I guess you too can remember exactly where things were before they got put in the safe place. Which is frustrating.

Clive

Welp that was embarrassing!

Got the seal kit, desiccator kit, compressor kit, air valves and pressure gauge from Simon, the original landyair man. (If you are gonna do a job do it properly I always say.) Rebuilt the valve block yesterday. Wotta lot of rings, reckon the Range Rover EAS designers dad must have owned an O ring factory. Fitted today and he still went down on the right front corner. After a pause for coffee and appropriate incantations I dug out the Lynx to de-pressurise the system. OK. How! Surely that POS box can at least manage something that simple. Eventually decided that the only way it would do it was to put things into transport mode. That got the air out but how we are going to get him out of transport mode and back up to normal is gonna be a whole'nother thing.

Dragged the suitcase compressor over and a bit of experimentation with valve positions and pipe connections disclosed we had got a leak in the pipe to the right front corner. Nicely audible with the engine stopped and the extra delivery of the suitcase compressor. Turns out that somebody got careless with the flame when warming up the aluminium nuts on the airconditioning system to encourage them to come undone and frazzeled a section of air pipe down the side of the radiator too! Ordered up a length of pukka nylon air pipe and metal Noregen fittings. Don't trust the cheapy plastic fittings or the soft pipe for exterior and wide temperature range use. Hopefully be able to replace the whole length so I won't need couplers but best to be prepared. What's annoying is I have some pipe and a pair of connectors in stock, left over from when I did the air bags about 3 years back and wanted to be prepared in case I had to cut the rear lines. Put them somewhere safe. Real safe.

Still waiting for the new airline and connectors will give me time to do the desiccator and compressor rebuilds. Coming up to 90,000 miles so probably due.

Clive

Looks to be getting towards 3D printer time to do replacements for all the ageing plastic bits that break when you try to get them out. Can't be much longer before the price /performance / finish / material choice on hobby level printers gets to the point where that is practical.

Heck I'd drop a grand or two on that sort of toy if it could do something useful without "only a hobby guy would accept it" futzing, persuasion and coercion. Be nice to work material putting on fashion instead of taking off. But then I'm a toolaholic from way back with two decent size lathes, a Bridgeport, shaper and other metal mangling necessities in the man cave.

Clive

Chris
I think the Simon is the man at landyair. I'll give him a ring tomorrow. Google searching gets confusing as it also pulls up 4 x 4 spares for when searching landyair.

Sloth
Thanks for the reminder. Will verify what happens with doors open tomorrow when neighbors are out so I can run the beast without upsetting everyone. I knew I'd forgotten to check something properly. Fairly sure it stays up with doors open but didn't leave it long enough for a proper check.

Clive

Got about 3 hours on it this afternoon. As expected front airbags are still properly seated so the problem occuring after jacking up to look at the brakes was probably coincidence. Can't find an air leak tho'. System lifts fine when the tank is full, holds up for a couple of minutes then sags to the bump stops at the front over a couple of minutes. Solenoids and valves can be heard clicking as it goes down suggesting that the driver pack and solenoids are OK. The back will stay up so long as the ignition is on and engine running. Turn the ignition off and within a minute or the back end is on the bump stops too. Some clicking from the valve block too.

I figured that valve block rebuild is next step. Time to order a kit?

Clive

Thanks for that Chris. I should probably get the bits in stock even though a quick look this afternoon after the rain stopped and before it got dark suggests the compressor is OK. 10 minutes to bring the tank up from emty with door open. Both ends lift with a charged tank then front sags as the air runs out. Rear stays high as long as the engine is running but sags in a few minutes after switched off.

Time to get up close & personal with RAVE and figure out how to run the EAS bit of Lynx. Given that Britpart chose not to issue a manual thats going to take some work.

Clive
Clive

Um. Six in the case of the upper union on my old condenser unit. Own fault. After being delayed by a few problems getting into things I got bit rush headed hoping to get the job done whilst i still had assistance on site to re-fit the bumper. Lent a bit too much on the spanner and interpreted union nut going out of shape as things starting to move. Net result A/F dimensions each way were both different and tapered. It also rubbed on the pipe! Comments of the "Oh dearie, dearie me!" type. Heavily supercharged in full afterburner mode.

