P38A A series of faults

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brianp38dse said:
If the light on the aircon switch is not on then ac is on it only lights for off
Click to expand...

OK...that sounds a bit backwards, I better try pressing the button and getting the light on then.

Had a worrying moment earlier when leaving work and the passenger side vents were blowing warm air, after about 5 minutes they went back to blowing cool though.

Need to have a look at the AC circuit to see why it had been left disabled and what it will need to recommission, but agging headlining comes first as having rest on my head while driving is annoying, as is watching the rear end flapping in the mirrors!
 
Slooby said:
OK...that sounds a bit backwards, I better try pressing the button and getting the light on then.

Had a worrying moment earlier when leaving work and the passenger side vents were blowing warm air, after about 5 minutes they went back to blowing cool though.

Need to have a look at the AC circuit to see why it had been left disabled and what it will need to recommission, but agging headlining comes first as having rest on my head while driving is annoying, as is watching the rear end flapping in the mirrors!
Click to expand...
Some trim fasteners will hold up the headlining and give a nice quilted effect.:rolleyes:
 
Bit of an update

Headlining done, not a great job due to working on it on an extremely hot day and the spray contact adhesive grabbing insanely quickly so there area couple of minor creases and bits where I couldn't get the headlining to get into the hollows as the glue had grabbed and set. Ended up getting another set of grab handles to add one on the drivers side to cover some of this up. Main thing is I no longer have a 'Landie Mullet' while driving.

Have been stripping the flock off the pillar trims as it had gone soft and was absolutely filthy. Added a third brake light and a cup-holder centre console lid. No need to figure out why some of the interior lights work and others don't despite the bulbs being ok.

As for driving, covered about 1000 miles in it now; it's still weaping a bit of engine oil (have used about 1/2 litre in that time), also ATF from the rad-pack area area (is more red than the trans fluid so maybe power steering) The radiator drain is weeping too as there's a slight drip from it which equates to a header tank's loss over the 1000 miles. It's still slow and ponderous, can be wound up if necessary and you feel like dropping smoke bombs, but generally I don't bother reving beyond 2.5k and treat it like a quiet Series.

Still having a moment where the passenger side vents blow warm air briefly, usually not long after start up, but it passes. There's no gas in the AC system, and the pump pulley clatters around on the centre with everything powered down, while the centre certainly doesn't want to turn by hand, so I fear that the pump maybe toast.

Another joy has been attempting to fit a roof-rack. Bought a Summit (a brand under Mountney of steering wheel fame) kit that looks remarkably like a clone of a Thule entry level set, and it is shockingly engineered, simply cannot get it to grip onto the rail points. IT claimes to be for a P38, but I don't think the person who tried to clone, and cheapen, a Thule unit knew what they were doing. I think I shall be sending it back for a refund.
 
Slooby said:
Bit of an update

Headlining done, not a great job due to working on it on an extremely hot day and the spray contact adhesive grabbing insanely quickly so there area couple of minor creases and bits where I couldn't get the headlining to get into the hollows as the glue had grabbed and set. Ended up getting another set of grab handles to add one on the drivers side to cover some of this up. Main thing is I no longer have a 'Landie Mullet' while driving.

Have been stripping the flock off the pillar trims as it had gone soft and was absolutely filthy. Added a third brake light and a cup-holder centre console lid. No need to figure out why some of the interior lights work and others don't despite the bulbs being ok.

As for driving, covered about 1000 miles in it now; it's still weaping a bit of engine oil (have used about 1/2 litre in that time), also ATF from the rad-pack area area (is more red than the trans fluid so maybe power steering) The radiator drain is weeping too as there's a slight drip from it which equates to a header tank's loss over the 1000 miles. It's still slow and ponderous, can be wound up if necessary and you feel like dropping smoke bombs, but generally I don't bother reving beyond 2.5k and treat it like a quiet Series.

Still having a moment where the passenger side vents blow warm air briefly, usually not long after start up, but it passes. There's no gas in the AC system, and the pump pulley clatters around on the centre with everything powered down, while the centre certainly doesn't want to turn by hand, so I fear that the pump maybe toast.

Another joy has been attempting to fit a roof-rack. Bought a Summit (a brand under Mountney of steering wheel fame) kit that looks remarkably like a clone of a Thule entry level set, and it is shockingly engineered, simply cannot get it to grip onto the rail points. IT claimes to be for a P38, but I don't think the person who tried to clone, and cheapen, a Thule unit knew what they were doing. I think I shall be sending it back for a refund.
Click to expand...
The power steering uses ATF.
 
Slooby said:
OK...that sounds a bit backwards, I better try pressing the button and getting the light on then.

