I guess i can have a poke and see, can always resell the switch pack or keep it as a spare.

Seems weird that the whole thing would be dead rather than specific buttons, is there a common fault that takes out the whole thing?

Perfect thanks. I had a look this morning and my eyes near popped out my head at the price of the switch packs. However that dead one from east coast 4x4 looks the part so i've ordered that.

Any thoughts on the lid itself?

Just took a pic of it open:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TjWweTMzvnhEMfCv9

That silver bolt at the bottom of the gas strut is clearly abnormal and the lid jams in the pictured position unless you really force it down.

My console is a bit shonky, and I'd like to fix it.

First off the button to open the hatch is missing:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/pYWhcyy43hMMair59

But the hatch itself is also hard to open and kinda gets stuck when you flip it over to the cupholders. The hinge side has been messed about with.

But I don't know what bits I need to replace, I've looked on eBay and can't see where the button actually is?

Any advice would be appreciated.

What did you use as a pusher?

ooh, using a taper bearing race is clever!

From memory the grant signal goes out to the engine ECU and back. This is to ensure the AC clutch is only engaged when the ECU is happy. Be worth buzzing those two lines as well.

The answer is probably a larger lithium pack so your not booting its arse quite so hard. But as always its a balance between cost, size and what you can get away with.

Like the aforementioned 6mm jump leads, my mate had used them a few times to jump start cars, and they worked fine. Becuase in those situations it was just a helping hand. But trying to jump start a totally dead battery is a different task that they just werent up to.

sorry didnt think to take a pic.

If you look into the door towards the hinge edge, you'll see a steel channel. the rubber seal can go in one of two ways. You want the seal installed so it pushes the glass towards the door skin. Test fit it to get a feel for installing it etc, and then once your happy take it out and apply some glue or whatever.

You need to peel back the rear section of the door panel thing. Dont remove any of the front part, or any of the modules, it doesnt help.

Got it sorted, wasn't too bad once I realised what was going on. Put a dab of glue on the back of them to hopefully hold them in.
And yes, there was a spare one, two came out the driver's door and only one out the passengers

A lot of these devices rely on the fact that a car battery often isnt actually flat, its just discharged by enough to be unable to get "over the hump" required to get the engine turning.

Even actual jump leads fall into this category. My mate had an issue recently where the starter feed from the rear mounted battery in his BMW had broken. He tried to jump start it and got nothing. The engine wouldnt even turn. The AA came out with proper jump leads and the car started immediately. When i popped round i looked at his jump cables and despite having a nice thick jacket, the actual copper core was about 6mm^2.

If you look at a typical LiPo pack for an RC car you can get an idea about how actual decent Lithium batteries can perform:

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/turnigy-5000mah-4s-40c-lipo-pack-with-xt90.html

This ones rated 5AH and is a "4S" pack (so 4 cells in series) rated around 14v, however it has a maximum discharge of 40c, which is around 200A.

Clearly, these batteries are capable, they are both more energy dense than a lead acid, while also having a much larger maximum discharge for a given capacity, and a properly designed jumper pack using decent cells would very likely be able to jump start a car with a completely flat battery.

The issue ofcourse is that many of these batteries are sold by shonky chinese sellers, using poor quality or lowly rated cells.

I would find yourself a "group test" type review that does decent testing and have a bit of a compare, heres one example:
https://www.autoexpress.co.uk/accessories-tyres/92728/best-mini-jump-starter-packs-2019

But try to find a few reviews and cross reference the results.

When i had my door apart to fix the latch, i discovered two rubbers in the bottom of the door. I asked about it at the time and someone said they were the rubbers out of the window rails and will cause the window to rattle when they're missing and its open. Sure enough my window rattles and i'd like to fix it.

Does anyone have any pointers for refitting these rubbers? After todays efforts at trying to fix stuff, i'd like to be a little better prepared and avoid another frustrating day getting nowhere!

Cheers

Well yep, as it happens things have taken a strange turn.

I had a couple spare pioneer head units, one with bluetooth from ~2014, and one without, from 2011. The bluetooth one was acting very oddly with all sorts of buzzing noises when i tried to get it going. After some investigating, i realised i have blown an internal fuse which grounds the line-out stage. The fuse is there to protect against ungrounded amplifiers being grounded via the phono leads, and clearly when messing with it on another car a while ago ive fried it (i actually remember the phono lead sparking when i connected it!)
So with that one written off i'd ordered a "mechless" 2017 pioneer model off ebay which matches the one i have in my A4, and when i did all the wiring at work the other day pictured above, used the 2011 pioneer for the initial setup. Usefully they all use the same multiplug so i could sort all the wiring out for the 2011 model and just swap the 2017 unit in when it arrives.

That 2011 pioneer works perfectly. The line outputs are ground referenced (0 ohms between the chassis ground and phono shields) as is pretty typical. There is no whine at all. Its spot on. It also has 6 line outs, so has proper sub control.

So today i collected the 2017 model from the post office, and swapped it over thinking i'd be a quick 10minute job... And sure enough, a low level whine appears as soon as the radio volume is above 0.

I ended up spending far too long messing with it. I pulled another 2017 pioneer out my Audi and tried that, which also whined. I also tried a 2014 pioneer that belongs to a friend, which also whines. My android phone does not whine.