Fortunately warming things up with a propane torch loosened the union up enough to get things moving. One whitworth, one A/F, one normal length metric, one stubby metric (unearthed and unwrapped after 25 years in the white elephant drawer), my favourite small F type shifter and King Dicks version of the Americans favourite Crescent monkey wrench got it out a teeny bit of turn at a time. Maybe 30 very long minutes. Once off some scientific squeezing in the vice got it spinning free on the pipe again and the across flats dimensions within couple of thou'.

Having paid the brand name tax for a Hella OEM unit instead of "perm one from 5 lower cost" versions on E-Bay I expected the new condenser to drop straight in. Nope! Locating pin holes down the bottom were incorrectly positioned with respect to the bolt sleeves and each other. So in and out half a dozen times for file modifications before it all went in. Straight copy of the old one didn't work, that would have been too easy, and there is still a bit of residual stress where the bolts don't go into the brackets dead true but hopefully it will be fine. Hella managed to get the top fixings wrong too. Clip on thread carriers instead of the standard welded on nuts so the standard bolts are too short. Just to make a clean sweep the fan unit bolt holes didn't line up either so a bit of gentle levering was needed to get that on. At least it came with positive pressure inside and they did get the union threads right.

Full dark (and chilly) by the time I got the fans on but not fancying finishing off in the rain tomorrow I decided to have a go at putting the bumper on solo. Went straight on. Easy. Air deflector on the left went straight in and held OK with the remains of those stupid beak me to take me out push fixings. Grill went straight on too without dropping any screws. By that time I figured my resident workshop gremiln colony had bedded down in the warm for an early night.

Nope! The beast had taken up a distinct list to the drivers side during the days work. Which didn't really worry me as the air suspension has always been good as gold. Started him up to shift back to the proper parking spot, went right down to access height and stayed there. Light's flashing, compressor running but no lift. Gremlins clearly still wide awake and dancing merrily. Hopefully just an air bag displaced when I checked the front brakes on Monday, when its gets light again we'll see if the tank pumps up with the drivers door open. Horrible feeling that it may be time for a compressor and valve block overhaul. If it is who does a good kit these days?

Clive

Hmm. Suspicious from Sussex wonders how much credibility a guy who puts cheap ugly wheels and low end skinny tyres on then raves about riding on air comfort. His wifes daily driver too forsooth. Seen similar before on other vehicles where what's said about it ticks all the boxes but something desn't quite run true. Proper inspection shows that all the good things that were said about it are technically correct but poor execution and cheapy substitute components mean what you get is a lot down from what you thought you'd bought.

Long road trips to look at do affect your judgement. Its easy to convince yourself that any issues are minor when you'd walk away if it were just down the road. Been there, dunnit, got the T-shirt and a Bristol 603 under cover on the drive waiting for enthusiamn levels to rise again to prove the point. 10 years might do it!

Clive

Going by the pictures that wildly overpriced deseasel is no better inside and out than the one down Hailsham way I looked at. Underneath! Who knows. Not going to be super wonderful there despite low miles. I reckon 13 - 14 years from new before things start suffering from natural ageing down there. Things like tank straps et al go faster of course. Sunroof and Harman Kardon sound system are not advantages. Gonna leak sometime and we all know about the digital amps. Hailsham one had full set of factory rubber mats including the big one for the boot. Now that is an advantage.

I felt the asking price at Hailsham wasn't unreasonable in car for your money terms but deal didn't really work for me as mine is pretty good.

Clive

The big red beast and I toddled off down to Hailsham, well nearly, Lower Dicker actually, for a look at that 2001 HSE with barely 35,000 on the clock. As expected it was smart, very smart confirming my opinion that dark green paintwork and lightstone interior is the best colour combination for a P38. It also reminded me that lightstone shows seat squab wear where you slide in and out very rapidly indeed. As might be expected from the miles this one had done a fair bit of short trip work which really showed up on the drivers seat. Pity. About the only interior deficiency. Started easily from cold running up smooth and sweet. A quick amble round the industrial estate showed it to be a bit tighter than mine but, given mine is due for a good go through, the differnce was smaller than expected. Suspension got a decent work out. Its approaching forty years since I was last down that way. Road surface was poor then and nowt seems to have been done since. The natives don't drive striaght down their own side of the road with ordianry cars!

