Project update : Super lock no more

I bet if we took a poll for the worst thing about the P38,  super lock would be the uncontested winner. I have had my fair share of P38's and never had an issue with super lock until three days before the VOT. 

Let me paint the picture for you. To prep for VOT I had the truck fully loaded with everything, roof rack, tent, jerrycans, sand ladders, the whole nine and I was driving it around town looking like a complete tool. All I needed was a Crocodile Dundee hat to complete the ultimate poser look

 In my defense I was trying to work out any bugs with the new truck, suspension and extra weight.

So Top Chef Dave calls me up and says he's making chicken fajitas for VOT and asked if I would pick up some Corona beer to go with the dinner. I said yes having no idea I was about to enter the…………………………….

 SUPER ……………. LOCK…………………… ZONE! " cue twilight zone music " 

With all the stuff in the truck I decided to lock the door before I went into the store.

Back with the beer I manually unlocked the truck to my surprise it locked all the doors again but the driver. So I turned the key in the opposite direction and it relocked. With a puzzled look on my face I turn the key yet again. It locked all the doors but the driver. Happy to have access to the truck I opened the door only to be greeted by the horn. The buttons on the key fob were useless so I put the key in the ignition and turned it.

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Yep you guessed it, Nothing except for the kindly little reminder on the display saying I was screwed. Or is Land Rover puts it in a much more polite way engine immobilized. 

The silver lining in all of this is I had access to the drivers door. So in the parking lot I put in my spare BECM and ECU.  It is a real pain in the ass when you cannot opened the passenger door. 

I can only imagine how many Toyotas I sold that day as people watched me practically lying upside down with my feet out the door to take out the passenger seat.  On second thought I wish I had that Crocodile Dundee hat to hide my face.

The positive side is the BECM swap is relatively fast and painless. Plus I'm really glad that did not happen during VOT. 

After a little research the culprit was the drivers door lock actuator. Never wanting to be locked out of the truck again I decided to disconnect the power plugs going to the two front door actuators. 

I have now moved back in time and my doors were working on 1950 technology. To lock the door, push down to unlock, pull up. Perfect!! Basking in my own brilliance I went to the back of the truck to load the fridge with Corona and pushed this button.  

Humbled once again. The rear hatch receives its ground through the plug in the passenger side door lock actuator. I had outsmarted myself. I could open any door except for the hatch.  Off-again came the door card and I plugged in the passenger side door actuator. This granted me access to the hatch. Stripping down the hatch you'll see that Land Rover conveniently labeled all the wires the same color white. 

You need to trace the ground side of the hatch actuator

all the way back to the cubby.

You can ground the white wire into the 12v convenience outlet like I did. With that done your hatch will always work. I have a relay idea that will allow the hatch to work only when the key is in the on position for people that need to keep the vehicle secured.

Next up will be traction action until then I leave you with this poser picture from VOT.

Project update : Resurrection

We all have that special edition P38 we like. For me it is the Rhino. I just love the ostrich seats and the mystic green wood trim. As luck would have it there was one on craigslist that needed some TLC and more importantly it was in my price range. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened.

The downside to this choice was we needed to move every one of those accessories and modifications over to the Rhino. In retrospect putting in another motor would've been far easier and faster.

Without further ado here is the new L8  P38

OK that pic sucks..

Hows this one ?


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I'm sure a few of you with a keen eye have already noticed some differences beyond the color of the truck. The rest of you must still be looking at our new shop girl Amy

The first thing we wanted to do was lift the truck a bit more.  Changing the springs was an option but we were very happy with the current ride quality.  To keep everything the same but get more lift we added 1 inch spacers. On any other classic generation Land Rover adding springs spacers is a no-brainer, but the P 38 is not just any Land Rover. The issue is the air to coil conversion plates.  The studs on the conversion plates are only long enough to accommodate the spring seat.

The first thought was to get longer studs but we decided that drilling two holes in the axle mounting bracket would be the best solution.  The easiest way to accomplish this was to use the air to coil conversion plate with the studs knocked out of it as a template.

