My brief car history, and my Range Rover 4.6

[D4MJT]

So, I've done 1,800 miles now since the rebuild, and the good news is, the engine is sweet as a nut. Now that that's sorted though, I'd like to turn my attention to some other areas. Ideally before the end of the summer, I'll have these jobs knocked off as well:

Lower Ball Joints (urgh)
4 x New Bilstein Shock Absorbers
4 x New Tyres
Rear Discs and Pads
Gearbox Flush and Filter
Diff Oils
Main Beam HID's
Stainless Exhaust

I can't see me getting through all of that yet, but we'll see, I've started piling bits up for it.

This weekend though, it was raining so time for a bit of cosmetic rather than mechanical fettling. One of the things I find really boring about the car is the stock dashboard:



So, I've got a few bits to freshen it up, which I've fitted this weekend. First off, remove the clocks. To do this you can extend the steering wheel column fully to gain access, and unbolt 2 small screws on either side of the column:



Then you can undo 4 of these bolts to remove the panel under the column:



Leaving you with this:



Now you can get access to undo the 2 lower screws holding the instrument shroud in place:



This should then lift out:



There are 2 multiplugs for the dash to remove, a blue one on the left, and a black on the right:



Then you can undo 4 screws to remove the cluster itself, leaving you with this:



and this:



Having retreated indoors and cracked a beer open, it's then just a case of pressing some tabs out to take the instrument cluster apart:



Which give you this:



I then carefully applied a walnut inlay to the dial panel:



I also have some chrome dial rings I wanted to add to this, so I carefully trimmed out the inside of the dials / walnut inlay to fit the dials:



Then I applied a thin layer of superglue to the dials to make sure they didn't come loose over time, and let it dry:



Then it was just a case of whacking it all back together:



And fitting the plastic cover:



and then refitted:





I like them, I think it just smartens the whole affair up a bit. The keen eyed will notice a light out in the cluster, I've removed this as I want to get some replacement LED's, I'm not keen on the green lighting, so I'm going to change it.

Kept me out of bother for a few hours anyway!

[D4MJT]

thanks :-)

I wasn't sure about the rings tbh. I wanted to put the wood in because it ties in with the rest of the walnut already in the car, and I think perhaps it would still have looked quite plain with just the rings on the black plastic. Either way, it's a bit more jazzy now, and nicer to look at. I like!

[D4MJT]

This weekend I managed to get some more done on the car.

Since the last update, the heater matrix o-rings failed. I was pretty much expecting this, as I had to put some decent force on the heater matrix pipes in the engine bay during the head gasket change. Not the nicest of jobs as the access is very limited, Land Rover's procedure is a 12 hour job involving removal of the dashboard, steering column, and disconnection of air-con etc.

There are many documented ways to do the job with a few shortcuts, and I had a few other jobs / ideas up my sleeve at the same so I actually stripped the interior from the car before I started. I'd highly recommend this, it made being in the right place to get my arms up inside the dash far easier, I can't imagine how fiddly difficult it is to do with the seats in, and they're only 4 bolts a seat to remove.

This is a classic symptom of o-ring failure, coolant dripping in the drivers footwell:



I also chose to remove the centre console and cubby box, as I have some new bits to fit, and I also wanted to clean the carpet properly. While doing this, I found the original leather pouch and nut cover removal tool for my locking wheel nut set, buried down in the depths of the cubby, god knows when it ended up there:




The interior comes out really nicely, no horrible jobs or brittle clips.



The carpet suffered over last winter and during the head gasket, and was looking worse for wear:



But after a good session with "George" the carpet cleaner, who's green instead of the red "Henry" ones, it came up a good bit better:





cracked on with removing the HEVAC unit and console:





Which gave me plenty of room to work:



Old shot heater o-rings on the right, nice new ones on the left:



All in I think it took about 3.5 hours including bleeding the coolant system back up. Pretty happy with that.

The reason I stripped the rest of the interior then. I've been wanting to tidy it up and make it a bit more special for some time, and I've been stockpiling parts to do this with. So, starting with the centre console cubby box, this got binned. The old unit as you can see is pretty plain and plastic:





I've replaced this with a new genuine Land Rover Autobiography item, trimmed in Ash Grey leather:







Along with this, I've also pulled together these, which took a while:



Now I've got some polishing and tidying up to do on them, so I haven't fitted them yet, but I did a test fit to see what it all looked like:



It should look far better when it's all finished, and a nice upgrade from standard. I'm on the look out for a half wood and leather wheel now.

Also, since I've had the car it's been missing a parcel shelf, and trying to get hold of a decent lightstone one was nigh on impossible. I bagged one a few weeks back though, needs a good clean up but it'll do the job nicely. Typically I've seen about 3 for sale in this colour since then!