Not as good as I'd hoped underneath. Better than mine yes but similar amount of the wire brush, rust-killer paint and Waxoyl, Dintrol or whatever needed. Just lots more aging paint and less rust. Like mine 3 years back. Still got factory exhaust. Why can't they make replacements as quiet. Air suspension did its stuff as it should and the owner said, without prompting, that coil spring conversion folk were nuts "It came from the factory riding on air so why change everything instead of looking after it properly". Yay. Our kind of guy. He'd been told it would soon need new airbus so there is a set to go with it. Didn't seem so to me but it has been looked after a combination of DIY and non-RR mechanics which on the face of it is odd given that there is a respected Indie in Hailsham. I knew the ABS & Traction control were showing faults so I took the Lynx to check codes. Lynx said 4125 left hand rear, short between sensors, hopefully just sensor replacement would fix it. 4066 left hand front showed up as historical. DIY fixed apparently.

Will I buy it? Thought probably would when I left but by now shading to probably not. A year and 50,000 miles younger is attractive but being retired guy where 5,000 miles is a high mileage year big red is unlikely to wear out. Would need to find and fit roof rails and reversing sensors. Underneath work will be similar and the solid rear brke pipe across the axle is on the advisories list from the last MoT. Not the sort of job I wanna buy. Big red has a droopy headlining and leaky aircon evaporator but I have the air-con bits and headlinings aren't silly expensive to do so he won't cost much more to get back into proper trim. Black upholstery may not be as smart as lightstone but its a lot more practical when you use a car as transit van substitute as I often do. Best guess is that I'll drop approaching £1,500 or so on the deal once I'd found a good home for big red so the nicer car probably isn't worth it. Really I'm not that sure how serious the guy is about selling anyway.

Am I talking myself out of a real deal?

Gilbert might be interested to know that the owner before this one used it for his business of hauling classic cars around. Mostly short trips by the look of it.

Clive

Orangebean

This one is just down the road from me and looks really nice E-bay 112168474344 with very low miles.

Currently wrestling hard with temptation as its little more than 1/3 rd the miles of mine, about a year younger, and essentially same model. In my view a late HSE has the right blend of nice toys without too much over clever stuff. Like sat-nav and digital audio. No sunroof means no roof leaks too. Nowt wrong with mine but it has stacked up a few advisories on last MoT which need going through and a bit of minor body attention. Parking dings & scuffs. All due to be done as soon as I get the worlds most over engineered garage door sorted so I can get inside to work on it but dropping a grand or two on the swop and not having to get out'n under is attractive at my age!

Clive

Yes. Rolling code system and not that many presses before it looses sync. Managed to loose mine from too many button pushes as a side effect from other troubles. I want to think it was about 10 but you never think to count until afterwards. Dunno how much effect the other issues had either.

Clive

Fingers crossed. I got mine off a second chance offer, about £30 under Mr N.Show, and its done well for me.

Clive

This page :- http://airpowered.co.uk/aircouplingidentification.htm - may help resolve the confusion. Your long one is "real" PCL (the original makers initials) and the one I'd advise you to standardise on as its certainly the easiest to find in the UK and still very common on the continent. Its rare to find badly made ones that don't fit properly. Short one is supposed to be Euro but some suppliers call them PCL-Euro which is very confusing (yes Draper this means you). XF couplings look the same as Euro to a casual glance. No idea if they are interchangeable as I routinely bin anything that isn't PCL although the higher airflow of Schrader ones is sometimes tempting but am I gonna change 20 or so sets over. Nope! These pages may be of interest :- http://www.pclairtechnology.com/products/couplings-adaptors/interchange-range/ - and :- http://www.pclairtechnology.com/products/couplings-adaptors/ .

Not impressed by euro style couplings on cheap imports as quality and size is all over the place. Had to change out some for other folk when the accessories in a one box compressor kit accessories didn't fit the line supplied! To make matters worse the threads were Admiralty size and TPI with SAE style 60° threads. Which took a deal of tracking down as I've not seen a genuine Admiralty thread out in the wild of 40 years and that kit was old then so I'd completely forgotten the standard existed. Shame its fallen out of use as it's handy for odd sized stuff.

Should be BSP thread on the end of adapters. Usually taper on a PCL male nose. Equipment tapped holes tend to be parallel so you need a male female adapter for the taper thread. Euro style is often parallel to easily screw direct into kit. Have run into cheap stuff with a sort of half'n half tapered - parallel thread which fits neither unless gobbed up with lots of PTFE tape.

I really need to charge more for sorting out "friends" cheap crap. Then maybe they'd listen and buy a bit further up market.

Clive