Hi - new P38 owner

Hi all,

Have been lurking here for a long time with the intention of buying a defender or discovery at some point when I can justify it (currently commuting 25k miles each year!)

Finally decided I'm not going to be moving closer to work any time soon so gave in and bought a P38 RR on eBay (bit of a risk, I know!) a month or so ago - to run as a second car for a few months for a bit of fun.

It's pretty clean - a 1995 HSE 4.6, 99,000 miles (seems genuine according to MOT history), all electrics still appear to work other than heated seats, and the air suspension still works!

First month hasn't been trouble free (it is a P38 after all!) as a wheel came off on the first day whilst driving -(looks like it wasn't refitted properly by the garage which serviced it prior to me buying it from it's previous owner) - luckily no damage done other than to the mud guard which sits behind the brake disk, and it also seems to suffer from battery drain - though I've now found a battery cut off switch under the bonnet which the previous owner failed to mention and I failed to spot - so using that for the time being until I get a chance to work out what's draining the battery.

Lastly, since I've had it (unless the previous owner found a way to work around it!) a crack has developed in the drivers door card and there are some missing clips from the back of the card so it jams when you try to open the door - you either have to thump the door card whilst opening the door, or, until I can find another one not cracked, I've just removed the door card.

Anyway, I'd still like a defender at some point but out of my budget as a second car, so I'll probably end up trading the P38 in for a discovery at some point as rather than putting me off wanting a LR, it's drawing me in - even with it's issues!

I'm based in Liverton, near Newton Abbot, Devon, and work in Plymouth. Daily driver is a Mondeo TDCi. When not fixing either this or the P38, I spend time scuba diving out of Torpoint or Torquay.

Cheers!

James.

Well, first few months have been - interesting!

I managed to fix the door cards with some discreet(ish) self tapping screws and washers to screw them into the inner skin of the door just below the cracks. Much nicer having the door card back on!

Have a few 'intermittent' issues that seem to disappear for a while then come back - Air conditioning handbook icon of death - I think it's related to blend/direction motors as it only seems to appear if I try to change where air is directed. I get a very occasional 'gearbox fault' error on the display but it's always driven and shifted fine - and the error tends to go away if I stop the car and restart. Worth a fluid change perhaps?

Spent some time looking at battery drain but that seems to be an odd issue which has fixed itself. I looked at the RF unit and it's the old original type. Disconnected it overnight, after fully charging battery, and no difference next day (still flat) so reconnected it. Eventually got a working multimeter to measure the battery drain at idle, and everything shut off after a minute or so like it should - went from 2.5A down to <1A down to just mA. Ever since then I tried leaving the battery isolator on - it's not gone flat once since. Very odd. Mirror dip didn't want to work properly (would dip no problem but rarely return to normal place) so disabled it.

Most frustratingly, haven't had a chance to take it offroad or greenlaning yet! Was hoping to find a local club/group and I live only 5 minutes away from OffroadZone at Trago, Newton Abbot, but I recently realised it closed in January! Ah well.

Air suspension is still working though there is a slow leak somewhere as if left for more than 2 days it sinks to bump stops. Pumps up pretty quickly, but I guess this must be putting additional strain on the compressor? Guess I'll either have a leaky valve or need to recondition the valve block.

Only issue I've been unable to make any progress with so far is Cruise Control. Saw posts on here about perished hoses, looked and all 3 hose ends connecting to the throttle cable (actuator?) were perished and not even connected, so replaced with new. Still no luck, and fuse is fine (and have pressed cruise on the dash!) so assume maybe whereever the other end of the long hose goes must be knackered at the other end. Haven't traced it yet.

I think that's about it. I gave the interior a good clean out at the weekend, dismantled much of the centre console to give the auto gear selector wheel thing a good clean, and polished all the scratches out of the wood effect covers, cleaned the various plastic panels with soap and water under the sink. Looks far better and makes it look an even smarter car than it was before. Just can't get over how good condition it was for the price!

Had to drive it on the daily commute to Plymouth and back for a week whilst my Mondeo was off the road with the front subframe removed. Week was during the bad weather in February - was a great drive though obviously thirsty - same price in fuel as it would have been to hire a small car for the week, but so much more fun/comfortable use of the money Hire car would still have needed fuel too!