I bought some "E" profile draught excluder which seemed to work-ish. ducts still feel a little loose, ideally i think slightly thicker profile would have worked better. They seem to be on there though. I might apply some tape or something as well, though i tried that initally without the foam and found it didnt stick very well to the heaterbox. Will see what other tape is around.

Cheers for the pointers :)

Part of the brake job required me to remove the two ducts that go between the blower motor and heater box on each side.

Getting those ducts in and out was an absolute shitemare, however theres a further issue and thats that they dont seal in anyway. It looks like there used to be some sort of foam sealing on the duct which has long since perished, now the two parts just rattle around loose on the spigots, which will explain why i get a cold draft from the footwell in the winter!!

Anyone got any advice on what i can use to replace this missing foam, and perhaps also any tips on getting the ducts in without mangling the foam.

When i had a duff crank sensor on my GEMS, i would get "Gearbox Fault" when it went started acting up.

okay paying attention to it when its stationary, with the ignition off and system depressurised, i can push the pedal almost all the way to the floor, its like pressing on a big spring.

If i turn the ignition on and let the system come up to pressure, the pedal moves about half as far then comes up hard.

My feeling is that its probably still got air in it somewhere... Maybe the master cylinder section.

I've had 80's cars that used full flow heater matrices and a mechanical blend door. Seemed to be a bit of a mixture back then, but everything has gone that way now. Engines need coolant flow even when the thermostat is shut. Everyone eventually realised that pumping it thru the matrix was the easiest way to achieve this and keeps the coolant circuit nice and simple.

I've run a dehumidifier in mine quite a bit, the cable just squishes into the seal if you place it carefully at a corner. Part of the problem though is coolant doesnt evaporate very readily at low temperatures, which you'll notice if you spill some on the garage floor. Which means extracting it with a dehumidifier will probably take eons.

It would seem i was worrying unneccesarily, once i drove it up the road all the lights went out and it seems happy.

I do have a question mark on the brake pedal feel though. Perhaps others can chip in with how theirs feels?

Previously the pedal was very "hard", there was a bit of initial travel, then it would come up kinda solid and it felt like brake modulation was simply via pressure on the pedal.

Now the pedal is much softer. I would hesistate to say spongey but certainly very much softer than before. Brakes come on immediately at light effort like you would expect, but it no longer has the same solid feeling, the pedal moves down as the braking force increases, more like a typical car.

I'm fairly sure its always had the "solid" feel to the pedal the whole time i've had the car, so this differnce has me questioning what it should be doing.

I may well go back thru the whole bleeding routine again, its just a faff and takes about and hour and requires an assistant.

Spend the weekend wiring in the 99 spec wabco ECU and corresponding modulator to replace my broken one.

Finally got everything together, brakes bled, ECU powered, everything looks good....

Except the dashboard says Traction Failure

I've not actually driven it yet as i need to put the coolant tank and stuff back in. Scanned for fault codes and none are found. Is this perhaps normal for a WabcoD after the battery has been removed? Or do I have a problem somewhere in the wiring 🤔

I think calling it CVT is actually a bit of a disservice, as that name has been applied to a range of pretty crap mechanical gearboxes, originally developed by DAF and used by Volvo and Audi amongst others, which are nothing like the Toyota box.

The Toyota/Lexus hybrid transmission is really very clever in comparison, with the CVT ratio being created by a planetary gearset and electric motor working together.

Awesome thanks.

I managed to get it apart with bruteforce, couldnt actually see anything wrong with it, my suspicion is one of the ABS solenoids has stuck.

Guide is super handly though incase i need to replace seals etc.

Philip wrote:

Luton fire was started by an early diesel L494 RR Sport, wasn’t a hybrid.

Statistics show that EV's are much less likely to go on fire than ICE vehicles. Not really a surprise given one contains heat and flammable liquids... The medias anti-EV crusade ofcourse likes to highlight every fire caused by an EV, giving people the false impression that they're exploding all over the shop.

Interestingly diesel is amongst the worst. Because its difficult to set alight, it tends to move around. A petrol fire will go kaboom and burn off quickly, a diesel fire will instead create a nice river of burning diesel on the ground which flows across the car park, setting fire to other cars as it goes. It also enables the fire to travel between floors as the burning liquid fuel can enter drainage pipes and whatnot.

The 300h box has a mechanical/cable linkage from the shifter to the box, whos entire purpose pretty much is engaging the parking pawl in "P".

The gearbox otherwise is entirely electronically controlled, infact its not really a gearbox at all, its a pair of electric motors.

Ordered up another Wabco unit from the bay and started the swap procedure today.

Removing the modulator is fairly straightforwards if a little awkward, however i got hit with a bit of a snag... The top bolt that holds the modulator to the bulkhead was properly stuck. After heaving on it i got it moving and eventually it worked its way out of the nut, but wouldnt move any further. Corrosion between the ally housing and steel bolt.

I ended up managing to remove the L bracket between the modulator and bulkhead, which was a proper pig as the bracket goes in before the steering column, so getting at the two nuts requires lots of creativity...

With that off, the modulator came out and i managed to free the bolt off with a punch and big hammer. Oddly the bolt actually appears to be slightly bent (possibly due to me beating on it...), so i'll need to sort another one.

Then it got dark so i gave up for the evening.

I did discover something odd, with all the brake lines removed, the pedal on the old modulator still wouldnt depress... It moved about 1cm then went solid. I would sort of expect to have got a long spongy pedal with all the lines removed?

