Actually thats good news! Now I know it ought to work.

Fortunately there is a UK supplier address on the label so I've E-Mailed them to see if they will swop it.

If not I'll just get another from Amazon, swop over and send the new box back with the old one in it for a refund. Be in trouble if the new one doesn't work either tho'.

Tested an android phone earlier and it still won't bluetooth pair so something wrong with the embedded software.

Clive

iPhone 15 is just over 2 years old so it's not aged out. Tried updating to the latest OS and that didn't fix it either.

Grabbed the opportunity presented by sunny and warmish afternoon out front with no duty distractions to finally got round to tying out that CarPlay device.

Defeated at second hurdle as it refused to link up with my iPhone 15. Set-up starts out right with both tablet and phone recognising that they are connected but the process then hangs without establishing communication. There is a reset "button" is tiny hole in the back for a straightened out paperclip. Pushing the clip in the button can be felt but nothing changes.

Amazon returns window has timed out so looks like I have an electronic paperweight unless someone experienced has ideas.

Logical next step is to find someone with an Android phone and see if it works on thats system. If it does at least I should be able to unload it.

Clive

No doubt that the OE bots that came out last time have stronger heads than the modern replacements. But the head plating was pretty much gone so replacement seemed these sensible option rather than risk corrosion. Naturally I kept them "just in case".

Big difference between impact gun rattle-rattle all the way, as was the case this last time, which does damage the heads and a two or three raps followed by spin off as should be the case which generally doesn't hurt the heads. Allegedly my Makita impact gun runs over 300 ft lb continuous and over 400 nut busting for the first few raps so if its on continuous rattle its working very hard. Very strong pull on a long socket driver bar, mine is nearly 3 ft long, hard.

Clive

Pulled one front hub out yesterday intending to change a split CV gaiter. Caught it early due cleaning up underneath whilst futzing round with the exhaust so not much mess.

One of the hub mounting bolts decide to shear under the urgings of the impact socket gun rather than come out. So today's job was to weld it back together really strong so the impact gun could shift it. Despite extra plus gas and heat the impact gun had to work hard and the bolt hex is less than pretty. Even the ones that did come out show impact effects so job on hold until Monday when new bolts arrive from Island 4x4.

Executive decision that from now on I'll not re-use bolts that have seen an impact gun on the head.

Replacing the 12 point head caliper bolts too. I'm a bit disappointed as it got new bolts all round when I did the steering swivels a few years back. Generally when I put stuff together it dismantles as per book as I figure taking extra half hour or so to make life easy next time is well worth it. At least the hub bonked out as it should using the dead blow hammer and old disk technique. Coppaslip kept the rust at bay so it didn't seize.

Tomorrows job is to patch up the CV joint sensor shield FTC 3548 which, once de-rusted turned out to be in rather bad way with several holes. No longer available unfortunately. Parts book diagram implies it's a simple short tube with no location flanges or lugs. If thats the case it might be easier to just roll up a new one. But I don't want to wreck the old one removing it without knowing.

Clive

On the Thor the nearside sensor connector bracket is tucked high up on side of the gearbox at the front. Less room that side anyway and the prop shaft runs almost directly below it so you have to work your arm round the shaft. The pipe from the gearbox to oil cooler also runs across a potential access route. With the wheel hanging free the prop shaft drops so there is room to get an arm over it. With the car up on lift I imagine there is room to go straight up beside the prop shaft but I couldn't find a suitable position to get the necessary arm angle from underneath.

You trust the EAS system a lot more than I do!

If I'm under a car it's on something solid. Having the tali end of a Bristol slip off a bottle jack 30 years ago just whilst I was preparing to quickly slip under to block it up properly was a graphic lesson. Remaking the Watt linkage was a pain but vastly preferable to having the back half of two tons of gentleman's sporting carriage on my chest.

Woke up this morning and realised that if I'd gotten the repair kit first I could have fixed things without dropping the exhaust. Live and learn.

Cliv

Finally scared out some time to put the repaired exhaust front pipes back on the. About 4 or 5 hours on my own with maybe an hours waste dealing with "old car" silly stuff. Doesn't seem to matter how carefully you do prep work, anything short of full restoration mode and it finds away to bite you!

Slow, but 71 is not the new 21, and when you re working on your own with the car on drive up ramps there is a lot of slide in and out and walking from side to side time wasted. At least my ramps are rather higher and much stronger than the usual variety.

