Underbody Protection on a P38

[geoffbeaumont]

Having just aquired a P38 I'm trying to work out what, if anything, I can keep for it off the Discovery (300Tdi).

I can't imagine there's any chance the winch bumper will fit (and in any case, seems a shame to mess with the front of a really tidy vehicle). What about the rear diff guard? It's one of the southdown ones with a tray that bolts under the nose of the diff and then has a bracket that wraps around the back and over onto one of the bolts at the top. Are the P38 diff housings similar enough to older Range Rovers/Discoveries to take it? I'm also not rating the chances of my southdown front axle guard fitting

If they won't fit, what are the options for underbody protection on these vehicles (aside from watching where you drive )?

What tyres do most people run for laning? I've always tended to keep separate sets of tyres for laning/off roading and road use, and that seems like a smart idea on the P38 (especially as it has 18" alloys which don't strike me as idea for laning).

[sean f]

Very unlikely for the diff guard to fit as the P38 uses different diffs than a Disco (same as a late 110).

The front axle guard is also unlikely to fit depending on the type as again it is a different type of diff and also the diff is on the other side of the vehicle.

I expect with a bit of work they could be made to fit but it would probable be best to sell them and get something custom made.

I am not aware of much stuff being available off the shelf (for sensible money!) for P38's as frankly not many are used off road in any serious way.

The most common wheels for them are 16" alloys the 18" alloys are "posher", you can generally pick up secondhand 16" alloys pretty cheap with tyres, I doubt you will be able to increase tyre size much and still have clearance when it drops to access level on the suspension unless you start doing some serious body mods.

[sheltie50]

Some Light bulbs but only some ! Tyres at a push,

[David Sparkes]

... What tyres do most people run for laning? I've always tended to keep separate sets of tyres for laning/off roading and road use, and that seems like a smart idea on the P38 (especially as it has 18" alloys which don't strike me as idea for laning).

General Grabber AT2 style is a style that seems to get positive reports.

Available in 255/55 x 18 and 235/70 x 16

http://www.paddockspares.com/sp/category/W...ox2/4__AT2.html or http://www.4x4tyres.com

This style of tread will harm your fuel consumption when used on tarmac, I found by about 2 mpg.

I was never so keen as to change wheels and tyres for laning / tarmac.

I don't necessarily endorse your opinion of 18" wheels as being 'unsuitable' for laning. Having started on 18" wheels I found I preferred 16" for tarmac use, so the question of better / worse for laning was academic. The little I did gave no particular cause for concern.

Obviously I 'recognise' the significance of your membership number on this forum, but I still think that you will get better support on the Rangerovers.net 38A forum. Search on this forum should not be ignored.

Regarding your search for 38A underbody protection, how many thousands did you want to spend?

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31148 is a relevant post, both by date and content, although note the writer is in France. From the pictures I'm not convinced he has had a RHD version made.

The video in this link shows what can be attempted and achieved without making a tank to beat the ground into submission.

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32171 Note how chunky the tyre tread is, or isn't, and note how much difficulty the 'pedestrian' had in keeping his footing.

In terms of being 'fully prepared' before venturing out of the driveway, the next one is relevant. A good technical exercise, and useful to watch, but is it essential for UK laning?

Just in case it applies, don't be put off by his avatar. The American writer was amused by the term Chav. When he understood what it meant he went out and found what he took to be a suitable picture

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=30443

The next two revert to 'our man in France' and his concerns about the oil cooler for the auto gearbox, when a diesel engine is used.

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32060 and

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32072

HTH

[q-rover]

Bearmach do some diffguards, they simply bolt on using the existing diffhousing bolts.

I was lucky and got a Soutdown axleguard before he stopped making them.

What I need now is a way to carry a spare 265.75x16 wheel.

[geoffbeaumont]

Very unlikely for the diff guard to fit as the P38 uses different diffs than a Disco (same as a late 110).

The front axle guard is also unlikely to fit depending on the type as again it is a different type of diff and also the diff is on the other side of the vehicle.

I expect with a bit of work they could be made to fit but it would probable be best to sell them and get something custom made.

Doh! Of course the axle guard won't fit - I'd forgotten about the diffs being on the other side. I knew the P38 diffs were stronger, but wasn't sure how much the housing had changed (and I haven't collected the new vehicle yet to have look at them side by side). Ah, well...

I am not aware of much stuff being available off the shelf (for sensible money!) for P38's as frankly not many are used off road in any serious way.

I was aware of that, so no shocks there - I'm sure P38s will become a more common site on laning trips as the older Range Rovers and Discoveries rust away, though!