When i got it on the bench and prodded it some more, eventually i opened the bleeder for the master cylinder. When i did that and pushed the pedal fork, fluid shot out of the bleeder and the rod now moves.

Does anyone have the actual teardown/overhaul guide?

I'm wanting to take apart my broken unit... So far i've removed the two steel pins and the hex head thing from the opposide side.

However the round ally piece that the pedal attaches to wont come out the front, not sure what i'm missing here? I've tried crowbarring at it somewhat, but it wont move.

I'm not really sure theres any point at this stage rehashing the legal implications of a RF receiver on a 30 year old car. Its crap, we know its crap and workarounds exist. Its extremely unlikely that anyone, as a customer/end user, is ever going to be able to talk to anyone far enough up the chain in engineering to know or find out any actual real details about the EMI certification or any other technical detail on the receiver. Thats why you were fobbed off, and would be the same with any auto-maker.

I've had engine disabled once, in the car park of the harry potter tour in watford.

I unlocked with the key and the central locking didnt fire. I for some daft reason thought the battery was flat rather than trying the door lock again, i turned the ignition on. Set the alarm off and got engine disabled.
Thankfully, i disconnected the battery, reconnected with all the doors shut and tried the key again, and the car unlocked and the message went away. Which is good, because i didnt have the EKA on me 400miles from home!

To make the journey even more fun, the fuel hose out of the filter split on the way to the hotel, which i only discovered after parking up in a multi-story car park and realising there was a river of fuel running down the concrete.... Quite topical with the recent events at Luton (caused by a landrover) and also the Echo Arena fire a few years ago, also caused by a landrover... Thankfully my P38 didnt set the entire car park alight, and i had a long walk to eurocarparts the next day to buy a piece of fuel hose.

Thereafter i realised that some small portion of the time, the car wouldnt unlock when the door lock was turned. If you simply locked and unlocked again it would almost always work. Thats what prompted me to get the latch rebuilt.

I imagine if you turn off passive immo, then in effect you end up with the same setup that i have?

My remote has not worked for ages. Initially it worked, but had the drain issues so i eventually unplugged the receiver, then some time later i bought one of the filter kits and reconnected the receiver and when trying to get it all working the remote is simply not detected by the car. Its not the filter, as the same thing happens without it. Seems to be a weird BECM issue of some sort.

Thus I only use the door lock, which i had rebuilt a couple of years ago. The car doesnt have passive immobilisation enabled and from what i can see it basically Just Works.

If you never lock it with the fob, it seems that it never actually wants the EKA, nor does it get itself in a tiz. The only time i've ever needed to use the EKA was after locking it with the fob, and the battery door on the fob came loose in my pocket requiring it all to be resynced. Since then i simply never lock it with the fob any more... Even when the fob was working, i only ever used it to unlock the car after that situation...

I've contemplated getting a cheap remote fob kit for it and tapping it in across the wires for the drivers door lock. That way the latch microswitch isnt getting hammered, and i can unlock from the other side etc.

okay sooo its still broken.

Swapped the passenger front flexi this afternoon. Was slightly worried to see zero fluid coming out of the line when i disconnected it from the hardline. Put the new line in and pressed the pedal and... nothing. Exactly the same as before, no pressure getting to the caliper.

I then grabbed the old flexi i removed and tried to skoosh some WD40 thru it, and sure enough, its not blocked and the spray comes flying right thru.

So something weird going on inside the Wabco unit?!

I connected the nanocom to see if there were any faults, and there doesnt seem to be any.

On the outputs page there are 8 options, front right inlet and outlet valve, front left inlet and outlet valve etc for all four corners.

No idea what they do but i decided to start pressing things and discovered a discrepancy. If i apply some brake pedal and click any of the four inlet valves, i get a small kickback from the brake pedal. If i then click the corresponding outlet valve, i hear a distinct click from the Wabco unit, except for the front left... For the front left i get no click when i press the outlet valve.

The inner workings of the Wabco are a bit of a mystery, but it would seem that its faulty in some way?

scuttle probably drains out in that area too.?

To check for a matrix leak, get a couple sheets of kitchen roll and slide them in between the underside of the heater box, and the carpet. If its leaking you'll soon see the paper get wet.

FWIW, my slightly broken engine used more coolant on short trips than long ones. I can drive 100miles continuously without needing to top up, but a few trips back and forth to the nursery would see the tank empty. Not got enough data after the head gaskets to see how that has changed.

Thing is, the TPS doesnt do a huge amount, its used for idle control, transient fuelling/accell enrichment and as a backup for when other sensors have failed.

MAF is the primary input for fuelling on Motronic. There is essentially direct lookup table that pulls the MAF value and turns it into an injector duty cycle. Everything else then feeds into what the MAF is saying as corrections/adjustments/trims.

Sometimes you'll get a code for sure, but they are well known to have this silent failure method.

I dont really get the stop start hate. I suspect its just the usual humans-dont-like-change thing that applies to so many things... As the chap above points out, if it was always there you wouldnt think twice about it.

End of the day, you visit any major city and you'll find thousands of vehicles sitting stationary at lights and junctions, spewing out emissions for no reason. Its much better for everyone that isnt in a vehicle to just shut it off.

There might be the odd situation where it adds a little inconvenience to the driver but personally i think thats fine. Perhaps some implementations are worse than others. Most manuals will restart as soon as you depress the clutch to select a gear for instance. Hybridisation will as mentioned help fill the gap too.

Should we prioritise the people in the metal box spewing out toxins, or should we prioritise the health of everyone else? Most drivers in this country seem to default to the former, but there really needs to be more balance.