Another way to do it his use a 1 1/2 spacer and remove the air to coil conversion plate but in the interest of science we went with this.

The front was a completely different challenge. You cannot drill all the way through because the axle housing is in the way.

We needed to get a little bit creative with this one. The solution that came to mind was drilling and tapping the air to  coil conversion plate

In the front we were not getting any dislocation and I was not afraid of the stress put on the air to coil conversion retaining pin.

Here is a side view with the new lift.

With the extra lift the axles were way off making new panhard bars a must. A quick phone call to Rovertym and we had 2 new ones on our tailgate.

Did I mention they were fully adjustable ?

With the suspension squared away it was time to try out the new prototype bumper from Terrafirma The initial test fitting went well, the only possible downside for some is you need to remove the trailer hitch . Personally I didn't want the trailer hitch on the truck so this is a non-issue.  Do you guys care if you need to remove your trailer hitch in order to fit the bumper?

With VOT" Vermont expedition trophy " right around the corner there was no time to send the bumper out for powder coating. So we rattle canned it black and threw it on the truck.

For VOT we needed a winch but the Terrafirma bumper was not ready yet. As the old saying goes necessity is the mother of all invention. A look around the shop for options landed us a Terrafirma discrete winch mount for a Disco 2. After a quick mockup of the side plates we knew we had our answer.

The side brackets almost fit, but one of the frame mounting holes needed to be slightly extended.

The next issue we ran into was the bumper was in the way of the winch. In order to make room we simply cut out the section giving us a problem.

All together we had this.

And with the winch installed

An unseen advantage to this installation was the winch tray acts as a lower radiator guard.

And the poser pic.

Project update : The scorpion and the frog

Last weekend the P38 went to one of the best family Land Rover events in America, the Wilds.

 Over the last few years we have been asking the Wilds for more trails with greater difficulty. Each year the trail network gets larger and larger and the difficulty goes up and up. This years addition to the trail network was a water crossing.

After a full day of trail rides we returned to the water crossing as the last obstacle for the night.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBoB82bGrmo


As you can see from the video that would be the P38's last obstacle of the event.

Once we had the truck back at the shop the first thing to do was drain the oil.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16_fr1vbzaY&feature=c4-overview&list=UUUnCLXtAqip_9qd-T1NenbA

When the oil comes out that clean you know there's an issue. From what we can see underneath rods eight and seven are bent and the pistons have been destroyed.

Sadly there will be no poser pic but I will leave you with this tale and photo.

One day, a scorpion looked around at the mountain where he lived and decided that he wanted a change. So he set out on a journey through the forests and hills. He climbed over rocks and under vines and kept going until he reached a river.
The river was wide and swift, and the scorpion stopped to reconsider the situation. He couldn't see any way across. So he ran upriver and then checked downriver, all the while thinking that he might have to turn back.
Suddenly, he saw a frog sitting in the rushes by the bank of the stream on the other side of the river. He decided to ask the frog for help getting across the stream.
"Hellooo Mr. Frog!" called the scorpion across the water, "Would you be so kind as to give me a ride on your back across the river?"
"Well now, Mr. Scorpion! How do I know that if I try to help you, you wont try to kill me?" asked the frog hesitantly.
"Because," the scorpion replied, "If I try to kill you, then I would die too, for you see I cannot swim!"
Now this seemed to make sense to the frog. But he asked. "What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get back to the shore!"
"This is true," agreed the scorpion, "But then I wouldn't be able to get to the other side of the river!"
"Alright then...how do I know you wont just wait till we get to the other side and THEN kill me?" said the frog.
"Ahh...," crooned the scorpion, "Because you see, once you've taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help, that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?!"
So the frog agreed to take the scorpion across the river. He swam over to the bank and settled himself near the mud to pick up his passenger. The scorpion crawled onto the frog's back, his sharp claws prickling into the frog's soft hide, and the frog slid into the river. The muddy water swirled around them, but the frog stayed near the surface so the scorpion would not drown. He kicked strongly through the first half of the stream, his flippers paddling wildly against the current.
Halfway across the river, the frog suddenly felt a sharp sting in his back and, out of the corner of his eye, saw the scorpion remove his stinger from the frog's back. A deadening numbness began to creep into his limbs.
"You fool!" croaked the frog, "Now we shall both die! Why on earth did you do that?"
The scorpion shrugged, and did a little jig on the drownings frog's back.
"I could not help myself. It is my nature."