Had a worrying moment earlier when leaving work and the passenger side vents were blowing warm air, after about 5 minutes they went back to blowing cool though.

Need to have a look at the AC circuit to see why it had been left disabled and what it will need to recommission, but agging headlining comes first as having rest on my head while driving is annoying, as is watching the rear end flapping in the mirrors!
Click to expand...

Marty did a post on all the different HEVAC units. It might be someone swapped it for an incompatible unit. Or there's a shim or something on the AC clutch, I think. Or then again it might be a relay. Or the pressure/trinary switch. Yhe list goes on!
 
I'll look at dropping the pump out for a closer look, as well as making some form of adapter to allow me to pump compressed air into the system to listen for leaks. Fully expect the condenser to be shot, but want to ensure that the in cabin heat exchanger is intact!
 
Haven't got round to doing anything with the AC yet, but have noted that the drivers side heater mixer flap isn't working so that needs attention before it starts getting properly cold.

Engine oil leaks are now minimal, I fixed a diesel leak on the no. 6 injector where the spill pipe blank had perished, still have moments of random rough running at low rpm/idle which makes me suspect a sticky injector. The EAS is going down a bit while parked up which makes me wonder if the NRV's need replacing (the aluminium cones were pretty worn when I rebuilt the valve block - have been on to Kurt about getting some new ones).

Biggest change i have made though is fitting some H4 and H1 LED headlamp units. Oh my god what a difference they have made! Dipped beam is transformed and has the correct beam cut off, and now with the H1's in the main beams to compliment the H4 main beam the light output is phenomenal! Only had to make a tiny mod to the wiring of the H1's for the ground, cut a hole in the back of the H1 rubber covers for the heatsink fans, and get alternative 80mm covers for the H4's for their heatsinks and fans to be unobstructed. Only downside is FM reception is now worse (it wasn't great before tbh) I'm guessing there's a frequency issue with the LED's ballast units, however I have an Android 10 inch screen DAB 'infotainment' unit imbound to see if going digital resolves that issue.

Still loosing a bit of coolant from the rad drain, I'm guessing the new O ring I fitted to it isn't quite the right size. Also need to chase down where the ATF is escaping from to wet one of the oil cooling hoses going to the main rad pack area and add a few drops of that marking territory
 
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So, Android infotainment system installed and working, 10.1 inch screen is a touch big for the centre console! Where I currently have it installed I can't quite see all the HEVAC controls or display...and that's after a rework :oops:

Speaking of the HEVAC annoyingly I can't seem to get the the blend motors to behave, I've had both passenger and driver's side ones out on their own for re-alignment over two previous weekends, and then this weekend I had all three out for fiddling with and still the passenger side is stuck on warm moving to tepid, while the driver's one is stuck on cold. Upping the temperature seems to make the passenger one move to colder, while reducing the temperature soon after start up seems to take it to maximum heat before it cycles down to tepid o_O The display won't shift from the 'Book' symbol, while the outside temperature indicator looks to be quite sane. While I had the dash centre off to modify for the infotainment system I gave the internal HEVAC sensor unit (a thermister sitting infront of a fan) a good dusting with compressed air. I'm guessing my only option now is to pull the whole lot again and replace the varriable resistors (which aren't dry jointed and appear to have been resoldered before as there's evidence of solder flux). Thoughts?

Diesel smell under the bonnet has been getting more obvious again, and on closer inspection the injector pump looks a bit wet, and there some emulsion lying in one of the block webs beneath the pump so I'm guessing I'll be needing to replace the seals on it soon. Hopefully I'll have my normal daily back before I have to do that job though.

Thanks to @kurtjohnson10 I now have new NRV's fitted to my EAS valve block and the suspension is less busy as a result, so one little victory at least!
 
Slooby said:
So, Android infotainment system installed and working, 10.1 inch screen is a touch big for the centre console! Where I currently have it installed I can't quite see all the HEVAC controls or display...and that's after a rework :oops:

Speaking of the HEVAC annoyingly I can't seem to get the the blend motors to behave, I've had both passenger and driver's side ones out on their own for re-alignment over two previous weekends, and then this weekend I had all three out for fiddling with and still the passenger side is stuck on warm moving to tepid, while the driver's one is stuck on cold. Upping the temperature seems to make the passenger one move to colder, while reducing the temperature soon after start up seems to take it to maximum heat before it cycles down to tepid o_O The display won't shift from the 'Book' symbol, while the outside temperature indicator looks to be quite sane. While I had the dash centre off to modify for the infotainment system I gave the internal HEVAC sensor unit (a thermister sitting infront of a fan) a good dusting with compressed air. I'm guessing my only option now is to pull the whole lot again and replace the varriable resistors (which aren't dry jointed and appear to have been resoldered before as there's evidence of solder flux). Thoughts?

