Chainging P38 injection pump ?

I approached my local Land Rover 4x4 garage, and asked for a price to fit a replacement injection pump , the deal is I have the reconditioned pump I supply timing chains, tensioner ect, all they do is remove the old pump and fit and setup the new. I got a call back few days ago with an answer, he said it’s a big job at least 15 hours, the front of the car has got to come off to allow access to the pump then there is all the fettling about to fit the new, the labour costs are going to be in the region of £1000. Now I personally think this is ridiculous surely if access is that critical lift the engine out, but not having done one what do you guys think.

It is a big job and they will be lucky to get it done in 15 hours. I have done one. Changing the pump is reasonably straight forwards. Changing the chains is not.

Thank you for your reply, my engine has done around 170 thousand and is now suffering the uneven tick over which I am told is a common problem exhibited by the pump being knackered, I have tried replacement injectors including the sensor injector, with no remarkable change tick over wise, it’s a case of knowing when to stop throwing money at it.

ironhorse said:

Thank you for your reply, my engine has done around 170 thousand and is now suffering the uneven tick over which I am told is a common problem exhibited by the pump being knackered, I have tried replacement injectors including the sensor injector, with no remarkable change tick over wise, it’s a case of knowing when to stop throwing money at it.

Click to expand...

At 170,000 it would certainly benefit from chains and sprockets and the pump may well be tired. Unfortunately if you can't do it yourself, you have little choice but to hand it to someone who can. You have a decision to make. Maybe consider putting it on a good diag set like Nanocom and see what you have going on.

You might get lucky with just a replacement pump and leave the chains. Depends how bad the chains are. A refurbed pump from Diesel Jones is about £700 or so. Changing that is probably a few hours work as the inlet manifold has to come off and the injection pipes.

Make sure you test the lift-pump first. Cheaper and easy fix.

ironhorse said:

..........................and is now suffering the uneven tick over which I am told is a common problem exhibited by the pump being knackered,..........................

Click to expand...

You mean it's fluctuating RPM@ idle and shaking ? Kind of idling old Leyland diesel bus with mechanical governor.
Is it random or continuous? I too got it but after doing the chains & head gasket, but it's random thing and sometimes RPM fluctuates when
moving in gear around 1500 -2000 RPM too.

Yes it wobbles at low revs/ tick over, not until warmed up once it’s warmed up it can start the erratic tick over, but again not all the time but most of the time, once above tick over drives fine, I’ve upped the tick over to around 900 rpm, it helps but not allot, if I up tick over anymore it doesn’t like it.

Hmmm............. same with my car and inclusive of sudden engine death on the go.
Were there any fault codes , in your case? I

Well I cured the problem and saved hundreds, I got shot of the car, another valuable lesson learned.

Having your leg amputated because your toe nails need cutting is hardly a learning experience.

The lesson was don’t keep throwing good money after bad, I liked the car I have to say but I couldn’t afford to have it off the road while I did the work necessary, I looked into getting it done in a garage but the cost was ridiculous, the cost and time needed to put the engine right simply was not sensible, I also looked at replacing the engine and again costs amounted to more than the car was worth, so after allot of soul searching it had to go, I went back to the tried and trusted Discovery.