Goodluck!
Hope the rest of the drive goes as smoothly as it has started 😃
JLImmelman wrote:
Goodluck!
Hope the rest of the drive goes as smoothly as it has started 😃
We arrived back yesterday evening without incident.
Technically the other day... but I thought it was about time it got some custom badging to better reflect what is hiding under the bonnet :)
Not just today but finished it today and not exactly mine but the Ascot. It had some old and well dodgy tyres on the front, a pair of Goodyears, one dated 2007 and one without a date. The steering never has felt particularly precise and it had a habit of wandering about on bumpy roads. I'd put this down to the tyres being well past their use by date. Anyway, one of them went down while it was parked up so I put my electric pump on it. Managed to achieve 20 psi and a bulge appeared in the sidewall and the air was all falling out again. So, a pair of new, well part worn but only a couple of years old, tyres were fitted. I expected this to improve the steering but it actually had the opposite effect and it required quite a bit of concentration to keep it in a straight line.
So a bit more investigation was needed. With me under the front and Dina rocking the steering there was no slack in any of the steering ball joints. What there was though was movement in the panhard rod bushes so the axle was actually moving from side to side relative to the body. That would explain it then. Ordered some new bushes and bunged them in the freezer and took the panhard rod off. The old bushes were really soft and perished nicely but no matter how hard I tried with a couple of sockets and a big hammer, there was no way they were coming out. So bunged it in the boot of mine and went to see a mate with a workshop equipped with a 20 tonne hydraulic press. They were tight and took over 8 tonnes on them before starting to move with an almighty crack. Old ones out, cleaned up the hole and the new, still freezing, bushes pushed in no problem at all.
That was yesterday and as it was both dark and cold by the time I got home left refitting it until today. What a difference it made! Near me there a a bit of road that used to be the A1 until they built a new 6 lane A1(M) running parallel with it. As it only gets used for local traffic, it isn't in the best of condition but I was able to drive along there at a steady 70 mph without it feeling like it was going to throw me into the nearest ditch if I hit a bump.
Just got to sort out the permanent ABS and Traction failure, the HEVAC with the book showing and probably a few more things I'll notice after I've done them.......
One way of getting bushes out is to thread a junior hacksaw blade through the hole, fit the blade back to the handle and cut slots in the bush.
I have done it a few times, but only on smaller bushes.
I've done that with larger ones too but when there's a hydraulic press available......
Today removed all the electronic throttle stuff including pump and fitted mechanical pump so now TDI needs pump mods and then ready for off roading 👍👍
A number of little jobs. I replaced the little plastic clip that fixes the insulation to the underside of the bonnet & that windscreen washer piping clips to as I discussed in this post https://rangerovers.pub/topic/2827-windscreen-washer-connecter?page=1#pid36847
I replaced the five year old Halfords battery with a Hankook MF31-1000 that I recently bought from www.batterymegastore.co.uk It was a simple swap & only took a couple of minutes to set the windows & sunroof.An annoyance was that I dropped the bolt that fixes the battery stop at the front & it rolled under the battery box. I thought that it would be easy to remove the four bolts & lift up the plastic battery box. Unfortunately the heads of two of the bolts were too rusted to get out with a socket so I shall just have to leave it there & get a new bolt. There was nothing wrong with the old battery but I am working through the car with preventive maintenance to ensure it's as reliable as possible.
I then replaced my HEVAC unit with an identical refurbished one I bought of someone Facebook for £65. They had already done the refurb with the zebra strips to bring the display back to life. I've looked at the webpage that describes how to refurb the unit but it all looked a bit fiddly so when I saw the unit for £65 I snapped it up as they normally sell for at least double that on eBay. My plan is to refurb mine then swap them over again as my original is in better condition. The new unit has a working screen whereas the original had got to be almost unreadable. The new unit has got iffy rockers which stick so generally if you press up it goes all the way to HI & if you press down it goes to LO all soon its own. If you press carefully you can eventually set the temperature correctly
I nearly forgot. After I had done the bonnet clip, the battery & HEVAC unit I decided to have a play around with the Nanocom I have recently bought. I checked all the systems & was pleased there were no fault codes especially with the new HEVAC. I had a look at the BECM & oddly enough there several things incorrect. Market wasn't set & it said LHD when in fact it's RHD & also said there was no sunroof. There may have been a couple of other items. I made the cardinal error of changing everything at once instead of one at a time. When I tried to write the updates to the BECM the Nanocom rebooted & did this a couple of times then eventually I got the message that the write to the BECM had been performed successfully. Unfortunately when I tried starting the car while I could crank easily enough it wouldn't start. I changed the settings back & updated but it still wouldn't start. I changed the items agin updated & it still wouldn't start. There were no error codes or warning messages. Eventually in desperation I entered the immobilisation code & EKA code then updated once more. Finally it restarted. I was so relieved & learned a valuable lesson - not to fiddle about with stuff I don't understand. I will be reserving use of the Nanocom to reading & clearing faults only when there is a problem.
