Um. Six in the case of the upper union on my old condenser unit. Own fault. After being delayed by a few problems getting into things I got bit rush headed hoping to get the job done whilst i still had assistance on site to re-fit the bumper. Lent a bit too much on the spanner and interpreted union nut going out of shape as things starting to move. Net result A/F dimensions each way were both different and tapered. It also rubbed on the pipe! Comments of the "Oh dearie, dearie me!" type. Heavily supercharged in full afterburner mode.

Fortunately warming things up with a propane torch loosened the union up enough to get things moving. One whitworth, one A/F, one normal length metric, one stubby metric (unearthed and unwrapped after 25 years in the white elephant drawer), my favourite small F type shifter and King Dicks version of the Americans favourite Crescent monkey wrench got it out a teeny bit of turn at a time. Maybe 30 very long minutes. Once off some scientific squeezing in the vice got it spinning free on the pipe again and the across flats dimensions within couple of thou'.

Having paid the brand name tax for a Hella OEM unit instead of "perm one from 5 lower cost" versions on E-Bay I expected the new condenser to drop straight in. Nope! Locating pin holes down the bottom were incorrectly positioned with respect to the bolt sleeves and each other. So in and out half a dozen times for file modifications before it all went in. Straight copy of the old one didn't work, that would have been too easy, and there is still a bit of residual stress where the bolts don't go into the brackets dead true but hopefully it will be fine. Hella managed to get the top fixings wrong too. Clip on thread carriers instead of the standard welded on nuts so the standard bolts are too short. Just to make a clean sweep the fan unit bolt holes didn't line up either so a bit of gentle levering was needed to get that on. At least it came with positive pressure inside and they did get the union threads right.

Full dark (and chilly) by the time I got the fans on but not fancying finishing off in the rain tomorrow I decided to have a go at putting the bumper on solo. Went straight on. Easy. Air deflector on the left went straight in and held OK with the remains of those stupid beak me to take me out push fixings. Grill went straight on too without dropping any screws. By that time I figured my resident workshop gremiln colony had bedded down in the warm for an early night.

Nope! The beast had taken up a distinct list to the drivers side during the days work. Which didn't really worry me as the air suspension has always been good as gold. Started him up to shift back to the proper parking spot, went right down to access height and stayed there. Light's flashing, compressor running but no lift. Gremlins clearly still wide awake and dancing merrily. Hopefully just an air bag displaced when I checked the front brakes on Monday, when its gets light again we'll see if the tank pumps up with the drivers door open. Horrible feeling that it may be time for a compressor and valve block overhaul. If it is who does a good kit these days?

Clive

I've always used landyair on eBay, all he does is EAS, helpful on the phone if you get stuck, eBay number 271823378046

Thanks for that Chris. I should probably get the bits in stock even though a quick look this afternoon after the rain stopped and before it got dark suggests the compressor is OK. 10 minutes to bring the tank up from emty with door open. Both ends lift with a charged tank then front sags as the air runs out. Rear stays high as long as the engine is running but sags in a few minutes after switched off.

Time to get up close & personal with RAVE and figure out how to run the EAS bit of Lynx. Given that Britpart chose not to issue a manual thats going to take some work.

Clive
Clive

10 minutes isn't unheard of, especially if the tank is empty.
Get the soapy water out and find the leak, I always replace the o rings, diaphragm
and piston and liner on every car I buy, just as precaution.
Sounds like quite a major leak, by the sounds of it you may be able to hear it.

Got about 3 hours on it this afternoon. As expected front airbags are still properly seated so the problem occuring after jacking up to look at the brakes was probably coincidence. Can't find an air leak tho'. System lifts fine when the tank is full, holds up for a couple of minutes then sags to the bump stops at the front over a couple of minutes. Solenoids and valves can be heard clicking as it goes down suggesting that the driver pack and solenoids are OK. The back will stay up so long as the ignition is on and engine running. Turn the ignition off and within a minute or the back end is on the bump stops too. Some clicking from the valve block too.

I figured that valve block rebuild is next step. Time to order a kit?

Clive

Give the guy at landyair a call, he will tell you if it's valve block or driver pack, the guy is well up on EAS, knows everything about it..can't think of his name and my phones in being repaired ☹️️

Well you could establish if it were leaks or the system doing something odd by simply opening a door - this will stop it raising or lowering itself. Leave a door or the tailgate open with or without the engine running and see if it sags.