Diesel smell under the bonnet has been getting more obvious again, and on closer inspection the injector pump looks a bit wet, and there some emulsion lying in one of the block webs beneath the pump so I'm guessing I'll be needing to replace the seals on it soon. Hopefully I'll have my normal daily back before I have to do that job though.

Thanks to @kurtjohnson10 I now have new NRV's fitted to my EAS valve block and the suspension is less busy as a result, so one little victory at least!
Click to expand...

I seem to recall 2 marks on the blend motors that have to line up when you fit them and then there's a calibration screen in the Nanocom. Sometimes something traps the flaps and my mechanism was certainly a lot freer after I cleaned it up when I had the dash out.
 
Yeah, I've been following the instructions online for resetting the blend units which entail realigning the drive gears for the potentiometer, checking for dry joints on the circuit board holding the motor and potentiometer, and that the motor can spin, they all check out. What I haven't done is check them with a dvm to see if the right responses are present whe energised, that is my next job.
 
Well bang goes a weekend I could have done without...

For a while now there has been an increasingly strong smell of diesel coming from under the bonnet. Initially I put it down to the perished blanking plug on number 6 injector, but having replaced it the smell remained, and the injector pump looked wet...so I ordered a rebuild kit, contacted @biketeacherdave for a link to his in-situ seal repalcement guide, watched several videos of VP37's being worked on in-situ and this weekend decided to tackle the job of repalcing the 3 main seals...and what a sh!t show it turned out to be.

As well as a seal kit I'd ordered a set of the special VE/VP sockets, once I'd got access to the pump by removing the inlet manifold and given everything a damn good clean off I discovered that the 6 and 7.5mm triangular sockets were too triangular for the locking bolt, so I had to resort to hammering a 7mm socket on. I scribed lines everywhere I could on the metering unit and removed them, sucked out all the remaining diesel, then I turned the engine over by hand to ensure I'd got the pump on cam (by watching the two springs compress) and set about giving everything inside a damn good clean.

I getting the bracket off the delveiry head I noted that all the over sheaths for the various sensors was hard as anything and had snapped in a few places. Getting to the 6 injector pipe unions on the delivery head was an absolute pig of a job, none of my 17mm spanners (Halfords Pro, Adavanced, stubby and Bahco) had small enough heaps to truely get a clean turn on them. Eventually I got the injector pipes off though and gave them a thorough clean too. To free off the delivery head I also removed the stop solenoid and while it was out changed it's O ring as there was one in the kit. I followed the guides on just easing the delivery head back enough by slowly easing off the bolts in diagonal order until I could see the O ring, then using a scalple cut the old ring in two. Then I removed two of the torx bolts daiagonally oposite to each otherto get the replacement O ring part on, before putting them back an removing the other two bolts to allow the O ring to drop into place. Left the O ring to settle and got on with the cleaning jobs mentioned earlier. Once the the O ring had had at least 20 minutes to settle I closed the delvery head up in the reverse order of freeing it off. Then before the metering head went back on I filled up the pump with diesel, and with the head lightly held down with the 3 torx bolts I was pretty sure that I got everything lined up, including the position sensor, before closing up the cover and doing battle with all the injector pipes, getting everything electrical connected back up and the inlect manifold back on.

This is when things went down hill, at about 8pm this evening...the pump really didn't want to prime on the ignition, after what must have been 10 attempts at turning the engine over it coughed. then another 4 attempts at coughing and it started and a fairly smooth idle, but only an idle, the accelerator did nothing. I left it running for a bit, went leak hunting (and there is a leak coming from what appears to be a round cover down on the side of main body, on the nearside, held in place by two bolts) and despite idling happily still the accelerator did nothing. So I shut it off, then restarted it and it ran for about 10 second before just stopping. At that point I could hear a faint alternating buzzing and bleeping noise coming from the pump area, so I tried starting it again and again after 10 seconds it stopped cue buzzing and beeping, I went through this pantomime about 5 times before just giving up on it.

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

So what the hell have I done to it???
 
Slooby said:
Well bang goes a weekend I could have done without...

For a while now there has been an increasingly strong smell of diesel coming from under the bonnet. Initially I put it down to the perished blanking plug on number 6 injector, but having replaced it the smell remained, and the injector pump looked wet...so I ordered a rebuild kit, contacted @biketeacherdave for a link to his in-situ seal repalcement guide, watched several videos of VP37's being worked on in-situ and this weekend decided to tackle the job of repalcing the 3 main seals...and what a sh!t show it turned out to be.

