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?

mace wrote:

Hi Aragorn, what did you end up doing about this hose? I've a customer car with the same issue, and supply of ANR3855 seems to have dried up further now. :(

Still not fixed mine. Hopefully start chasing down various leaks now the better weather is here. I have ATF all over the front crossmember too :/

Martyuk wrote:

Looks like you have the O ring side of things under control...

LED dash... Yes, I've done mind, and no it wasn't just a straight swap of lamps. I completely stripped down the cluster and fitted LEDs in to light the gauges/speedo/tacho and then added extra LEDs to light the needles.

You can probably swap in some LED lamps but I would imagine that the output would be pretty patchy.

I was going to offer LED dash conversions, but there was a lack of demand and people wanting them cheaper, which was tough as it takes about 5-6 hours to convert one and get it all working and looking right.

I can post a couple of pictures up if you want to see the result.

Some pics would be nice, i have a bulb out on mine and was wondering about LED's to replace

i best find my grease gun then!

You could always contact the seller and ask?

yeh fair enough, TBH i havent actually looked! Most car propshaft UJ's dont have grease nipples.

If the OEM ones are actually OEM, then get those. I've bought various OEM parts for my Audi, and when they come you can see they've sanded the Audi logo off! Lemforder are the OEM for most of the Audi bushes. Its exactly the same part, but they're not allowed to sell it with the Audi logo on it outwith the genuine parts network!

Same thing when i bought TRW control arms for the front of my old BMW.

Unfortunately landrover parts places seem to have the habit of sticking "OEM" on anything that isnt complete junk.

On the other hand, your original ones have lasted nearly 20 years without grease nipples...

I generally pit the awkwardness of a job, the time it takes, and the possible collateral damage should it fail, against the cost of the parts.

If the only options were £7 for bearmach and £90 for genuine landrover, well i'd be taking the cheap ones.

But the difference between £7 for aftermarket and £12 for the hardy spicer joints is basically nothing. Certainly not worth risking it failing, either catastrophically, or even just getting noisey and having the hassle of another weekend spent bashing at the underside of a P38!

yeh, i'm pretty sure it has timed out before though, which is why its left me scratching my head.

Hope its not discharged the battery too much given the temperatures! I'll have a prod at the weekend.

Arrived home earlier and noticed the interior lights were on in the rangey.

Everything looked shut, so i got the key and locked it, and the dash booped and said "tailgate open".

Sure enough, the tailgate was shut, but not actually latched. Gave it a slam and locked it again and it happily locked and the lights went out.

Turns out the wife opened it at lunch time and got the pram out the back, mustnt have closed it properly.

But its left me wondering, shouldnt the interior lighting time out after 10minutes or so, so as not to drain the battery if a doors left open?!

From owning my E90, which has similar clip in brake pad sensors, once the brake warning is triggered you need to prod some buttons on the dash to clear it, even after you've replaced the sensors (or twisted the wires together, which worked perfectly well on mine). If you try to reset the warning without changing the sensors, the "brake pad warning" gets replaced with a "visit workshop" warning instead. But either warning will still clear by simply fixing the sensors, and going thru the reset motions on the dash stalk. No diagnostic kit required.

i bought that pipe, and had fitted it along with my small rear box. Sounded lovely, but it really was too much. The engine seems to produce a drone around 2300rpm which bursts my head. If it wasnt for the drone i'd probably have left it like that!

I ended up getting a local shop to install a box into that pipe, which helped a bit, but it still drones :(

Its fine if your doing 70mph, and isnt a problem accellerating thru the gears, But if your towing or stuck in traffic doing 60ish the drone is really bad. Infact i found myself knocking it down into third at some points just to give my ears a rest.

Fairly sure the hazards flash and the wee red LED on the dash starts blinking when the car is locked, but i will check tomorrow to be sure.