The most common wheels for them are 16" alloys the 18" alloys are "posher", you can generally pick up secondhand 16" alloys pretty cheap with tyres, I doubt you will be able to increase tyre size much and still have clearance when it drops to access level on the suspension unless you start doing some serious body mods.

I've no intention of running oversize tyres, just all terrains rather than the usual road biased ones. My biggest concerns were that the rims would be very vulnerable to damage and the tyres would not flex enough over rocks - although it sounds like David didn't have a problem with 18" wheels.

General Grabber AT2 style is a style that seems to get positive reports.

Available in 255/55 x 18 and 235/70 x 16

http://www.paddockspares.com/sp/category/W...ox2/4__AT2.html or http://www.4x4tyres.com

This style of tread will harm your fuel consumption when used on tarmac, I found by about 2 mpg.

I was never so keen as to change wheels and tyres for laning / tarmac.

I have a set of good 235/70x16 BFG ATs, so I think I'll get hold of a set of 16" wheels to fit the P38 and have them swopped onto them - I can try them out and see which I prefer on the road. I've always had separate tyres for laning, partly because I bought a set of RangeMasters when I first started (may even have been before my first trip, which was daft) and it has meant I haven't had to compromise as much. The RangeMaster are 750x16 which I'm sure wouldn't cause any clearance issues on the P38 (they didn't on my last Range Rover, which was a classic with EAS), but I think the road handling of a P38 on them would be a bit too 'interesting'

Obviously I 'recognise' the significance of your membership number on this forum, but I still think that you will get better support on the Rangerovers.net 38A forum. Search on this forum should not be ignored.

The significance of my member number is that I set the forum software up - that's it. At the time I wasn't even a mod, just a member of the old LRE forum who was in a position to provide a temporary home when we were under threat of closure. My hosting wasn't really up to the job (we were already established community), but it got us through until we could raise the funds to move to our current hosts - so I'm not even a 'founding member' or anything like that.

I agree with you that there's a lot more P38 information on rangerovers.net - which is an excellent site I've referred people to a few times myself - but that's no reason not to see what members on here have to offer - some, including yourself, frequently give good advice to P38 owners.

Regarding your search for 38A underbody protection, how many thousands did you want to spend?

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31148 is a relevant post, both by date and content, although note the writer is in France. From the pictures I'm not convinced he has had a RHD version made.

I wasn't so much coming from the angle of what I really wanted to bolt onto the P38 as whether anything I already had could be salvaged (ie. I don't want to spend thousands!). I think the shininess of the new vehicle will stop me attempted anything that I really need under body protection for for a while!

Thanks all!

[SteveG]

Hi Geoff

If you are going to run two sets of tyres, you might as well fit MT's. 245/75 16's will fit without mods, 255/85 16's will fit if you remove mud guards and front bumper I have a P38 now running on AT2's on 18" alloys and you get good flex and reasonably good wheel protection. They are a great AT tyre too.

What year P38 do you have? Later ones had front and rear traction control so are much better off road and perform ok even on road biased tyres. Certainly ok for most laning.

For rear recovery point I used a forged jate ring in rear tow point..

Note the sculptured rear bumper You'll have to do this if you want to off road it quite a bit. I also replaced rear silencer boxes as they got smacked about quite a bit and exhaust tubes were vulnerable to being crushed or filled with compacted earth/mud.

As for protection I ran diff guards. Back in 2001 only make available was Safety Devices..

and a fuel tank guard, again from Safety Devices..

The tank guard took a few knocks so t did it's job.

for better front recovery points and to fit a winch I fitted a custom winch bumper..

but standard bumper does well.

You can also see the side bars in the custom bumper pic. These used existing holes in chassis and brackets can be made up so that you don't lose any ground clearance.

Like the Classic RR, the P38 has curved sides so it can take quite a bashing if you are not careful, so the side bars work well.

Also in custom bumper pic is the 255/85 16 BFG MT's fitted to Disco II steel wheels. Before these I had 245/75 16's MTR's fitted to cheapo 16" alloys..

A useful mod I found to carrying an oversized spare is a false floor in rear (mines a bit heath robinson, but it worked well)...

As everything was easy to rectify, RR went back to normal some 4 years later..

[geoffbeaumont]

If you are going to run two sets of tyres, you might as well fit MT's. 245/75 16's will fit without mods, 255/85 16's will fit if you remove mud guards and front bumper I have a P38 now running on AT2's on 18" alloys and you get good flex and reasonably good wheel protection. They are a great AT tyre too.

If I was buying the tyres new then MTs would make more sense, but I have a set of nearly new BFG ATs which will be fine for anything I'm likely to throw this truck at in the near future so it seems a bit daft to spend hundreds on mud tyres I don't really need. It'll be doing about 20k a year on the road, so having a set of road biased tyres does make sense!