As well as a seal kit I'd ordered a set of the special VE/VP sockets, once I'd got access to the pump by removing the inlet manifold and given everything a damn good clean off I discovered that the 6 and 7.5mm triangular sockets were too triangular for the locking bolt, so I had to resort to hammering a 7mm socket on. I scribed lines everywhere I could on the metering unit and removed them, sucked out all the remaining diesel, then I turned the engine over by hand to ensure I'd got the pump on cam (by watching the two springs compress) and set about giving everything inside a damn good clean.

I getting the bracket off the delveiry head I noted that all the over sheaths for the various sensors was hard as anything and had snapped in a few places. Getting to the 6 injector pipe unions on the delivery head was an absolute pig of a job, none of my 17mm spanners (Halfords Pro, Adavanced, stubby and Bahco) had small enough heaps to truely get a clean turn on them. Eventually I got the injector pipes off though and gave them a thorough clean too. To free off the delivery head I also removed the stop solenoid and while it was out changed it's O ring as there was one in the kit. I followed the guides on just easing the delivery head back enough by slowly easing off the bolts in diagonal order until I could see the O ring, then using a scalple cut the old ring in two. Then I removed two of the torx bolts daiagonally oposite to each otherto get the replacement O ring part on, before putting them back an removing the other two bolts to allow the O ring to drop into place. Left the O ring to settle and got on with the cleaning jobs mentioned earlier. Once the the O ring had had at least 20 minutes to settle I closed the delvery head up in the reverse order of freeing it off. Then before the metering head went back on I filled up the pump with diesel, and with the head lightly held down with the 3 torx bolts I was pretty sure that I got everything lined up, including the position sensor, before closing up the cover and doing battle with all the injector pipes, getting everything electrical connected back up and the inlect manifold back on.

This is when things went down hill, at about 8pm this evening...the pump really didn't want to prime on the ignition, after what must have been 10 attempts at turning the engine over it coughed. then another 4 attempts at coughing and it started and a fairly smooth idle, but only an idle, the accelerator did nothing. I left it running for a bit, went leak hunting (and there is a leak coming from what appears to be a round cover down on the side of main body, on the nearside, held in place by two bolts) and despite idling happily still the accelerator did nothing. So I shut it off, then restarted it and it ran for about 10 second before just stopping. At that point I could hear a faint alternating buzzing and bleeping noise coming from the pump area, so I tried starting it again and again after 10 seconds it stopped cue buzzing and beeping, I went through this pantomime about 5 times before just giving up on it.

ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

So what the hell have I done to it???
Click to expand...

If accelerator isn't working I would say the peg hasn't dropped in the collar.

Getting a steady idle afterwards is an art, not a science. I got the neighbour to sit in the driver's seat ready to switch it off and then slackened the top bolts and with a mallet and piece of wood tapped it ever so gently until it was steady at 750rpm at (warm) idle. It took several goes as each time I started nipping up the bl**dy revs changed. Tiny movements.

There's a seal on the side nearest the engine under an oval cover that has a spring that goes "boing" and is a total bugger to get at.
 
Ta, I did find a thread on here yesterday from 2016, but can't locate it now, where yourself and the late Wammers talked someone else through nigh on the same problem.

What I took from it was:

I've not bled the system
I've not aligned the metering head properly
I may have dropped 'the shim'
Who ever it was who thought mixing it up between BMW and LR in the mid 90's was a good idea needs a damn good slap

I'm fairly sure I got the peg in the 'ole as I had full range of movement on the position thingy rheostat doodad, and didn't have full range when I missed the 'ole

The leak i thought was coming from a cover on the side of the pump away from the engine block, but of course it could be trickling down...I shall seek out an exploded diagram...

What fun these P38's are...
 
Well after nigh on a full day on trying to get one of two Torx socket bolts out on the engine side cover plate of the pump I finally managed to get enough grip on it through a combination of mole grips and parrot jaw wrench to get it off. Then the 5 minute job of actually swapping the seals on both cover plates was completed, without loosing the spring or shim washers. Rear cover secured in place with some flange bolts robbed from my left over Subaru collection of nuts and bolts

With that complete I tried priming the system with the flying lead trick from the lifter fuel pump relay, but no fuel came out of the cracked no. 1 injector line nut, so I'm a touch worried that my lifter pump has died :/ Nonetheless, I was able to start the engine and adjust the metering head to get idle and an accelerator once again.

Fingers crossed no more fuel leaks and the system stays functioning!

Next job will be replacing the variable resistors on the blend motor units in the hope they will be made to work
 
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:mad:

Took the P38 for a quick test drive and the pump is now leaking from somewhere else, with drips coming from around the the distributor housing where it bolts to the main body...
 
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