After fitting the new studs into the manifold I connected the pipe to centre box very loosely with nuts right on the end of the (longer) bolts and cribbed the pipe up step by step using blocks of wood. Making sure to keep the nearside Lambda sensor wires clear of the prop shaft. Very vulnerable they are. Last inch or so lift by hand and one nut on each side to keep it in place whilst I dealt with the gearbox support cross member. Proper clean off and greasing when I took it off to remove the pipe meant it not only went back in OK after I'd removed the pipe it also came out again and went back easily enough with pipe in place. Pipe does restrict access to some of the bolts so usual futzing around sorting socket extensions to get the torque wrench on. Easy if standing under a car right up on a lift. Trickier on your back with about 6" nose to chassis clearance! But we got there.

Finish bolting the pipes went pretty much just like that as did connecting the drivers side Lambda sensor. Considerable frustration, aeration and creative language trying to fit the nearside Lambda plug. Eventually I realised that jacking the nearside front wheel up, so the ramp could be pulled out and an axle stand put under the chassis letting wheel hang free once the jack was pulled out made just enough room to get my hand past the prop shaft and onto the plug so all could be connected. Getting into the right position to do the job with standard elbow articulation was a bit fraught tho'.

Lost best part of two weeks in prep work including finding a repair kit. Which latter was much harder than I expected. Mrs Google wasn't co=operating.

Eventually discovered AutoDoc could supply a 60 mm repair kit :- Bosal 263-17 : for £25 delivered. Had to wait over a week which gave me time to de-rust and paint to the pipes. Decent quality with repair sections for both pipe and slinger end. Not needing the silencer end part, my back system is stainless, I cut a it down to a stub of pipe and sliced a 1/2" wide strip out lengthways and massaged it to a smaller diameter making a nice tight inner strengthener for a properly permanent job once all welded.

Also needed a new loose flange.

Found a stainless one on E-Bay. £15 from Profusion Exhausts. Chinese laser cut done in rat gnawing mode so a fair bit of cleaning up needed before it was safe to handle. As delivered there was no taper on the inner hole just a sharp square, rough cut, edge. Popped it in the lathe to give it a nice smooth 45° (ish) taper which I figured would work much better at holding things together in a gas tight joint. Bolt slots in the flange were 13 mm, for 12 mm bolts, but the ones on my exhaust loose flange are 9 mm, for 8 mm bolts, So more futzing around making properly deep and strong top hat washers to sleeve the oversize holes down to match the bolts. I've got the workshop facilities to handle that sort of thing. If you only have ordinary garage kit maybe there is a supplier of one that just fits.

PS The Laser Impact Stud remover recommended earlier works great. Wrecks the studs but they came out. Albeit with more rattling from the big Makita battery impact gun than I expected. Heating the flange before trying was probably prudent.

Clive

Thanks for that extra information.

Having been involved with the FM connections on other peoples cars in the past with generally less than wonderful results I may be over pessimistic on how well modern incarnations work.

Nice to hear that it comes with sticky pads but ordinary sticky pads and I don't get on that well. 50-50 between near permanent fix or off by week after next. Most annoying when there are two side by side and one hangs on and the other doesn't. I know my dash top has been silicone polished in the (distant) past. Which, even 14 plus years down the line, doesn't bode well for sticking.

I suppose that these days it's safe enough to leave add on technology on display. Old fart here recalls when leaving a GPS stuck to the screen was an open invitation to a broken window and stolen tech. Presumably nowadays its only phones the great unwashed care about.

Clive

How about this stuff for mounting on the top of the dashboard. :-

musthaveideas.co.uk/products/sumo-strip

supposed to be a reusable equivalent to double sided sticky tape. Supplier keeps popping up in my facebook feed with various "wouldn't it be wonderful if it worked" things. Weakened and bought a couple of things off them which did work well.,

Or take off the rubber tray, stick s thin steel sheet in the recess and get clever with magnets let into the base.

I've bought one. The extra discount didn't get applied for some reason but £62 still isn't bad. Wondering if this beastie might be good way to reliably connect it to the radio via FM :-

https://incartec.co.uk/Landrover/Range-Rover-II-P38A/Aux-In-Ipod-Usb-Interface/Aux-in-Interfaces/0

I'd prefer a line input but I gather it's not easy to modify the Apline radio / cassette player. Don't care about loosing the CD player tho' as I presume the car play capability means it can stream musing from the phone as well as displaying Waze. Or is stuff not as clever as I think it ought to be. Looks like 71 = too old to keep up!

