1995 Range Rover P38 4.6 HSE - Bloody cars!

Talking way way back in the mists of time here now...but i put a spax kit on my mk1 golf as the factory stuff was getting tired and was very pleased with it until i pulled into a driveway one day and mis-judged the drop kerb. The resulting loading on the NSF saw the strut royally schatt its guts out. Unimpressed i replaced the spax units with koni's.... the difference was night and day. Having a direct comparison the koni units were remarkable. I dont know if they are as good these days though.

Easy, they said. No problem, they said.

Just undo this, undo that, replace, tighten everything up and job’s done.

These people have obviously never replaced a front shocker on the driver’s side of a left hooker P38.

What an effin’ nasty, spiteful, horrible job.

On a normal ’38, all the air suspension gubbins is on one side and all the brake and steering stuff is on the other. Stands to reason, see. However, on the LHD everything, brakes, suspension, steering column is all stuffed into one little space on the left side of the bay. And what else is there? You got it, the top mount for the shocker.

You can get a wrench in there but you’ll only get 1/16 of a turn each time, reversing the spanner after every go. The bolt’s quite long, as it would be, and the only place it can go as it unscrews, is into the mess of pipes and lines that snake their way between various pumps, accumulators, modulators and so on.

Now you can’t get a spanner on it. So you have to find a suitable jack to go under the bottom mount, undo that, use said jack to push the shock up and out to relieve the pressure on the top mount so you can get your fingers in there (just) to turn the bolt the rest of the way.





Of course, refitting is the opposite of removal, an absolute pig of a job!

So the first two hours of Saturday were spent undoing the top bolt as far as I could, three hours then waiting for Madam to turn up with her car in the hope she had a simple scissor jack, bottle jacks couldn’t cut it, sketchily balance said jack on various blocks of wood, slightly angled, and shove the old shock up and out. Another half hour turning a very reluctant top bolt with fingers and with a clang, it was free.

New shock stuffed in, half an hour to align the top, jack up new one and once it was above the height of the seat, give it a sharp tap with a hammer and hope it jumped the gap between jack and where it was supposed to be. Cry, “Eureka!” Then spend next hour doing up the top bolt, 1/16 turn, reverse spanner, 1/16 turn, reverse spanner, remember? All the while teaching innocent passers-by a whole new world of Anglo-Saxon invective. Replace wheel, drop off jack and retire in disgust for a cold beer, still muttering under your breath.

7AM Sunday, still aching mightily from the contortions you put the body through yesterday, you reluctantly set out your tools and, within an hour, have done the other side. I could get a socket on that side, hell, you could have held a dance on that side, there’s that much room, so it whizzed off. Look…



Anyway, the upshot is the fronts are done, a drive revealed all was well. I don’t think the old ones were too shot, they still needed a fair old shove to compress, but the top bush had collapsed on one, so that wouldn’t be helping.



Just the rears to do now, but I’m thinking that if I’m going to teach Tania to drive, she really needs to understand how things work...

See where I’m going with this one?

The third being bottle emptying?!

She's already got that one down!


I've built it into the education budget!

Soooo, as we get ever closer to the move and the ability to change the rear shocks without one eye on needing to keep the vehicle as mobile as possible, my thought's turned another way.

I have a Nanocom, a little box of tricks that plugs into the '38 and allows you to do all sorts of clever stuff. It's Land Rover specific, so all the proprietary bits, like air suspension can be done as well. It's proved invaluable over the years, meaning I don't have to trail halfway across Luzon to access a garage's machine.

Anyway, as with all these things, the touch screen has been slowly getting more difficult to operate and a couple of months ago, I sent it on holiday to Cyprus, where those nice people at BlackBox Solutions were going to fix it for me. DHL were tasked with the job and, in no time, it was in the hands of BBS. They then turned it around quickly and dispatched it back, again via DHL. Everything going swimmingly.

Now the Philippine Bureau of Customs has it. They've had it since February 24. I have no idea what they are doing with it, nor do DHL. For me, it's an item upon which duty was paid (half the value of the kit if I remember) back in 2014, which has since been sent away for repair. I don't see what BoC has to do with it. But wait, yes I do, they'll be looking to gouge another chunk for doing sweet FA.

Just got to wait and see how much.

I should be getting keys and lease couriered to me today. Official day is Friday but realistically, it'll be Saturday. Hopefully I'll have a week or so to get everything shifted. The only red tape on a rental is the lease. Eight pages, five copies, every page initialled, then signed, then witnessed by two others, then notarised by a lawyer who's never met either of the parties. Just the ususal!

With the Nanocom, I can't see where duty can be due? Customs have the pro-forma invoice clearly stating the repairs and parts, they also have proof of payment from me. It's a simple repair to an item on which duty has already been paid. Well over a hundred quid's worth too, if I remember.

I had this with some replacement brake lines some years ago. Customs just couldn't understand that someone would replace an incorrect item with a correct one at no charge, as that is a completely alien concept here. It took a letter from the supplier, despite all the paperwork showing zero value, and in the end there was no duty. But it didn't stop them holding onto them for a while before making their mind up.

Who spoke too soon then?

At 07:10 today I received an email.

"Dear George,

The Bureau of Customs has, after all, decided they want their pound of flesh.

Please pay 955 Peso and 47 Centavos sharpish, then we'll deliver your kit.

Love,

DHL."

The only way I can imagine them arriving at such an odd number is that it's the answer to, "How much is breakfast this morning?"

Bastids!

Yes, it's not a lot, but it is the sort of petty mindedness that pervades.

I got the paperwork with the kit this morning and it's VAT they've charged me on the value of the repairs. Now, how Philippine VAT is applicable on a repair carried out in Cyprus on a bit of kit they've already had import duty on, is beyond me.

But no, I won't be challenging it. Guessing that, in the unlikely event I won the battle, I'd probably wind up on their Chocolate sprinkles-list and would thus inevitably lose the war.

It's just part of the whole system geared to grabbing money wherever possible, especially if you have do do little or nothing for it.

When we rented a (not cheap) apartment in Malate, the use of the pool was free for Tania, but if she had some friends over, they charged 40 Peso each. I mean, come on, it probably cost more to send me the bloody invoice, but just symptomatic of the money grubbing mentality here.

Still bastids!

Chocolate sprinkles?

At least you got it back without it being a big wallet hit!

Classic Homes Village, sound very westernised!

Perhaps the "basketball court" is some swanky bar/grubb shack serving the finest steak & ale?!!!