I've also had a crack at colour coding the wing mirrors, I used a high build primer first, then plastic primer. A few coats of colour and then lacquer. They need another few coats of lacquer and a polish yet, but I've test fit one to get an idea and they look ok I think:









And finally, the reason the seats came out. The leather is in pretty good order for the year, but as with most P38's my heated seats don't work, and the surfaces are starting to crack, so out they came. I'm going to have a shot at re-trimming these myself. As they say, what's the worst that could happen?





Think that's it since the last update! It's coming together slowly, I'm still stockpiling suspension parts too, I've got track rod ends and bar, steering damper and a few other bits here, I need 4 shocks and 2 bags and then I'll fettle that little lot.

Keeps my idle fingers out of mischief anyway

[D4MJT]

Max M4X WW said:

Looks really good with the new interior bits and cleaning of the carpet etc!

I'm not sure about re-trimming the seat though, re-colonise the leather instead maybe?

Thanks

I've tried all kinds to be honest, it's regularly fed and I use quality products on it to keep it in good order, it's just not coming back to the standard I'd like. If it goes pete tong, I'll get someone to do a proper job

[D4MJT]

ouch, unlucky mate. One of the first things I got was a serial cable adapter and the downloadable software for the EAS system. Have you come across this? Not much help this time but it might help you in future?

I painted my grill in Land Rover Metallic Java Black. It'll look better when I've had the bumpers colour coded I think, it annoys me that there's black plastic bumper under the grill that isn't as black!

[D4MJT]

Thanks mate, appreciate it I'll grab some finished photo's of the bay shortly for you.

Onto the re-trim then, at the moment it's about 75% complete. It's taken me about 3-4 days total to get to where I am now, over about a fortnight. It's good fun, and the end result, thankfully is looking promising and rewarding.

I did the smaller split rear seat first, and this has been re-fitted to the car for about a week now, then I moved onto the larger split rear seat with the central armrest, and then tackled the drivers seat.

I've got plenty of pictures but I'll concentrate on the drivers seat as the rears are pretty straightforward.

Before I started, it was cracked and the bolster had broken down and was folded over under the trim:



The hardest part was seperating the lower black clip along the bottom of the seat base which you can see in the picture below, it takes some force to remove from the seat base frame:



The seat frame is held to the seat base holding the motors etc by 4 bolts, this is the seat split:



I didn't get any durings while I re-trimmed the back rest, as i got a bit carried away to see what it would look like, but here it is re-trimmed:



I had faulty heated seat elements. I was also a bit put off by the £200 cost of replacing all 4 elements, so I had a nosey. You can test whether they work easily by using a multimeter on the 2 connector pins. The seat back was fine, and was unbroken, and the seat base, was broken exactly where they all go, in the middle of the seat in the join. Easy to spot, I repaired the wires, and it works fine now:



Here you can see the condition of the old drivers seat base:



and now the finished trimmed base alongside the old leather:



Happily, the bolster damage was also only to the old cover, the sponge on the underside of the trim had seperated and rolled in on itself creating a ridge.

As they say in Haynes, refitting is the reverse of removal, so I lashed it all back together, and took a comparison between my re-trimmed drivers seat, and the still to do passengers seat:



Here are some pics of the seat trial fitted back to the car:







and the rear seats:



You can see in this shot, the single folding rear seat which has been in the car longest, has settled, and the creases and folds have dropped out of the leather. The other seats should settle out too, as they have a few creases etc in still.

Anyway, I'm really happy with how it's looking so far!

[D4MJT]

haha, sponsored by fosters, oops!

Thanks for your replies, I haven't done a re-trim before no, so I'm really pleased with how it's turned out. Just uploading the finished article..

[D4MJT]

So, I've now got pretty much all of the interior work done. To show best how it's come on, here's a before shot of the dashboard:



and here's how it looks today:



All in all, I'm over the moon. The heated seats now both work again as they should, in fact, I'm in the rare position of being able to say that currently, everything on the car works, cruise control included. The bolster damage on the drivers seat was the sponge in the cover, and actually has come up like a new seat. I'm just really happy with it. Here's some more photo's:















One of the things I'm most happy with is the stitched leather centre console that replaced the old plastic affair, the ash grey compliments the lightstone leather really well I think, and the wood looks great against it:



All in all, I'm really happy with it!

Also, an engine bay picture as requested:

[D4MJT]

Thanks

I'm keeping my eyes open for a wood rimmed wheel, they tend to be around the £300 mark, but it's more of a luxury at the moment as I have other things I want to get done mechanically before winter. I'm trying to get all the niggles and maintenance jobs done so I don't have to do anything over the winter. Nothing kills enthusiasm for the job like howling wind and rain in the upper realms of Northumberland

I think I have some mats sorted which is nice, it's definitely on the cards before the weather turns, the carpets suffered last year.