Clive

Managed to carve out a few hours quality time under the car today and exhaust is finally off. Fractured most of the way round immediately before the joint thingy. Presumably fatigue because the short bit of tube round the joint thing (can't really call it a flange) sits over the pipe proper effectively doubling its thickness to make a stress raiser where it ends.

Fixing plan A is to weld up the fracture then weld a couple of 3 or 4 inch long semi circular sections of pipe to the flange thingie and clamp them outside the pipe to mostly de-stress the weld. In my experience simple butt welds on well used exhaust pipes are always a weak spot. Even if the pipe is still full thickness. Which is why I shopped doing such jobs for other people donkeys years back, however copious the tears.

Total battle to get the cross member out. Had to break out the Irvine nut extractors again and the worked wonderfully well on nuts that hadn't lost shape to corrosion. Replaced pretty much by hand after cleaning up and greasing the bolting faces. Just a few bonks with my big Thoir dead blow hammer to line things up. No doubt that the nylon faced Thor hammers are much better at the shifting lark than the common rubber ended imports. Twice the price and worth it.

Boot over the nearside CV joint appears to be letting oil / grease out. Hopefully just a loose clip. Another job but something I'd not have noticed for a while if it weren't for the exhaust issue.

Clive

Got the pipes detached from the manifold this morning before the rain came. Hopefully plain sailing form here once i've gotten the lamda sensor plugs unhitched. No the easiest ones to get at.

Used four 10 mm joining nuts ( ex Screwfix) with about 1/2" worth thread drilled out and similar amount of corner off one end. Slot exposed enough stud to get a good weld on it as well as the remains of the nut. Final score 2 sheared studs and two studs unscrewed. About 2 1/2 hours all told so that trick goes into the book as one to jump to early on in similar situations rather than emulating Jerome K Jerome's riverine adventures and trying a number of things. Which wasted a colossal amount of time.

On reflection I reckon the Irwin extractors aren't the best of ideas on rounded off flange nuts as the tapered top to the flange and the slightly tapered hexagon don't give them much to get hold of.

Managed to break my old style strap on headlamp during all this so I splashed out just under £12 on a modern style slimline one from Screwfix. Distress purchase but I'm impressed. £3 (ish) off list so decent value for money. Old one was a cumbersome PIA with battery box and utility lamp bit all hung off the front so had to be pretty desperate to use. The new stye so much more comfortable.

Clive

Took a day off for domestic stuff and make space for a fresh look.
jack
The laser tools impact stud remover looks very interesting. I think I know how it works. I wonder if it tolerates out of roundness enough to go over the remains of the nuts. Hafta measure up to see if 12 mm capacity will go over the remains.
mad-as
Nail trick won't work on this as the nuts are too mullered but something to remember.
Thanks
Clive

Pretty sure there isn't room for a nut splitter. Certainly not for mine. Probably not the best idea even if one would go in. The original nuts are hard, high tensile, plane nuts. An excellent chance that the splitter base will ride up along the flange so only the hex bit gets split whilst the tip of the blade digs into the thread on the stud. So it will still be pretty jammed.

I'm annoyed with myself for getting overconfident and not engaging the "old car" brain before diving in. So used to pretty much everything that was factory assembled unbuttoning fairly easily. Should have realised that putting the Irwin extractors on lopsided corrosion would have produced an effect equivalent to a rotabroach channeling a wobble broach cutting the nut down to an off centre circle.

Being hard the Eclipse flexible silicon steel blades I keep to put in padsaw handle for confined spaces just bounce off. A fickle doesn't do much either.

Three options for the next step I think:-
1) weld an extractor sleeve with a hex on the remains of the nut using the sticking out bit of the stud as guide.
2) run an 18 or 19 mm rotabroach down the stud to chew off the nut. 18 mm rotabroch is 8 m bore and will take thread off the stud, 19 mm is 11 mm bore so a bit of nut will be left on.
3) make a guide to drill right through the middle of the stud to take a split type extractor and use larger drill to take the stud and thread inside the nut off. Then use the extractor to pull tear remains of the stud.