Chris
I think the Simon is the man at landyair. I'll give him a ring tomorrow. Google searching gets confusing as it also pulls up 4 x 4 spares for when searching landyair.

Sloth
Thanks for the reminder. Will verify what happens with doors open tomorrow when neighbors are out so I can run the beast without upsetting everyone. I knew I'd forgotten to check something properly. Fairly sure it stays up with doors open but didn't leave it long enough for a proper check.

Clive

Sloth wrote:

simply opening a door - this will stop it raising or lowering itself.

I can see why you would think so....
Marty and I did a classic Hollywood double-take when mine gracefully lowered itself while the FL door was open :) But hey, what's another door latch between friends?

Morat wrote:

Sloth wrote:

simply opening a door - this will stop it raising or lowering itself.

I can see why you would think so....
Marty and I did a classic Hollywood double-take when mine gracefully lowered itself while the FL door was open :) But hey, what's another door latch between friends?

Well, yes, but then we could also break into your car through either front door without it noticing at camp :)

duh.. yurp.
I guess that could have been related :)

Welp that was embarrassing!

Got the seal kit, desiccator kit, compressor kit, air valves and pressure gauge from Simon, the original landyair man. (If you are gonna do a job do it properly I always say.) Rebuilt the valve block yesterday. Wotta lot of rings, reckon the Range Rover EAS designers dad must have owned an O ring factory. Fitted today and he still went down on the right front corner. After a pause for coffee and appropriate incantations I dug out the Lynx to de-pressurise the system. OK. How! Surely that POS box can at least manage something that simple. Eventually decided that the only way it would do it was to put things into transport mode. That got the air out but how we are going to get him out of transport mode and back up to normal is gonna be a whole'nother thing.

Dragged the suitcase compressor over and a bit of experimentation with valve positions and pipe connections disclosed we had got a leak in the pipe to the right front corner. Nicely audible with the engine stopped and the extra delivery of the suitcase compressor. Turns out that somebody got careless with the flame when warming up the aluminium nuts on the airconditioning system to encourage them to come undone and frazzeled a section of air pipe down the side of the radiator too! Ordered up a length of pukka nylon air pipe and metal Noregen fittings. Don't trust the cheapy plastic fittings or the soft pipe for exterior and wide temperature range use. Hopefully be able to replace the whole length so I won't need couplers but best to be prepared. What's annoying is I have some pipe and a pair of connectors in stock, left over from when I did the air bags about 3 years back and wanted to be prepared in case I had to cut the rear lines. Put them somewhere safe. Real safe.

Still waiting for the new airline and connectors will give me time to do the desiccator and compressor rebuilds. Coming up to 90,000 miles so probably due.

Clive

So glad I'm not the only one who has found that super safe place, where you put things you know your gonna want !

I guess you too can remember exactly where things were before they got put in the safe place. Which is frustrating.

Clive

With me it's specialist tools that don't get used often. They get put in the safe place but can't be found when next needed so I end up going out and buying another. This explains why I've got 2 piston ring compressors, 2 oil filter strap wrenches, 2 sets of T Star sockets, 2 identical sets of spline bits and 3 ball joint splitters to mention just the ones I've remembered.....

That is long term memory failing, with me it is short term.
When I'm busy with something and carry a tool, a part or whatever, something else comes to mind. Ah, that first and empty my hands. Five minutes later I cannot remember for the world where I left the thing I was busy with which is frustrating. That's age they tell me, I have to live with it.

Ferryman wrote:

That is long term memory failing, with me it is short term.
When I'm busy with something and carry a tool, a part or whatever, something else comes to mind. Ah, that first and empty my hands. Five minutes later I cannot remember for the world where I left the thing I was busy with which is frustrating. That's age they tell me, I have to live with it.

I've been like that since I was born... so at least you had some lucid years! :)

All back together but now the compressor and one of the solenoid valves are arguing over what the correct pressure in the system should be. Compressor fills tank OK, he comes up fine to normal ride height then one of the solenoid valve does the click click click thing letting a bit of air out whereupon the compressor cuts back in for about 30 seconds to bring it back up to pressure. Compressor stops. Valve releases the air. Compressor starts and so on.
Only thing I can think of is that I hit a wrong setting on the Lynx box of tricks when trying to depressurise. I investigated a button called transport mode which I discovered drops it down to access hight and inhibits the system. No way on the Lynx software to bring it out so I assumed simply removing the inhibit and using as normal was right thing to do.

Under orders from her ladyship to go to Welwyn tomorrow so I have to fix him.

Clive