The walnut and cream interior seems be a marmite thing! A lot of people appear to regard it as old man, etc. I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be to be honest, I'm definitely far more pipe and slippers than carbon fibre

[D4MJT]

Update time

So, an update as to what else I've replaced / fixed / broke of late.

First of all, I had a list of things I wanted to get done before the weather started to worsen, and winter arrived. If I can possibly get away with it, I don't want to be lying in a puddle on my back hitting things with a hammer this year. So, with that in mind, roughly what I had left on my list was:

New Rear Discs
New Rear Pads
Full New Exhaust pretty much
Decats for a bit of noise / torque / economy?
4 new dampers
Track Rods and Bar
Drag Rods and Bar
Steering Damper
Gearbox Flush and Refill + Filter change
Diff Oil Change

So I had a bit of a splurge on parts, and annoyed Parcel Force a bit:



Shiny things

First and easiest job, as you do, I replaced the green and gold Land Rover badge from the front grille. I've already debadged the rear, and I didn't really like the badge being the only green and gold on the car as it didn't really go in my eyes.



So I replaced it with a black and silver one:



Moving on to proepr jobs, lesson number 1, it's all in the prep:



So I removed my old downpipes and cats, you have to remove the gearbox crossmember to get them out. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and the best way to get it out after you've unbolted it is to use a jack to slightly press apart the chassis rails and it drops out. Or, you can hit it, and yourself, a lot with a hammer.



Gearbox supported with a jack, and the crossmember removed:



Downpipe unbolted from the manifold and removed:



At this point I took the opportunity to heatwrap the passenger side manifold. I only had enough heatwrap to do one during the head gasket job, so I did the drivers side as it's a mare to remove, the passenger side is a doddle:



And refitted:



At this point I replaced the steering damper and track rod assembly, I did the drag link assembly when I replaced the front shocks, but I didn't take any pictures at that point. Old vs new:



Then I heatwrapped my decat downpipe:



I did a quick mock up of how the exhaust will go together, I chose a Janspeed stainless steel catback system. The quality seems really good:



Then I fitted it, no pics apart from the completed one. The reason being, I decided to do all these jobs before winter arrived and the weather turned, so obviously, come the fitment weekend, it lashed down with rain

Excuse the umbrella stand ruining the picture:



Anyway, I cracked on with dampers and brakes, with my makeshift weather solution



Shiny new drilled and grooved rear discs fitted, and EBC GreenStuff pads:



And old vs new rear dampers, I chose Britpart Cellular Dynamic's, as they're cheaper than the Bilsteins, but seem to have a good reputation, and my parts bill was already high enough



And fitted. That's the only picture I have currently, as it just got too wet to take any more pictures without risking my phone dying:



Last but not least, this is probably one of my favourite modifications so far, I wanted to relocate the LPG control unit. It was fitted to the dash in an easy to access, but not particularly useful place in the instrument binnacle. You have to lean forward over the wheel to see it the level easily, and I didn't really like how it looked like a bit of an afterthought. You can see it's old location in this picture I took a while back, it's the circular button affair out of focus in the bottom right of the clocks area:



As I fitted a new clock surround with a walnut veneer, I had the perfect opportunity to move it, as I would have needed to redrill the surround anyway to fit the LPG unit in the same place as before:



So here it is now:



I like the location because it's hidden from view when the ashtray is shut, and it's easily accessible, and easy to see from the drivers seat. The ashtray lid and general dashboard shield it from sunlight so it's easy to see the LED's during the day, and it just happened to be a perfect fit after some slight modification for the cigarette lighter location. I've simply unwired this. I think I've used it twice since I got the car, I didn't like it's location anyway, as to use it you had to have wires lying all over the console and it looked messy. In time I plan to relocate a power source in the boot, and use it to power a Land Rover coolbox. Excuse the state of the ashtray area, it's been used to stash interior screws and all kinds while I've been tinkering, it's been cleaned now!



Finally, now it's in pretty good order for the winter, sounds the part and rides better, I had a mission about some fields in it to err, bed the shocks in. Or just because it's fun:




The exhaust is fantastic, I'm really happy with it. It's very throaty, and you can get a deep V8 rumble out of it, but if you're on the motorway, it doesn't drone at all, in fact it's only just noticeable. Unless you plant your foot..

I'll sort a video out of the sound, but it's pretty much exactly what I was after, it's quite throbby under load. The decats sort of suprised me. I've heard some reports that removing them improves fuel consumption slightly, less restriction and all that I guess. My experience so far is that it's definitely no better, probably slightly worse. I think I'm currently averaging 15.8mpg, whereas before I was probably getting nearer 18.7mpg. However, the difference in driveability is profound. The car just feels like it has far far more torque. It changes down gears far less on hills, and pulls itself along like a train. I'm happy to take the slight hit on economy for the improvement in performance.

