite a few of these usually have a coating of carbon/sludge on everything not too bad for 140,000 miles. 

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Couldn't resist a quick peak at the cam followers while I was there, no wear on them at all... :);) 

Another rarity for the RV8 :) 

Excuse the potato grade photo. 

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I've run a straight edge across the face and they definietly aren't concave.. ;) :) 

Camshaft looks reasonable too. :)

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Next up heads off. :)

 

Oh and the HG is weeping from the front water galleries too... 

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Happy i'm doing it to be fair, it's not putting up too much of a fight either. :) 

 

At the moment LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted

Absolutely clean as a whistle that bugger. Must've been well cared for even before you got it.

Posted

LPG would play its part in keeping clean....plus the odd Italian tune up down some nice twisty back lanes ;)

Posted
12 hours ago, Matty said:

Absolutely clean as a whistle that bugger. Must've been well cared for even before you got it.

Agreed - looks really good inside!

My old blue RRC was full of nasty black gunge in the rocker boxes and looked like it had been on 60 Rothmans a day.

As far as I can remember from investigating this job when my P38 turned into Old Faithful, the exhausts / hateshields are the hardest bit. Obviously there's a ton of gubbins to remove around the plenum on these later cars too, but hopefully it'll all be just nuts n bolts for you now. Not planning on a hotter cam / tubular manifolds whilst you're in there?

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  • Like 3
Posted
4 hours ago, N Dentressangle said:

Agreed - looks really good inside!

My old blue RRC was full of nasty black gunge in the rocker boxes and looked like it had been on 60 Rothmans a day.

As far as I can remember from investigating this job when my P38 turned into Old Faithful, the exhausts / hateshields are the hardest bit. Obviously there's a ton of gubbins to remove around the plenum on these later cars too, but hopefully it'll all be just nuts n bolts for you now. Not planning on a hotter cam / tubular manifolds whilst you're in there?

go-on-father-ted.gif

Yep I'm pleased with the condition, it was on LPG for the majority of its life which helped. 

As for a hotter cam, to be honest I was tempted but £££ is probably better spent on other things like the VCU and front diff that needs doing too LOL :)

Posted

Next up OFF WITH ITS HEAD(s) image.gif.a4c1be308390e12ee7ab8bfc6ee7ca88.gif

No joke i needed a scaff tube on the end of my breaker bar to crack them off one of the bolts tried to strip which caused an hour or so of sweating.. :) 

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For the drivers side the lower manifold bolt for cylinder 8 is near impossible to get at unless the arch liner is removed..

So off which its wheel and liner.. ;)

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I did discover a small compost heap residing behind the mudflap :) 

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No rust though which is very good to see :) 

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Bores are in good nick with the crosshatch still very much visible  ;) :) 

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And all covered up

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Getting parts together now ;) 

 

hasn't fought me too much so far.. :) 

 

  • 1 month later...
Posted

Past month has been slow.

 

I've got ARP studs coming from america which are taking their time.. 

 

Just recently i've been marinating the heads in some gunk degreaser to remove all the carbon and oil deposits. 

And yes that is a clothes basket!! ;) only thing in my immediate vicinity that would hold the heads :) 

 

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Gunk went brown/black after 30mins of soaking, so i'm going to leave it soaking for 24hrs :)

 

More to come i'm sure ;) 

 

  • Like 3
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

soooo.

Been a bit quiet recently, the old girl is back together it went quite well a few small issues but she's no longer pouring coolant from the headgaskets 

The piece of the puzzle that took the longest to turn up were the ARP headstuds which are a necessity for the rover v8 due to block threads which are like cheese.

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Took 3 weeks to arrive from america.


Next up were the cylinder heads the gasket kit i bought included stem seals so while everything was apart I replaced them, took me an hour per head due to me making the classic mistake of buying the cheapest valve spring compressor I could lol 

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I also re lapped the valves to seat, just as a precaution 

old seals below rock bloody hard they were. :) 

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Lapped valve awaiting refittment.
 

