new boy from glos with P38 :)

Hi all

Apologies to those who have already read my introduction thread in the other section,but thought id post again in here seeing as i picked up my P38 this morning

My name is pete,i hail from stroud in gloucestershire,im a mental health nurse for the NHS and part time mechanic.
I mostly only work with older stuff,have 3 vintage subarus,a 70s datsun and an 81 vw T25 panel van.

I bought my P38 to replace an ailing trooper 3.1TD thats been my daily/workhorse for towing for the last year or so,always wanted a rangey so here she is..


A 99 reg 2.5 DSE Auto,collected it his morning from woodstock,oxford,it has the coil spring conversion ans apart from a little ding on the bottom of the drivers door appears very tidy

It drives perfectly,no noises/warning lamps,everything appears to function as it should,electrics etc,i do however have a couple of small leaks to sort out,one being what i assume is the Auto box cooling rad just in front of the N/S front wheel,its not leaking loads but is wet to touch and ive just noticed that theres a bit of coolant leaking from somewhere near the bottom of the engine near the front,only does it when ive just come up the hill to home and switched the engine off,doesnt do it when running and doesnt appear to be losing copious amounts of coolant as ive been checking it all day on and off...water pump?

Id be curious to know your opinions,thanks,pete.

Nice looking machine Pete, well done.

Looks canny mate. Go round the hose clips and tighten them up, you'll be amazed, I always am! I'd get the autobox rad checked if I were you=I'm paranoid about them since I lost drive in an auto years ago and it cost too much!!

:welcome2: Nice and tidy it looks - Loads of help here most covered many times so learn to :search: Shame about the derv thingy

Wee sense of humor required - get used to it

:welcome:

Nice to see another Stroudy here....I'll pop round for a chat with yer butler sometime

Thanks guys

I will learn to search tomorrow i promise,just a little disheartened and dog tired from getting up at stupid o clock this morning and driving over to pick this up then rushing back to move some stuff around on the trailer then finding this leak,im scared to death just reading some of the stuff on here thats its something serious and ive bought a dog so gonna go to bed and (hopefully) sleep on it so all will be a bit clearer in the morning.

Blue beasty,kettles always on

:nothingtoadd:welcome to the mad house

You may soon need to be self medicating owning a P38 - you are working in the right area !

Shame about the coils. Keep a close eye on temperature, overheats can be destructive.

Hi mate welcome to a great forum i've found the help on here amazing great to see you have some skills i may need shortly, and i don't mean the part time mechanic, i only require full time one of them . seriously though nice looking motor wish you all the best and hope you get the leak sorted out.

Hello! My recommendation to you is to check the battery and check which RF receiver you have, as the older ones have a habit of draining the battery.

Datatek said:

Shame about the coils. Keep a close eye on temperature, overheats can be destructive.

Click to expand...

How expensive is it to change to coils?
How expensive is it to redo the EAS (bags, compressor, tank)

Ok thanks i will check that,not sure how to tho but im sure i will find out can i tell by the fob? or is it somewhere else ive got to look?

Not sure what the story is with the coils,i only went for them due to the amount of towing i do plus ive heard so many bad stories about dodgy systems its one less thing to worry about.
not sure what happens to the eas,i still have a fair bit of the system attached to the car but when i start it it flashes up briefly saying eas manual.
I dont know who did the conversion or how much it cost,it appears to have been done very well tho with heavy duty springs and shocks.


the conversion appears to be frowned upon by some members on here though,not sure why tho?

scoobypete said:

Ok thanks i will check that,not sure how to tho but im sure i will find out can i tell by the fob? or is it somewhere else ive got to look?

Not sure what the story is with the coils,i only went for them due to the amount of towing i do plus ive heard so many bad stories about dodgy systems its one less thing to worry about.
not sure what happens to the eas,i still have a fair bit of the system attached to the car but when i start it it flashes up briefly saying eas manual.
I dont know who did the conversion or how much it cost,it appears to have been done very well tho with heavy duty springs and shocks.


the conversion appears to be frowned upon by some members on here though,not sure why tho?

