dave3d wrote:

Will your nano work on a diesel if you have a petrol licence?

It will work on all systems except the engine. I've used mine on a DSE for ABS, HEVAC and EAS and have looked at everything else for stored faults and it's fine, it just won't connect to the engine (but my generic code reader will work on that).

Shouldn't need it, as long as it was a like for like swap. What's the problem?

Now it's really new year, Happy new year to all.

I tend to swap between Island 4x4 and LRDirect depending on who has the best price and what I want is in stock at the time. Disconnecting the pipes is simple enough, push the collect in and pull the pipe out, harder if there is pressure in the system but not impossible. RAVE recommends trimming a couple of mm off the end and chamfering with a pencil sharpener so any groove where the O rings sat is no longer where the O rings will be and there's no danger of damaging the O rings in the new air springs. I always give them a squirt of my Fairy Liquid/Water mix too before fitting, it allows them to slide in easier and will also show bubbles if there is a leak.

Good point Chris. A common modification is to replace the timer relay under the LH front seat with a standard 4 pin one. The thinking behind this is that the timer relay will wake up every few hours and check the relative heights of each corner. It then drops 3 corners to match the lowest one so if you have a leak on one corner then the car will end up on the bumpstops. By fitting a standard relay the EAS system is only powered when the ignition is on so preventing it dropping all corners (just the one with the leak). However, the connection for diagnostics goes via the timer relay so if it has been swapped for a 4 pin then you never will get diagnostics to connect. The timer relay is a double height, black relay which you should be able to see if you look forward from the LH rear footwell. It's under the seat nearest the outside edge.

Agreed that it isn't a good idea to replace air springs in singles, you should at least replace them as pairs on the same axle. At £50 a corner from Island, they aren't expensive and if changing them for the first time, the first side won't take long and the other side will take half as long as the first.

Yes, there's an a missing, it should have said what sort of area in case someone has experience locally..

When you say it rise and inch or so, do you mean from the position it was left in? It will always drop very slightly as the air in the system cools down, so rising slightly as soon as you start it is correct. Unless you are getting the constant stream in the two boxes as shown on the video, then it isn't connected. Some USB-serial adapters work fine (usually ones using the FTDI chipset) while others can be very flaky. Have you installed the drivers for the adapter? What operating system is your computer running? What Com port is it setting itself up as? Ignition does need to be on or engine running.

Nano is the Nanocom Evolution (see https://www.nanocom-diagnostics.com/) which is generally accepted as the diagnostic tool for the P38. Not exactly cheap but can deal with all systems and not just odd things.

The free RSW EASUnlock software works and does a good job. Use it to read the faults and see what it is that is causing your issues. There's two fault modes to the EAS system. It will detect a fault and then shut down to protect itself from doing further damage. It will either exhaust all air from the system and drop you to the bumpstops or it will rise to the High setting. In both cases it will bring all the lights on and the dash will display EAS Fault, followed by 35 mph max.

Unfortunately, the rswsolutions page you are looking at shows the later, paid for V4 of EASUnlock and not what you will see on your screen. There used to be similar videos for the free version but it looks like he's removed them or hidden them somewhere. Where in the world are you?

Edited to say that I've just seen your identical post on the other side and you are in the UK (I'm Richard_G over there). That's a good start, what sort of are in case someone has experience locally (and won't tell you to rip it out and fit bits of bent wire instead).

No, but Ideally you'd need to go into the 8mm pipe to the air dryer (between port 7 on the valve block and the dryer). A Tee there with a Schrader valve on it would allow you to fill the reservoir from a tyre pump instead of the compressor (or even run the whole system from the tyre pump if you powered it from the compressor feed). Although having filled the reservoir from a tyre pump, it takes bloody ages, as they don't shift anything like as much air!

I've got a drivers window regulator to fit but suspect I'll leave that until tomorrow. I've got a Christmas dinner to cook today (no way I'm letting a foreigner anywhere near the kitchen today!) and she's working tomorrow anyway as she works for an international company, some of their clients don't celebrate Christmas so they want a skeleton staff in.

It may be for you, it hasn't got here yet......

But, MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, no matter where in the world you may be.

Morat wrote:

The poor Duchess is now running on 5 old Champions, 2 BPR6 and only one correct NGK. This will be remedied.