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Once that's done the heads were cleaned off and attention was turned to the manifolds. 

New studs and because I lament the horrid steel covers LR used to cover the manifolds I decided to wrap them instead..

 

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And yes the manifolds are different colours oops.

skipping ahead somewhat the engine is back together "almost"

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After putting her back together I turned her over and petrol squirted out of the fuel rail!!  argh!!

Took her apart AGAIN!!! and found I had pinched off the seals under the injectors, duh... :) 

Anyway

back together with new seals and she fired up first go and ran perfectly..

Just need to replace the 02 sensors and get an MOT 

I'll get a complete picture later on..

 

Thanks.
 

 

Posted

Old girl is back together and runs well.. 

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Of course it needs a few more things, new 02 sensors as it's running open loop at the moment because both of them failed.

 

Runs mint though totally silent at idle, and no leaks whatsoever well chuffed. :) 

 

just needs an MOT

 

Posted
1 hour ago, Matty said:

Question is, now you've completely minted the car what will you do now? 

Old girl still needs quite  some work to be totally minted, now its a case of replenishing the suspension new balljoints and the like 

HVAC needs the blend motors rebuilding along with a new aircon drier. 

Headliner needs recovering 

bodywork needs a few dents pulling and some paint. 

Audio system overhaul too, arguably the most expensive bit... 😶

Posted

You've done a fantastic job there - huge amount of hours and work changing the head gaskets on these, even if none of (bar the heat shields) is especially difficult. Looks like you've made a great job of it too with a proper rebuild of the valves and seals.

I'm with you on the exhaust wrap - those heat shields are shite and just a PITA whenever anything needs fixing. And the next jobs on your list can be done as and when, so happy days!

Posted
On 9/27/2023 at 9:03 PM, Matty said:

Question is, now you've completely minted the car what will you do now? 

Four randoms please

  • Haha 3
  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

Roight.. 

In typical RR fashion its one step forward 300 steps back, I tell ya laying these motors up for an extended perioud is what does the most damage lol ;) 

New ride height sensors needed for the rear as it's decided to lean quite significantly to one side ;) 

And I need to re seal the pollen filter covers as after the torrential downpour yesterday there is some water ingress... 

Luckily the engine is still ok...... 

 

I did spend some time today giving the bay a much needed tidy up as it was a right mess.. :)  

cleaned the intake and throttle body with a brass wire brush, followed with some metal polish on an old terry cloth 

Plastics treated with autoglym vinyl and rubber care :)

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Put some coolant in her too, with the wather getting colder thought it best, I filled it with water initially just to make sure there were no leaks. No point wasting £40 of coolant if it pisses stright out the bottom lol :)

 

All good now. 

 

I'm thinking she's going to see the road sometime next year,probably january, gives me time to iron out the small issues that have surfaced :) 

 

 

Thanks.

 

Oh and this perfectly sums up RR ownership lol ;) :)

 

 

 

 

Posted

Small little job ticked off the list today, that being a cleanup of the rear arches and chassis as it had a fair amount of dirt stuck here there and everywhere.. :)

The condition of this motor really belies its age, one reason the P38 trumps the L322 and D2 is the simple reason, it doesn't disintegrate ;)

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Amazing also for the fact she lived on a causeway for the first 15yrs of her life! :)

 

Next up will be a coat of paint and the arch liner back in :)

 

This is what came off!

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  • Cooper1 changed the title to Project P38 EAS With Shenanigans
Posted

Ok been a while lol. 

 

Still got the old girl many shenanigans have been had many spanners thrown and blood sweat and more blood shed to get this old girl on the road.  😁 

 

I'll start with the chassis which like most P38s was is very good nick, but with obligatory surface rust and dirt a good pressure wash off and wire brush had her ready for a nice chassis black topcoat.  

