2002 P38 resurection

David Despain

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2005
791
1
46
Salt Lick City Utah
Hello my name is david and I have new to me rangie. A 2002 HSE with about 78k on the clock, I have rescued it from certain doom and now it needs to be resurected to it's former glory.

I bought it as a repo for a song but it needs lots of work. its sitting on the bumpstops, the abs light is on, traction control problem comes on the info display, testbook! is lit up on the HVAC, it wont blow warm air and the RH floor mat is wet, I'm guessing heater core/ o-rings. bank had it looked at and the shop said it needs a water pump, rear transmission seal. The shift knob has been replaced with some ricer aluminum handle. And it needs a really good detail job quite badly.

I have four months until my lease is up on my current truck, so the Rangie is in my garage for a while to get everything sorted out in one shot. We'll see how that works out.
My goal is to make it my daily driver and be reliable as it can be for the next 5 yrs or so. It's going to get a thorough going over and replacement of worn or suspect parts. I will tryto be be as frugal as possible with out being a cheap fuck. I owned a 2000 DII for 4 yrs so I am familiar with LR in general but I know very little about the specifics of the RR. Should be fun times! Wish me luck.

Last night, first repair. Replaced a missing bolt in the RH tailgate latch so it closes properly.
got it up on jackstands and wheels off to have a good look underneath. nice and clean, minimal rust.

Both front airbags are completely seperated from the upper piece. thats not supposed to happen is it? I have seen where you can buy just the bladder for repairs but i would think its got to be all one sealed or glued or crimped or somehow attached piece. Other wise if you lifted a wheel it would just blow all the air out and thats probably not good. also it has been sitting for at least a few months if not longer on the bumpstops and both rear airbags look like they have been folded in half and crushed for that time, probly not good either.
 

carlosz

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
581
0
Annandale,Va
see storey wilson's website... RSW solutions dot com for info about how to reset your air suspension and get those airbags to inflate.
 

David Despain

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2005
791
1
46
Salt Lick City Utah
Picked up a sears diehard platinum battery today. I went with a slightly different model than the oem spec. LR puts a group 31 batt in there ( or at least thats what i have in mine, i assume its OEM). I put a P-2 in there, its a group 65. I did this for a few reasons.

First off the warrenty is much better; the group 31 size from sears only comes in a "marine" application. they figure its gonna sit a long stretch at a time so the warranty is only 36 mo. the automotive platinums have a 48 mo replacement then prorated out to 100 months.

Second it was 60 bucks cheaper. i am trying to be frugal with out being a cheap fuck. this batt is much better than a walmart battery of the oem size.

And third, most importantly there wasn't one on the shelf in the sears I went to and i wasnt going to drive across town when i had stopped there on the way home. I guess its not really boat season in utah right now.
i didnt get to put it in tonight. I will try tomorrow.
 

DougG

Well-known member
Oct 7, 2006
1,004
3
Cooperstown NY
As long as the airSPRINGS(not airbags) are in good condition, you can guide them back into position and fill them up. If they are dry-rotted, then you need new springs.
 

David Despain

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2005
791
1
46
Salt Lick City Utah
got the battery installed. I made up a plate with a 90 deg bend for it to sit on so it doesn't slide around and used plastic grating to raise it up to the proper height. then I made a strap to hold it down since the old one wouldn't fit quite right. It is the biggest "automotive " platinum that sears sells. I wish they would sell the proper group 31 size in this line as well. oh well, i can always go back to that size in a matter of minutes if need be.

Doug, the airbags are all dry rotted pretty baddly. the rears look like they were folded over instead of "rolling" into themselves when it went to hard fault mode and they are creased pretty baddly. I know the air susp guys are very adamant that it works well and is not expensive, but in this particular case i think its going to make more sense to go to coils. both in the short and long term. I have no idea of the previous history, whats been done to it or what all it needs. With coils I will start with a known quantity and I can go from there.
 

David Despain

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2005
791
1
46
Salt Lick City Utah
i have all the airsping stuff removed now. what are others here running for springs? i am thinking rover connection seats and adapters and OME springs. but what spring PN to use? i like the look of alan bates' truck so i am leaning toward 751/781.
 

wooderson

Well-known member
Jul 21, 2008
512
0
of course the car made it home, you're calling me at home Walter!


anyway, i run coils. RTE 2". wouldn't do EAS if you want to wheel it. this is quite a debate though. some love the EAS and some hate it. my thoughts are to get rid of the gadgetry and make it simple. (not that the EAS is complicated)
 