Project Update : Squishy stuff

This update all started with Jason "P38Rhino" giving me an idea. He said somewhere on the inter-web he read about using a spacer to push the front radius arm forward. The goal was to help keep it off of the body work. A couple measurements later and a phone call to our spacer manufacture and we had these.

In order to put the spacers on we had to take the front radius arms out. If we were going to take the front radius arms out we might as well install set of Pollybushings.

It was a good thing we went for the  Pollybushings because the stock ones were reduced to complete garbage.

With the axle portion of the radius arm bushings taken care of it was time to try out our spacer.

The spacer fit perfectly. Leaving just a little bit of thread showing. This took advantage of all the extra space that Land Rover provided us.

Poser Polly Shot

Project Update : Nice Rack

Everybody loves a sexy rack and L8 is no exception. In it's standard form the front runner rack looked kind of plain, But as we started to add accessories the rack took on a whole new look.

The first thing we wanted to do was lower the front of the rack down so it looked level across the truck. Front Runner keeps the front a little bit higher then the rear so you can open the sunroof. Knowing full well that the sunroof  will not be used anymore we decided to bring the front of the rack down. One of the greatest things about the Front Runner rack is it's modular construction. To lower the front all we had to do was swap out this bracket.

A few bolts later and boom the new foot is installed. We did not even have to take a rack off the roof.

Next on the list was to put some lights on the front. Ironman 4 x 4 has released their own brand of LED light bars and we thought this was a perfect place for one.

Again to stress how convenient this rack is we used the spare foot as a light mount bracket.

All we had to do was drop a bolt into the track and tighten the bracket down.

The Ironman LED uses a convenient multiple angle mount. All you have to do is adjust it to your liking and tighten down with the provided Allen wrench.

The lightbar tucked up perfectly against the rack, hopefully keeping it out of harms way.

With the LEDs done it was time to move out back.  I must admit I was as excited as a little kid on Christmas for this upgrade. It's one of those stupid things that you say why hasn't anybody thought of it before.  If another rack manufacturer has done this I have never seen it.  Front Runner designed a table holder that bolted to the bottom of the rack. It allows you to adjust for width to fit a multitude of tables. This was extremely useful because the P38 has less cargo room then any of the project vehicles we have used.
This is one of the track legs that need to be mounted to the bottom.

Simply slide the bolts into the lower track.

Adjust to size and tighten down.

Top view of the tracks installed waiting for the table.

I know what you guys are thinking because I thought the same thing. What holds the table in place? The table mounting kit comes with a securing latch. First you bolt this ring to your table.

Then mount the locking pin bracket to the rack.

Then drop the pin in place to secure the table from moving.

Here is a top view of the table in place. It is securely stored and out-of-the-way until needed. Keep in mind we mounted all of these accessories without drilling a single hole.

With all this cool stuff on the rack we need a way to get there.  Scott from BECM Doctor  www.becmdoctor.com had a few of his SD style ladders left and sent us one.

Not only is Scott extremely knowledgeable about the inner workings of the BECM he's a cool guy to work with. I highly recommend him if you need a spare BECM or yours repaired. He also offered to do another run of ladders if we can get eight people interested. The price for the ladder is $200. And one more thing before we get back to the ladder. Scott is also trying to find a way to divorce the BECM from the ECU. With him on the case we have a good chance of success.
Mounting the latter was extremely easy. All we needed to do was drill some holes.

Install some Riv Nuts nice and tighten down.

Poser shot