Leaks in the T pieces. So I've taken them out and trying again....
What T pieces?
I put T pieces in the airlines and car valves in case I ever got the car on the bump stops. Ok both rear bags went up - to extended by the look of it. Front right has gone up a few inches but the front left isn't moving. I have checked all the fuses and relays, checked the maxi fuses reseated the C117 under seat connector and now my nano com freezes up when I go into the EAS settings and it makes the flashing light on the dash to go extended setting.
The EAS unlocking software just shows me every single fault, like it's getting jumbled messages.
All this happened after I jacked the car up under the front left wheel to get at the oil leak the other day. I'm baffled now
On EAS Unlock, clicking the button that doesn't look like a button marked Faults, clears the list. Then if you read faults again it will show you the current ones. If you go into the Heights tab, you can manually click each corner up and down. If you click one corner and don't hear the relevant solenoid operate, that is your problem.
Hi Gilbertd, as the RR keeps going rock hard and extended height I thought it might be a sticking solenoid. At least you've put me on the right path.
Right, back to the car.
If I leave the door unlatched so the tank fills up the airbags are filling up. RR fills up to the point of almost bursting.
Does anyone have any have any ideas please?
For pressure to fill all 4 corners you would need to have all 4 solenoids operated as well as the inlet solenoid. None of these should be operated with a door open and even if it wasn't registering the door being open, it should still only rise to normal height. The only thing I can think is that you've cocked up the valve block somehow.
I didn't cock up the valve block I double checked everything. However what I did do was that I connected the identical plugs into the wrong receivers. So hands up, my bloody fault I should have marked up the plugs like I normally do but I was tired and forgot. Numpty.
So success and hey ho up Rommel rises! Very quickly now too.
Thanks for all your help and sage advice on this epic.
Time for a test drive as I think my neighbours will linch me with any more chugging noises. So it's beer o'clock now :-D
I connected the identical plugs into the wrong receivers.
It's a stupid bit of design, that.
Ok now it's time for fault finding.
I had to drive 2 hours from home and then back last night. Around 10 mins after starting my return journey EAS FAULT on the dash, all lights on, onto the bump stops. I never realised the M5 & M6 were so bloody bumpy - it was like a low level C130 flight!.
Today I have cleared the fault and also fitted the missing o ring to my piston.
It is now taking 5 - 10 mins from a cold start to raise the car. If I stop, park up and get out then I hear the solenoids and it self levels down to around 75 on all corners (according to Nano). I would guess that the compressed air is supposed to stay in the tank and not leak out. I can't hear any leaks, I can't see any leaks using bubbles and it never did any of this until it just dropped last week.
Could it be that the air is leaking out of the reservoir via the solenoid block? As I said I can't hear or see any signs of leaks but it is definately not having any air when I start it back up. I pulled pipe 6 after 15 mins of static running and I've had more pressure come out of the airbags than came out of that pipe.
The other strange thing is that my Nano will turn on / off the compressor but on the raise height and open each airbag screen it doesn't do anything.
OR could it be one of the NRV's?
To chase the fault I have swapped RR & RL air lines over and RR still stays 10-20mm below the other 3 so I'll investigate further tomorrow (wheel off time).
On the Nano you have to open a valve for a corner and then open the inlet or outlet valve too which makes a corner go up or down. What was the actual fault you had when it dropped? My suspicion would be a height sensor with a dead spot on it's travel. If it sits at that spot for more than 30 seconds, it will go into hard fault. The stored fault will tell you which one. If you lock it at a different height to where it was when it faulted (so, if on a motorway I would suspect motorway height, so lock it in normal) and it doesn't do it, that will narrow it down.
If you have a Nano, why didn't you just plug it in and reset it as soon as the fault occurred rather than have to drive on the bumpstops?
If theres no pressure in the tank then i imagine the nanocom "raise" button wont do anything...
Mine seems to lose pressure in the tank when parked for a while. The bags themselves are fine, and dont deflate by themselvs, but sometimes it will do the EAS dance and self level itself right down, or perhaps you'll load a lot of weight into it, and after starting it up it does take a while to raise itself, when really the tank should be full and it should lift immediately. If its only been sitting for a few hours, it will usually lift straight away.
I've never really investigated too closely.