David Despain

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2005
791
1
46
Salt Lick City Utah
drove the truck for the first time today. just to the gas station and i didnt even get it over 40 mph. it's tall. its not wobbley. now to get it registered.
its got old man emu coils 764 in front. 781 in the rear. i put front OME RR shocks on back and used OME FZJ 80 rear shocks up front. i had to use bushings to get to the proper I.D. for the bolts and they are running upside down. after speaking with some ARB folks i now know this is sub-optimum. not the end of the world but not perfect. so they will run this way for a while and if they are just horrible then i will figure something else out.
i used the rear sway bar end links from a jeep TJ to extend my links about 3.5 inches. this required hogging the holes in the sway bar and chassis out to 1/2 inch, no biggie, and new bolts.
i used spacers and longer bolts to stand the brackets for brake line off a bit and gain the needed clearance on them.
i tied all the hieght sensors up out of the way and disconected the air pump and pulled its relay. oddly enough this made the abs and traction control lights go away? think they will come back, only time will tell.
did some other misc. maintence as well, eng oil and filter (required 24 in. 1/2 drive breaker bar to remove drain plug), air filter (never been changed i think) pollen filters (orig as well) rear wiper, both headlight wipers, flushed PS fluid. i also have brake fluid, spark plugs and diff oils sitting and waiting to get renewed still.
so next is HVAC stuff. there is no AC or fan blowing air to speak of.
i had better go get busy, i want to make it to AF canyon soon. http://www.discoweb.org/forums/showthread.php?t=59772
 

Dieter

Well-known member
May 31, 2009
51
0
St.Louis
Good luck, I'm dealing with some of the same things. I'm hoping to get the coils on this week, look like I may also have a bad oil gasket seal.
let me know how it goes.
 

David Despain

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2005
791
1
46
Salt Lick City Utah
KyleT said:
why not use RTE loop shock adapters and run a loop to loop shock? I was thinking about this recently.

I did not know that RTE sold those. hmmm. well i drove it around a little bit. it handles ok, better at higher speeds actually. no noticable vibes, bad ones anyway. got my plates today, and tonight i got the heater core o-rings replaced, no leaks yet! just need to button everything back up.
here is the part i need advice on: when i got it the book symbol is on the HVAC. ok i need to get codes read. probably blend motors though right? but after the o-ring change the heater core doesnn't get warm on the out let pipe. the inlet pipe is very hot and the outlet is still the same temp as it was before i started the engine. I am thinking clogged heater core. oh this could be ugly. the only thing is this was all at idle in the garage, maybe i just need to get some rpm on the engine and drive it to see if the water pump is just not moving much water at idle. it was too late tonight to be waking up the neighbors and to be reving it up. the lower rad hose was still cool as well, althought the upper hose was quite hot. what say you all?
 

Dieter

Well-known member
May 31, 2009
51
0
St.Louis
I made the EAS cable in about .5 hour. downloaded the software and reset the EAS. It worked! I left the P38 in high mode last night with the door open, and it's still the same. So far so good.
 

David Despain

Well-known member
Feb 24, 2005
791
1
46
Salt Lick City Utah
Rover Mac said:
Good article on P38 Coil suspension. (could not find it earlier)
http://rockrover.com/techarticles.htm


Oh yes. I am well and truly familiar with that page, it's bookmarked.
I read and re-read Alan's page then I spent a bunch of hours with the truck on tall jack stands, a floor jack, two or three bottle jacks some other jack stands and a trusty tape measure before ordering anything. then I read and re-read Alan's page again. hmm do I go with the mild lift with lots of trim packers, hmm what should I do. Then I said to my self "self, you are not going to get a pass from SWMBO to redo the springs" so I ordered up the taller ones and now its sitting pretty! one item of note from alans page is he mentions the toyota land cruiser shock as a posibility. I reaserched this and it looked doable so I went for it. in hindsight that may have been a mistake. But for the cost of two shocks I think it was worth the gamble. And hey someone had to do it and post for the rest of the world to see right? see discusion here as to why it may not be the best way to go about it. http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=24380 also i have some low speed clunks and clatter that i think is from the suspension. probably because there is a metal to metal interface where the front shock upper mount bolt goes through the shock due to my spacer bushings. this interface is also just a tad sloppy because the bolt is 11.something mm and the bushing I.D. is 1/2 in.

Currently the truck has most of the dash removed. It's really not that hard, although one should take care and not rush the job in order to not loose pieces or hardware. THe heater core o-rings have been replaced. And when I ran the truck the other day in the daytime I was able to put some revs to it and the whole thing was hot like it should be. I guess it just wont do it at idle. I found a lot of places where the prev owner had done a fair bit of audio/visual "upgrades" that were just diked off when the they were removed (presumably just before it was re-poed) and most of the ducts were not really hooked up. I am hoping this was the cause of the poor airflow. I know it wont solve my testbok symbol, but its a start.
 

KyleT

Well-known member
Mar 28, 2007
6,059
8
39
Fort Worth, TEXAS
gmookher said:
Run it longer for the thermostat to open, or replace thermostat. Likely needs a fresh batch of coolant, coolant low/air in system?

definately have to bleed it. it should get hot though pretty quick, bosch RR's have a bypass for comfort that heats the heater core up without the thermostat opening..
check the hose routing to be sure it is right. there are 5 hoses on the t-stat housing...