LHD, no sunroof, language set for French and various other odd readings mean the Nanocom and BeCM are not communicating properly and not that the settings have got corrupted. When using the Nano, all systems EXCEPT the BeCM need the ignition on, with the BeCM it needs to be OFF. On an early car the Nano will not connect to the BeCM if the ignition is on but I think with later ones it will but not get proper communications.
Gilbertd wrote:
LHD, no sunroof, language set for French and various other odd readings mean the Nanocom and BeCM are not communicating properly and not that the settings have got corrupted. When using the Nano, all systems EXCEPT the BeCM need the ignition on, with the BeCM it needs to be OFF. On an early car the Nano will not connect to the BeCM if the ignition is on but I think with later ones it will but not get proper communications.
Sounds like that might have been my issue as I definitely had the ignition on all the time. I will have to check the values but I won't be changing anything this time.
When you connect to the BeCM with the Nano, you'll hear a click from a relay somewhere and the dash will come up with DIAGNOSTIC, if that doesn't happen it hasn't connected properly even though it will still show things, just incorrect things.
ABS & Traction lights with usual beep and failure messages. Yet another ABS sensor failure - N/S/F this time and NanoCom did correctly report the failure as Left Front sensor but only because it was repeating the stored failure! At least this one lasted nearly 3 years this time!!! I have replaced so many now on all wheels that it is now quite a quick and easy half hour job - the sensors are never in the hubs long enough to seize in!!!
However, the wheel sensor inputs and live outputs as shown on NanoCom seemed OK for all wheels despite the failure which would not cancel although the voltage for this particular sensor was a bit lower than the others. I have had this before with the O/S/F and a replacement sensor cured the problem. Again, I replaced the N/S/F sensor this morning and the fault cleared. The fault was first flagged at start up and not whilst driving so the sensors are failing the power on test so I can only assume that the measured resistance or voltage is quite sensitive. I measured the resistance of the spare front (now fitted) and rear sensors I keep in stock and both measured 1.15kOhms. The failed sensor measured 1.34kOhms. Not sure what is happening within the sensor for the resistance to increase but I am assuming that this is what is flagging the failure.
I have been trying to track down OEM WabCo sensors (I have two fitted on the rear now) rather than the eye watering priced LR branded items - does anyone have a source for these or recommendations for decent aftermarket sensors that last for a sensible time?
Starting was becoming a bit laboured with a charged battery and even when showing a good voltage it wouldn’t turn the engine over if left for a few days. Putting the battery on charge showed it to be charged enough but it had to be really fully charged to do the business. I suspected dodgy connections twixt battery and starter but they all checked out and cleaning them up didn’t make any difference. I suspected maybe a cell was on the way out and thought I had procured this battery only a couple of years or so ago but on checking it’s seven years old! OK, time to get one of those legendary and mighty Hankook MF31-1000 beasties which arrived this morning.
Fitting it in the battery box and connecting the terminals was straightforward and the starter didn’t know what had hit it when I turned the key - it has been a long time since I’ve heard the engine turnover that fast!!
As the battery is a bit taller than the OEM sized battery the metal battery strap over the top doesn’t fit and it doesn’t have any other means of being clamped in. I didn’t fancy leaving such a large weight not securely clamped down. What I did find though was taking the raised bit out of the strap so it was now straight gave enough extra length to be used to adjust and increase the drop over the front of the battery and the strap fits perfectly and the plastic battery cover also fits pretty well. Result.
MOT booked for friday hopefully it passes.
On LPG it has become quite economical when considering the petrol price hike..
53ppl vs 1.67ppl no brainer!
Where are you finding LPG at 53p/litre? Its hard to find any round this way at the moment, my most recent fillup was at 89.9!
Just a bit! 53P per litre would be great these days, I've got used to the new normal of LPG in the mid 70's pence per litre.
I was already booked until September before 'recent events'... Now I'm completely inundated with phone calls, emails, forum messages, etc, people whom are suddenly interested in converting to LPG asap.
Ran out of Gas. Had a look at our nearest LPG in stock - 99.9 ppl
Bastards.
and where are you going to get gas from when Russia turn it off or do you get it else ware? how much of Europe and England get fuels from Russia?
It's LPG (Propane) which is a waste product from producing petrol so shouldn't be affected (although it will no doubt be used as another excuse to put the price up). It varies in price between 50 and 70% of the petrol price so even when it goes up it's still cheaper than running on petrol. UK only takes 8% of it's natural gas from Russia anyway, pipelines run into mainland Europe but there's a bit of water between us and there.