As a random aside, a few weeks back i was towing a trailer home in the snow, and randomly got an EAS Fault out the blue shortly after leaving the mother in laws. First time its ever had a fault, and i was expecting the worst, bumpstops etc while towing wasnt going to be pleasant...
However all it did was light up the four lights on the height button... No "35mph" warning or deflate to the bump stops, it just sat where it was. I drove a short distance to find a safe place to stop and got nanocom out (luckily it was in the glovebox), it said front right height sensor had some issue. Reset the code and everything returned to normal and its not come back.
Aragorn wrote:
As a random aside, a few weeks back i was towing a trailer home in the snow, and randomly got an EAS Fault out the blue shortly after leaving the mother in laws. First time its ever had a fault, and i was expecting the worst, bumpstops etc while towing wasnt going to be pleasant...
However all it did was light up the four lights on the height button... No "35mph" warning or deflate to the bump stops, it just sat where it was. I drove a short distance to find a safe place to stop and got nanocom out (luckily it was in the glovebox), it said front right height sensor had some issue. Reset the code and everything returned to normal and its not come back.
That's the classic dead spot on a height sensor fault, in your case, front right. You obviously hit it at just the right spot.
Gilbertd wrote:
On the Nano you have to open a valve for a corner and then open the inlet or outlet valve too which makes a corner go up or down. What was the actual fault you had when it dropped? No fault whatsoever. I had jacked up the front to get under the engine to tighten up the oil cooler pipe nut. Let the car down off the jack and it went down to the bump stops with no fault in Nano.
I also could only open the front LHS valve. I could turn on/off the compressor but my Nano doesn't seem to be able to do all it should.
My suspicion would be a height sensor with a dead spot on it's travel. If it sits at that spot for more than 30 seconds, it will go into hard fault. The stored fault will tell you which one. If you lock it at a different height to where it was when it faulted (so, if on a motorway I would suspect motorway height, so lock it in normal) and it doesn't do it, that will narrow it down.
If you have a Nano, why didn't you just plug it in and reset it as soon as the fault occurred rather than have to drive on the bumpstops?
Because I left it at home by mistake and won't make that mistake again I can tell you!
I appreciate the advice guys and thanks. I'm going to start with checking the NRV's then move over to checking the height sensors probably swap left & right rears with each other tomorrow, if the weather holds
quote here As a random aside, a few weeks back i was towing a trailer home in the snow, and randomly got an EAS Fault out the blue shortly after leaving the mother in laws. First time its ever had a fault, and i was expecting the worst, bumpstops etc while towing wasnt going to be pleasant...
However all it did was light up the four lights on the height button... No "35mph" warning or deflate to the bump stops, it just sat where it was. I drove a short distance to find a safe place to stop and got nanocom out (luckily it was in the glovebox), it said front right height sensor had some issue. Reset the code and everything returned to normal and its not come back.
That's the classic dead spot on a height sensor fault, in your case, front right. You obviously hit it at just the right spot.> quote here
That happened to me first for about the last 30 mins of driving before I stopped for 45 mins to turn around.
It's a bit of a funny one. Sometimes a height sensor dead spot will give a soft fault so the yellow light on the dash comes on, all 4 height lights come on and it will pump up to maximum height, other times it comes up as a hard fault so it drops to the bumpstops. Soft fault doesn't always need a reset, simply switching off and restarting is enough to clear it but only sometimes. Hard fault will always need a reset.
Rears can be swapped side to side which would move the dead spot to a different height, hopefully one that it doesn't sit at. Later front's (VIN VA onwards) can also be swapped but earlier ones are handed so can't be.
Well I did find a sticking NRV. The flattened end that comes through the brass block had worn a channel into the brass and stuck. I moved it and the end snapped off. Not happy. So I had to buy a block from the bay of fleas. I have managed to jury rig the NRV into the block with a spring compressor (thread), lined it up and let go. I haven't had time to check the ride height sensor today, that will be tomorrows swap over, but I can say that using the Nano in High mode all settings and live readings are almost spot on, same for normal, same for low. When I park though the RR corner drops, sometimes both RR & RL then stay the same height. When I then get back in I get the tick-tick-tick-tick the whole car drops to 70mm all round. Then I have to wait for the tank to fill before it rises up.
My RR height sensor is sheared across one of the seized solid bolts (lower one). That might explain a few things. Next mission is to somehow get a grinder in and cut the nuts off