Click to expand...

It's frowned upon I think because, depending on what the answer to my question is, it's about the same price to convert as it is to install a whole new system, so why would one want to degrade the suspension?

The RF receiver is a small black box that picks up the signal from the key fob. Unfortunately if it's a mki or mkii version it's susceptible to pick up spurious signals from pretty much everything in the radio part of the EM spectrum (wireless doorbells, amateur radio, wifi). This wakes the computer for a few minutes perpetually, which drains the battery.
You need to find out if you have the mkiii, (released in 2004 when Land Rover finally sorted the issue out). In the boot on the right side is a removable parcel shelf held with 1 screw, some push on clips, and half turns. Remove this and there's the RF receiver in there {not to be confused with the receiver for the radio}. It has a blue wire (the aerial) and a cluster of wires attached. On the side there will be a circular coloured sticker. If it's blue or dark blue it's a mki or mkii and could cause problems. Green sticker means mkiii and all's well. If it's blue, either you can purchase a mkiii, or the cheap fix is to disconnect the blue wire, which reduces the range sufficiently to block out spurious signals (although this does mean the central locking only works very near the car)
Help that helps, enjoy the car!

scoobypete said:

Ok thanks i will check that,not sure how to tho but im sure i will find out can i tell by the fob? or is it somewhere else ive got to look?

Not sure what the story is with the coils,i only went for them due to the amount of towing i do plus ive heard so many bad stories about dodgy systems its one less thing to worry about.
not sure what happens to the eas,i still have a fair bit of the system attached to the car but when i start it it flashes up briefly saying eas manual.
I dont know who did the conversion or how much it cost,it appears to have been done very well tho with heavy duty springs and shocks.


the conversion appears to be frowned upon by some members on here though,not sure why tho?

Click to expand...

Losing the EAS means you lose self leveling, put 300Kgs in the back on your coils and unless they are rock hard your car will be tail down nose up, you lose the drop to motorway height at speed which aids stability and also the ability to up the height for wading.
The car was designed for air and if well maintained the EAS causes little trouble.

Datatek said:

The car was designed for air and if well maintained the EAS causes little trouble.

Click to expand...

In fairness though, if not well maintained (which is legitimate from people who don't know otherwise) it can cause a lot of problems. Although the solution there is learn rather than surrender.

TCubed said:

In fairness though, if not well maintained (which is legitimate from people who don't know otherwise) it can cause a lot of problems. Although the solution there is learn rather than surrender.

Click to expand...

It's cheaper to fix the EAS than switch to coils if you DIY

Datatek said:

It's cheaper to fix the EAS than switch to coils if you DIY

Click to expand...

Don't you need a lift for the car though? Or can you do it with jacks?

TCubed said:

Don't you need a lift for the car though? Or can you do it with jacks?

Click to expand...

Two jacks, one axle stand and follow my guide, easy

Good news!!

came home and stripped all the gubbins off the top of engine so i could get in closer and the source of the water leak turns out to be the little metal pipe that goes into the head between water pump and what im guessing is the thermostat housing? is held in by one bolt so im hoping its just a case of replacing an O ring unless theres meant to be a gasket in there? anyone know any different?

Also discovered that the head looks brand new....or to have been replaced very very recently despite me having no paperwork to back this up its blatantly obvious its not been on there long...wonder what happened there...looked like it would have been expensive anyway...

In other news i do have the old blue dot reciever under my back shelf so blue wire duly disconnected till i can get my hands on a green dot one

Going back to the spring/bag conversation the springs and shocks ive got on there are rock hard,had the trailer on there yesterday with a car on it and the rangey didnt drop an inch,if anything it was picking the front pair of wheels on the trailer off the floor at times lol but its apparently adjustable so i might try and bring it down at a later date