Make up my mind tomorrow. Getting too old for this crawling around under cars thing

Clive

Got front wheels up on the ramps yesterday and out under this afternoon as the drive was finally dry to start removal.

Score so far is 6 manifold flange nuts well mullered. All were seriously rusted and well undersize on the hex. So lopsided that the Iwin gripper extractor things didn't work. First time they have failed me. Worst thing about the Irwin devices is that if the fail you have usually only got a round bit left.

Managed to get one off by hammering a socket on.

Looks like tomorrow is going to be a looong day! May end up welding nuts onto what remains. Urgh.

Separating the joint to the centre section 80% sheared the pipe. Do I weld up or buy new that is the question. Who makes good one for a year 2000 V8?

Clive

Thanks for the advice from experience. Plus gas dousing starts after I've done the weekly shop so it should be well worked in by time the gaskets, studs and nuts arrive. For the price it's not worth the risk of not having studs if I need them. Got a Coventry die head in the workshop so making studs is trivial but it's more faff than I want to be bothered with halfway through car fixing.

Clive

I have a leak in the exhaust pipe just forward of the centre silencer flange so the pipe will have to be dropped to weld it up.

Only potential problem I can see is getting the flange nuts off without snapping the studs. Pretty certain mine have never been off since the car was made. Obviously new nuts needed but should the studs be changed too.

Whats the approved method for removal without potentially creating major league problems. Drilling out snapped studs in-situ, especially upside down, is not on the list of Clives 6 million favourite things to do! Drilling out clean and in line isn't silly hard. Especially if proper drill guide is made first. But it's the principle of the thing. Last exhaust I dropped out it situ had brass nuts on the flange side! Not gonna admit how many years ago, or what vehicle, that was.

If heat is desirable I'm wondering whether one of the affordable induction current heaters is up for such jobs. I know the pro ones work very well indeed but are the £150 (ish) things off amazon et al up for it. £150 to avoid ages struggling and swearing under the car is worth it. £700 to £2,000 for low end of proper jobbies is not.

Really not a fan of waving a gas axe or similar open flame around near the engine bay.

Clive

Thanks. Pie dish idea sounds interesting.

Hafta get it up and have look at things once the official unofficial kid sister has gone home after her annual visitation. Which brings everything to a shuddering halt for a month!

Clive

Thanks. About what I was thinking. Avoid the cheapest and expect mid range to last half as long sounds about right. Which ought to be about 12 years by which time I'll be 84 and most likely past worrying.

I can't really let my mud shields go. Got a decent relationship with MoT man but he does expect things to be attended to after second notification.

Clive

Big red beast passed its MoT today with an advisory about replacing a distorted CV joint gaiter on offside.

Internet search says Britpart, Allmakes, GKN and Land Rover themselves all supply gaiters. Ruling out OEM as silly expensive what breed of replacement is of decent quality and likely to last? Word on the street is that many modern gaiters are sadly short lived due to material deficiencies. I suspect mine are original so they have had a decent innings.

The buggeration factor is such that it makes sense to do both side this year. If one has gone the other is unlikely to be far behind.

Also got an advisory calling for replacement of rear brake mudshield plate. Britpart are around £80 a pop and OEM twice that, which seems expensive for a simple plate. Is this something a breaker could supply economically, bearing in mind that a used part will almost certainly need sand blasting and painting or is breaking out the welder and sheet metal stocks the only feasible method of doing an inexpensive repair.

Clive

Thanks for the comprehensive reply which will be very useful if I decide go ahead. Doing things the way I want to do them with a nicer wood panel rather in place of the black plastic is going to run out at approaching a £1,000 so I need to be sure I'm going to get what I think I'm getting.

Plodding through the blurb its not at all clear what runs concurrently when the radio is doing more than one thing at time.

My Garmin is probably somewhat older than yours. No rear camera input. The live traffic function was less than wonderful so I let the subscription lapse. Realistically the beast is getting past its sell by date hence the interest in serious upgrading. I find Waze very good for diversions.

Presumably a PAC-SWI-RC unit will interface the steering wheel buttons to the Pioneer I'm considering? Probably go for the cross over instead of the attenuator and amplifier . Keeping it simple is always good.

Modified ashtray area is the fall back position for a neat installation. Obviously will work fine with a USB stick but I'll still need to run a cable or two up top to keep the live phone happy. If I use the old iPhone as a media player it seems best to have it where it can be easily seen.

Clive