So that's where it's at now really, I've got a few more little things I'd like to do before winter, but not masses.

[D4MJT]

Here's a quick video of how it sounds now too

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2v9h9PAIYro

[D4MJT]

RobbNE said:

The video doesn't fully do it justice, Matt. Sounds exceptional in real life.

Cheers Rob, appreciate it

Pics are working again now, got photobucket pro lol.

[D4MJT]

Sold and collected

However, I've replaced it with something completely different, so I'll start another thread for that shortly.

[D4MJT]

5potTurbo said:

You did all that work to sell it?
I thought this was a keeper....

It was meant to be, however circumstances conspired against me. I've got a 90 mile a day commute now, and financially, it doesn't make sense to either run it daily, or run it as a weekend car and then have a daily banger. So, I decided to sell up and get one car that could do a commute and be economical, but also put a bit of a grin on my face.

I'll miss it, but I learnt loads bringing up to the standard it is now, and I enjoyed every minute of it!

[D4MJT]

5potTurbo said:

I can understand that. Real shame as the work you've done was superb.

Thanks, very kind of you to say so

I'll try and get some pictures of it's replacement tonight. It's broke / rattling already so I'm off home to get the spanners / fosters out shortly lol.

[D4MJT]

Bit of a quick update to this, I've heard back from Land Rover magazine and the car is going to be featured

I'm made up tbh, I've never had a car featured in a magazine, so it'll be nice to see it. Although I've sold the car, the guy who bought it from me is more than happy to have it featured, and lives locally, so that's worked out nicely.

[D4MJT]

Bit of an update here, I realised I never posted after the shoot. It turned into a 5 page feature which was cool, and since the magazine was out well over a year ago now, I guess I can post these:







I've got a bit of a Defender itch these days which may need scratched, especially after seeing the ones Twisted are turning out.

[D4MJT]

jones325i said:

I've just read this whole thread from the start - a great read. You seem extremely capable!

What did you buy instead of the P38?

That's very kind of you to say, perhaps a glutton for punishment is more appropriate

I've had a few since actually, I could probably do with updating. Christmas was spent with an engine out again in bits lol.

After the Range Rover I bought a mk1 MX5, however it was probably the worst possible car choice for an 80 mile a day motorway commute, I sold it quickly, and bought the nearest cheapest barge around, which turned out to be a manual E39 520i. That was a total suprise, I'm not really a BMW fan, but it was very well built, ate the miles, was very comfortable and I had north of 40mpg on the motorway when really pushing the economy, which is insane for a 6 pot petrol.

After that I moved and didn't have the space or need for a cruiser, so I got a little Saxo VTS to chuck around B roads and the occasional track day, as I've helped my mate build one. It's proved to be cheap fun, but I've just literally SORN'd it, with a view to breaking it for parts.

I'm not sure what's next! Now I cycle to work, so I can sort of have anything really. I'm split between another Jag, a Defender or a Disco 2, another mk1 MX5 or possible a mk2, or an E39 540i.

You couldn't really get much more variation in a selection, so god knows what I'll end up with, probably a transit.

[D4MJT]

jones325i said:

Interesting. I'm a BMW man myself, currently have an E60 550i (v8) - in dark blue with beige leather, dark wood and a manual 'box .

I wish I had the space that you seem to have to store and tinker with cars.

I'd like to retrim my driver's seat one day - how did you go about finding the retrimming kit for your P38?

I think I could be a convert, I've got a massive hankering for an E39 M5, or one day an E60, lots of magical electrics these days though, I'm no good with such things!

I was just having a nose at your garage, that's a rather nice machine, manual is rare in itself these days, never mind a 550i. How do you find it?

The retrimming kit I just stumbled across one day, a guy happened to have 2 complete sets left from a job lot he'd bought once over, he wanted one, and I bought the other, disgracefully cheaply really. On the flip side, it came with no instructions or fixing, literally just the covers.

I had a bit of a hunt about on the net and approached it with a "how hard can it possibly be" sort of attitude. Turns out it's not hard, just fiddly! You can buy the D rings to clip the wires you run through the backs of the seat covers to the seat frames themselves from decent material / upholsterers or through ebay and the likes. All in all it was quite enjoyable, and it looked absolutely sensational when it was done, took years off the car, even I am biased

[D4MJT]

That's a little bit special isn't it! Blue over cream is probably my favourite colour combination.

I much prefer the 18" Parallel's you've fitted to the 19's, they're probably one of my all time favourite wheel designs.

That's another one to add to the "must own" list. An E38 740i on 18" staggered M Parallels!