What year P38 do you have? Later ones had front and rear traction control so are much better off road and perform ok even on road biased tyres. Certainly ok for most laning.

This one's a '96, so I'd be surprised if it has front TC. May have rear, I don't know if it was standard or an option? I can't imagine many people specced it as an option on DSEs unless they were planning to venture off road.

For rear recovery point I used a forged jate ring in rear tow point..

Note the sculptured rear bumper You'll have to do this if you want to off road it quite a bit. I also replaced rear silencer boxes as they got smacked about quite a bit and exhaust tubes were vulnerable to being crushed or filled with compacted earth/mud.

For now I'll probably just watch what I tackle - if I have to I'll get a scabby bumper and cut it up. I got used to the tail of the classic hitting the ground, but the P38 doesn't look as bad from this point of view? JATE rings did me fine as front recovery points on the classic so I'll probably do the same as you at the back. Looks like you just used the standard towing eye at the front - is it up to the job?

As for protection I ran diff guards. Back in 2001 only make available was Safety Devices..

and a fuel tank guard, again from Safety Devices..

I'll bear them in mind if I do decide I need something - they look like decent kit.

As everything was easy to rectify, RR went back to normal some 4 years later..

That's impressively shiny considering some of the photo's above!

[SteveG]

The front eye is a recovery eye, same as latest RR and Disco 3, but will only stand so much abuse. In the pick above it got bent as DD was pulling 2.5t of RR through a bank. It did break his PTO winch at the same time though.

After that I fitted the custom bumper. Apart from the crash cans the standard bumper is pretty substantial and it would be possible to mod some recovery loops into it or the front cross member. I would think it would be easy to source a good P38 bumper from a breakers to modify.

Not sure if Safety Devices stuff is still available, also IIRC it was very spendy at the time.

With the protection the P38 is pretty robust, it only needed some paintwork fettling, new rear bumper and some of the trim panels replaced.

Cheers

Steve

[geoffbeaumont]

Well, I got her home last night - no piccies yet, I'm afraid.

So far, I'm rather pleased with my purchase - it's got a couple of minor niggles, but nothing important (well, I suppose you could consider an airbag fault important). All the critical bits are in good order and she's generally a very well looked after vehicle

No traction control on this one (it's a DT not DSE - not sure where I got that from, I did know it was base model). Also no cruise control or air con, both of which would have been nice, but other things it doesn't have like memory seats really just mean less to go wrong as far as I'm concerned.

[David Sparkes]

'Rather Pleased' is good, long may it continue :-)

A '95 DT is what I run, no Cruise Control, Traction Control, or Electric Seats, but definately Air Con. My choice, then and now, is that I wouldn't buy without that, but that's just a personal choice.

Just to clarify, is the Heating and Ventilation control via manual knobs, rather than automated with a small display screen in the centre console?

As you are probably aware, SRS (airbag) faults rarely reset themselves. They generally need diagnostic kit.

Cheers.

[geoffbeaumont]

'Rather Pleased' is good, long may it continue :-)

A '95 DT is what I run, no Cruise Control, Traction Control, or Electric Seats, but definately Air Con. My choice, then and now, is that I wouldn't buy without that, but that's just a personal choice.

Air con was on my 'must have' list, after a few years driving the Discovery which doesn't have it, but it was sacrificed because this one was in such good condition.

Just to clarify, is the Heating and Ventilation control via manual knobs, rather than automated with a small display screen in the centre console?

That's the one.

As you are probably aware, SRS (airbag) faults rarely reset themselves. They generally need diagnostic kit.

Yep I can live with the SRS fault if I can't fix it though - otherwise I wouldn't have bought the vehicle in case it was horribly expensive to sort out.

The more I drive it the more I like it I think I'll always prefer the sound of a V8, but a straight six turbo diesel sounds pretty good too

[David Sparkes]

You might be interested in these two threads, especially as I read in another thread that you are investing in a second set of wheels for Green Lane work.

Who goes offroad with his P38 in UK? http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32357

RHD Steering Box Location and Southdown Steering Guard http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32217

I've no thoughts of investing in one of these guards, but that's more a reflection of my vehicle usage than a comment on the guards.

Cheers.

[geoffbeaumont]

They do strike me as a bit unnecessary (possibly excepting fairly tough usage - in which case I'd question if a P38 is the best tool for the job). Neither of my previous Land Rovers have had steering guards, only diff/axle guards. I never felt one was needed, and the steering is more exposed on the Range Rover classic/series one Discovery.