So fairly puzzled at this point! Clearly the 2011 pioneer has normal unbalanced line outs, and the door amps are perfectly happy with them. And yet everything else is shite. I asked a mate whos into his car audio and he suspected the difference lies in the fact that the 2011 model is top of the range (back then you had to buy the top end one to get USB input) and the other units are all entry level models, which likely have cheaper components. If buying a better head unit fixes it then i'd do it, but i dont want to spend £lots and discover its exactly the same!! I already fancied a better unit anyway, as i wanted one with seperate sub-out, but i hoped the cheap 2017 model would get it working and i could sort the better one at some point later.

The steering control box is from incartec, not tried that yet, it was also at the post office but given the rest of it didnt work i didnt even look at trying to install it.

And yeh, i saw the 10pins on ebay, but the only suppliers seemed to be in Germany and i was getting fed up with the lack of bluetooth and just wanted it all sorted.

I might try the local scrap yards for some radius arms. Nothing much on ebay that i can see.

There are lathes at work, so if you had some drawings that would be handy!

Oh and i've ordered an adaptor-majig that should let me keep the steering wheel controls, so need to get that working too!

Theres a lot of chat on the forums about changing the head unit on a P38 and various issues that it seems to cause, so i thought i'd post my own experience.

My car has the "high level" sound system with three speakers and an amplifier in each door.

I really wanted to add bluetooth for handsfree, and i had a spare Pioneer bluetooth headunit i'd removd from an old car, so ideally i would fit that and job done.

reading online all sorts of stuff, i decided to just have a go myself and see what i found.

First of all i just plugged the head unit in exactly as the original. the 10pin speaker connector doesnt fit, so i made up some short jumper wires to test things out.

This gave the first set of findings. A) the door amplifiers buzz like mad if they are powered but have an open input. For testing you can simply short the two leads in the plug and the buzzing will stop. B) driving the door amplifiers with the "speaker" output of the Pioneer worked fine, there was no buzzing or noise or anything weird, but it was VERY loud. On that particular unit "30" is usually a decent listening volume, and "20" is quiet. With it connected to the P38, 7 was loud, and 10 was rattling the door cards....

As expected, the speaker level output is much too high. Much to be expected, the door amps clearly expect a much lower level input.

A friend suggested i try using one leg of the speaker out from the head unit, and pull the other leg to ground. This is because most modern head units have the speaker outputs wired in a "push pull" fashion with a pair of transistors pulling the signal in opposite polarity. Using one output and ground would thus half the voltage. This worked, and did make it slightly quieter, but it was still too much, and also introduced a hiss (albeit a fairly subtle hiss) at lower volumes.

So i set that idea aside, and instead investigated using the "pre-outs" from the head unit. Clearly this is the "correct" thing to use, its intended as a line level output for driving another amplifier. For testing i cut the ends off some phono leads, crimped on some ferrules and stuffed them into the 10 pin connector on the range rover harness. Hooked it up, and well, it just worked. Nice crisp clear audio, no messing about with resistors and all that mess as posted elsewhere.

I just needed to make something a bit more permenant without making a mess of the wiring. I initially wanted to get a matching plug for the 10pin connector on the car, however they seem a bit rare and awkward to get hold of, and i was being impatient, so i grabbed a spare Deutsch DT20 series from the box at work and set about with the crimpers.

Replaced the car connector with a 12way DT, and made up a lead with a matching socket going to the 5 phono leads.

With that done, i had to repin the pioneer power flylead to get it to feed the "remote on" signal to the correct pin to turn the amps on. For some reason landrover didnt use the proper wire for that.

With that lot done and a final test, it all works as expected.

I now need to find a minute to install the microphone for the bluetooth part then i can get some photos of the finished installation.

Looks like good progress was made! My progress has been limited to half fixing a oil seal, and half fixing a new head unit.

I really need to get my bushes done, as it really is all over the road and its the only thing left in the front end.

Does anyone that was doing the arms happen to have a spare set? Work has a nice big press, but cant really get away with dismantling the car in the office car park, so i'd really need a spare set to rebush.

Also i believe they need some special tools? Does anyone have a set that are borrowable?

Cheers
Kev

I figured you could use an old wheel hub for the outer piece, press the bearing out and you have a concentric inner hole, and an assembly that should bolt up true. Unfortunately i scrapped my old broken wheel hub as is typical with these things! The inner will need measured with the seal removed, which is less good, i'm actually pissed off, i should have stuck a caliper across it when i had the seal out. Maybe measuring a seal and just going 0.5mm under would work, but i dont know how accurate it all needs to be!

And yeh i heard about the redesign, but these are up to date genuine seals so should be maximally forgiving, but clearly its out by enough.

Just failed the MOT on rear pads and a faulty rear seat latch, which isnt too bad.

i just blanked the manifold and expansion tank and deleted the whole lot. Thats on a GEMS though.

I did my balljoints last year, and ever since the axle oil seal on the drivers side has been weeping.

MOT is due and the leak had reached somewhat silly levels, with the tyre and rim caked in axle oil, as well as oil dripping off the arch liner, fog lights and mud guard....

So I pulled the car apart last week, and fitted a nice new genuine seal, made 100% sure it was all fitted nicely and reassembled everything. Stuck my head under it this morning to check before i took it along to the MOT, and theres a drip of oil sitting on the axle end, and a streak of oil along the tyre. So clearly its continued leaking....

The only think i can guess, is the alignment of the balljoint is wrong? I know for sure the collet on that side of the axle was loose when i popped the balljoint free, so theres every chance its moved...

Any thoughts or ideas? Anyone know of anywhere that hires out the tool to properly reset the alignment of the balljoint?