 

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Next on the old list were the brakes, which on the P38 are powered like the old RRC the accumulator sphere loses its pressure overtime and you end up with next to no brakes when you first start the car and also in my case the pump runs with every pedal depression, which isn't good and can prematurely wear the pump.. 

So £160 later I have this, 

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Very nice....

 

EAS next!!!

  • Like 3
Posted

Yep this one tested my patience to its limit to be fair and many times I considered spunking £500 on a spring kit, but fear not this old P38 isn't going to be castrated just yet! :)

 

It alll started with a sudden and rather severe body lean which got worse and worse.. 

 

So with NANOCOM in hand £450 Cough "gulp" I had a gander at the EAS..... 

 

Seems I had more issues than I thought, it wouldn't connect to the EAS ecu....... 

 

So I have a gander at the white block connectors on the A post which are a common P38 foible and when they corrode all kinds of issues rear their ugly heads, namely no eas communication, because the feed for the eas ecu goes through the connectors oh JOYOUS!! 

I cut the connector blocks and soldered them together, no pics as it was a right ballache... 

That fixed my EAS connection issue....... 

 

However she had other ideas almost immediately after this fix

 

Next up there was a whoosh and the old girl refused to lower the suspension so going through all the electrical components I draw a blank never seen this issue before it was venting a small amount of air out of the diapragm but not enough to lower the car quickly so it took upwards of 5mins to lower from standard to access.... 

 

venting out of this pipe instead of the exhaust. 

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so out with the valveblock.... 

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Hmm that doesn't look very clever!!

 

this was the remains of the diapragm valve which when i works properly allows air in to the EAS storage tank and also allows air to escape from the air springs when necessary however it had corroded to nothing so in a rather manor it was only working one way... 

 

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So in with a new diapragm valve and that issue was fixed she went up and down ok... 

 

HOWEVER!!!!! 

 

it was still sitting with its arse on the floor, i've had this before and usually a calibration sorted it. 

However in this case the EAS wasn't having it, the RL sensor was reading way out of range. 

118FL 118FR

170RL 120RR 

Those were the readings when I tried to calibrate the suspension, at this point I should mention those numbers vary from one P38 to another but there is a "Bit limit" for every height in standard if memory serves its 90-150 and the RL was going to 170. 

 

So i reasoned the Height sensor was on the piss, so out with the old and in with the new I started her up and waited with baited breath.....................

 

she went from this. 

 

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To this. 

 

after a successful calibration. 

 

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So finally sorted.... ;) :)

 

It did test the shit out of my patience but never give in eh ;) 

 

Plan is to get her on the road by september I HOPE... :)

She has a few other niggles to iron out in the meantime but I'm making progress.. 

 

 

Posted

Nice to see that you’re persevering with the full original suspension set up. I guess with the P38s now at over 20 years old  it’s allowed a few wobbles. At least there is plenty of knowledge about these systems and good parts availability. It’s funny how something that was considered highly complex, and specialist, when new is relatively easily diyable these days.

  • Like 1
  • Agree 1
Posted
6 hours ago, Jenson Velcro said:

Nice to see that you’re persevering with the full original suspension set up. I guess with the P38s now at over 20 years old  it’s allowed a few wobbles. At least there is plenty of knowledge about these systems and good parts availability. It’s funny how something that was considered highly complex, and specialist, when new is relatively easily diyable these days.

Cheers, 

I agree entirely the P38a as a model is now 30yrs old by today's standards it i quite simple to DIY maintain the EAS is simple and cheap to keep if you do the work yourself. :)

EAS cable is around £20 RSW EAS software is free and all you need is a laptop ;)

 

  • Like 1
Posted

Very un autoshite but the old girl got some love from the electric polisher..  :) 

 

 

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Interior got a wipedown and condition too :)

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Also changed the front axle oil, oddly i've never got round to doing it in all the years I've had the old bus, luckily it wasn't too bad. 

Some metal on the drain plug, just metal paste though which is fine no chunks. 

80w90 back in.. 

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:) 

  • Like 2

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