But at least she's running.....

Microcat just makes it even more confusing......
RH rear light lenses up to VIN XA430701 is AMR4100 which has the amber indicators
RH rear light lenses up to VIN XA430701 NAS spec is AMR4102 which also has the amber indicators (and from pictures looks identical to AMR4100)
RH rear light lenses from VIN YA430702 is XFB101720 which has the clear/grey indicators
RH rear light lenses up to VIN YA430702 NAS spec is XFB101740 which also has the clear/grey indicators (and from pictures looks identical to XFB101720)

So quite why an NAS spec car would have different light units, that look identical to the rest of world spec cars, I have absolutely no idea. Maybe the difference is in the bulb holders on the back or maybe the NAS ones don't have the built in reflector?

I gave up trying to work out the logic of car manufacturers long ago. As an example, an EU spec car must have a high intensity rear fog light that can be a single one on the offside (RH side on a UK car) or in the centre, or a matched pair on either side. A LHD Mercedes (and Porsche and probably a few others too) has one on the LH side (offside for a LHD car) but the cluster fitted on the RHS of the car doesn't have the LEDs fitted inside it. So by fitting the cluster for a RHD car to the RH side of a LHD car, you get the matched pair. So rather than making a LH and a RH cluster, they make ones with and without the LEDs fitted so there's 4 different parts when 2 would do the job.

If you've only ever owned post 99 cars then they will all have had the clear/grey lenses. A lot of people swap the earlier ones for the later ones as they assume they look better. My 96 Ascot has had them swapped so it would have originally had the amber lenses but now has the later ones.

No beeping when changing between ratios sounds a bit odd, does it actually change or just show on the dash that it has? In Europe, indicators (turn signals) must be amber front and rear, so up to 99 the rear lenses are amber at the top and fitted with clear bulbs, front's being the same, all amber lens and clear bulbs. From 99 model onwards they went over to the clear/grey tinted lenses but with amber bulbs so they still show an amber light. So a European spec 97 would have the amber rear light lenses. I assume they can be either amber or red in the US as some cars I've imported have had amber indicators that are separate to the stop lights while others have had indicators incorporated with the stop lights (a real pain when I've had to convert then to UK spec to register them here involving a lot of rewiring). US spec cars don't usually have the high intensity rear fog lights either so I've had to convert the reversing lights to indicators by fitting amber bulbs and fit aftermarket LED reversing/fog lamp clusters.

Hmm, something tells me it isn't cold, windy and raining on the other side of the world.......

Wear doesn't matter as long as there are no dead spots in the track. Making some blocks and doing a full calibration will sort out a lean.

We could treat Today like a French tradesman treats Tomorrow. As in, I'll be there Tomorrow but by the time Tomorrow arrives, it's now Today so I'll be there Tomorrow......

I'm wondering if they've ordered the locksets on the VIN from a 'will it physically fit' viewpoint rather than a coding viewpoint. Sounds like your only option now is to get Marty to do a bit of programming magic.

Change Immobiliser to Enabled. Once you've done that you should find that the LED on the fob lights when you put the key in the ignition.

You should then be able to sync a fob (no telling which one though) in the door latch using the method above.

The Immobiliser setting turns on or off passive immobilisation. What this means is that if you unlock the car but don't start the engine within a preset time (I think it's one minute) it will immobilise it again meaning you would have to press unlock again before you can start the car. The theory is that the coil around the ignition lock barrel causes the fob to transmit the unlock code meaning you wouldn't notice it. However, the coil is very fragile and breaks easily meaning you would have to press unlock every time you want to start the car if you don't start it as soon as you unlock it.

If you can successfully sync a fob, then you can change the Immobiliser setting back to Disabled.

What have I done to it today? Driven it, much the same as most other days. Although it has developed a machine gun inside the drivers door when I close the window. When I first got it almost 10 years ago, it was doing it then. Rather than spend money I built up the worn teeth with weld and ground them back down to the right shape. A repair that I expected to last a few weeks that lasted almost 10 years is pretty good in my book. This time, I've bought a new window regulator, a Britpart one as it was in stock and has a 2 year warranty. Lets see if that lasts as long as my repair on the old one did. Fitting it should give me something to do next week......