[jules]

Hi Geoff

If you are going to run two sets of tyres, you might as well fit MT's. 245/75 16's will fit without mods, 255/85 16's will fit if you remove mud guards and front bumper I have a P38 now running on AT2's on 18" alloys and you get good flex and reasonably good wheel protection. They are a great AT tyre too.

What year P38 do you have? Later ones had front and rear traction control so are much better off road and perform ok even on road biased tyres. Certainly ok for most laning.

For rear recovery point I used a forged jate ring in rear tow point..

Note the sculptured rear bumper You'll have to do this if you want to off road it quite a bit. I also replaced rear silencer boxes as they got smacked about quite a bit and exhaust tubes were vulnerable to being crushed or filled with compacted earth/mud.

As for protection I ran diff guards. Back in 2001 only make available was Safety Devices..

and a fuel tank guard, again from Safety Devices..

The tank guard took a few knocks so t did it's job.

for better front recovery points and to fit a winch I fitted a custom winch bumper..

but standard bumper does well.

You can also see the side bars in the custom bumper pic. These used existing holes in chassis and brackets can be made up so that you don't lose any ground clearance.

Like the Classic RR, the P38 has curved sides so it can take quite a bashing if you are not careful, so the side bars work well.

Also in custom bumper pic is the 255/85 16 BFG MT's fitted to Disco II steel wheels. Before these I had 245/75 16's MTR's fitted to cheapo 16" alloys..

A useful mod I found to carrying an oversized spare is a false floor in rear (mines a bit heath robinson, but it worked well)...

As everything was easy to rectify, RR went back to normal some 4 years later..

remind me not to buy a shiny black p38 one carful owner

[996TURBO]

General Grabber AT2 style is a style that seems to get positive reports.

Available in 255/55 x 18 and 235/70 x 16

http://www.paddockspares.com/sp/category/W...ox2/4__AT2.html or http://www.4x4tyres.com

This style of tread will harm your fuel consumption when used on tarmac, I found by about 2 mpg.

I was never so keen as to change wheels and tyres for laning / tarmac.

I don't necessarily endorse your opinion of 18" wheels as being 'unsuitable' for laning. Having started on 18" wheels I found I preferred 16" for tarmac use, so the question of better / worse for laning was academic. The little I did gave no particular cause for concern.

Obviously I 'recognise' the significance of your membership number on this forum, but I still think that you will get better support on the Rangerovers.net 38A forum. Search on this forum should not be ignored.

Regarding your search for 38A underbody protection, how many thousands did you want to spend?

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=31148 is a relevant post, both by date and content, although note the writer is in France. From the pictures I'm not convinced he has had a RHD version made.

The video in this link shows what can be attempted and achieved without making a tank to beat the ground into submission.

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32171 Note how chunky the tyre tread is, or isn't, and note how much difficulty the 'pedestrian' had in keeping his footing.

In terms of being 'fully prepared' before venturing out of the driveway, the next one is relevant. A good technical exercise, and useful to watch, but is it essential for UK laning?

Just in case it applies, don't be put off by his avatar. The American writer was amused by the term Chav. When he understood what it meant he went out and found what he took to be a suitable picture

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=30443

The next two revert to 'our man in France' and his concerns about the oil cooler for the auto gearbox, when a diesel engine is used.

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32060 and

http://rangerovers.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=32072

HTH

Hi,

Many thanks from France

I'm looking at produce diff guard and fuel tank guard soon too.

RHD steering guard version could exist but i need some pre-orders. One member of rangerovers.net already want one.

We're not a lot that want to go further with our P38s but since those are more and more affortables, i believe that even the purists will take a chance and see how good and trouble free they can be.

Cheers

Flo

http://www.rr-evolution.com

[996TURBO]

As for protection I ran diff guards. Back in 2001 only make available was Safety Devices..

and a fuel tank guard, again from Safety Devices..

The tank guard took a few knocks so t did it's job.

Hi Steve,

We spoke together few times on range rovers.net

Thanks for the photos of the SD fuel tank guard.

May you explain me how it is fixed over the OEM tank bracket?

BTW does the OEM chassis holes where you fixed your sliders tubes mounts are up to the job. I'm asking you because i know your experience with those.

Cheers

Flo

[996TURBO]

Hi Steve,

We spoke together few times on range rovers.net

Thanks for the photos of the SD fuel tank guard.

May you explain me how it is fixed over the OEM tank bracket?

BTW does the OEM chassis holes where you fixed your sliders tubes mounts are up to the job. I'm asking you because i know your experience with those.

Cheers

Flo

Underbody Protection for P38 Range Rover by a Range Rover Enthusiast

See : http://www.rr-evolution.com

Uploaded with ImageShack.us