The official Land Rover Owner show is happening just down the road from me this weekend so the roads are clogged with Defenders and Discos on big wheels and chunky tyres. One of my neighbours suggested I was setting up in competition with the fleet outside my place. It's a good job I live at the end of a private road.......

Remove the plastic nut that you can see on the inside of the door and then use a plastic trim removal tool to pop them off. I don't normally do cosmetics, just mechanics, but if I can manage it I'm sure you can (although I did cheat and read about it in RAVE first.....).

A bit more work I know, but it isn't difficult to take the trims off. I took mine off when it went in to be resprayed and gave them a coat of bumper black paint while the bodywork was being done. Not only does it make the trims look better but it will allow you to get right into the edges.

Errm, why did you take the whole sunroof cassette out? You only have to take the glass bit off and the sunblind can be removed with everything else in place.

GEMS uses 4 separate double ended coils instead of the Thor which has two blocks, each consisting of a pair of double ended ones in one block. If the GEMS was capable of giving individual misfire codes per cylinder, it would be easy to spot one iffy coil, unfortunately it isn't so it's down to the more traditional methods. The problem with the spark testers is that if the misfire only occurs when under load, you'd need to drive with the bonnet open and someone sitting in the engine bay to look at them.

I found, by experience, that if the battery voltage is dropping while driving (due to not being charged) as well as the multitude of dash warnings that come up (gearbox fault, followed by ABS fault, followed by SRS fault, etc) the system starts to shut things down to conserve power. One of the first it shuts off is the radio.

Clive603 wrote:

Says he has a BRC gas set-up from a P38 for under £400. Grab, look over careful like or run?

Run, at £400 anyway, you could buy new for not much more (and something a little more user friendly than BRC). At half the price it might be worth a punt but bear in mind that a tank will be dated and has a certified life of 10 years. Admittedly, if in the spare wheel well and protected from the elements it should still be fine but if you, or your insurance company, decide it needs to be checked and certified, it'll fail on an out of date tank.

I'd be interested on what sort of a difference you notice as I've got orange poly bushes in mine too.

I wasn't sure if the pipe was 8 or 10mm so didn't reply but Wickes will sell you a pack of olives in both sizes as they are used in microbore plumbing systems.

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

I wonder why there's even the option to disable the EKA.

While everything is working as it should, then all that is needed to turn the alarm off and reset the immobiliser is to unlock with the key. So in that respect it could be considered a good thing. Until a microswitch fails which probably isn't something that the designers even thought about when the system was new. I mean, a decent quality microswitch is good for millions of operations.

Morat wrote:

I dread to think what that would have cost at the dealer.

Well, there would be full retail price for a new door latch (because they wouldn't get a soldering out to the one that is on it), there would be the labour for changing it and at least a couple of hours diagnostic. Or, they'd find they couldn't connect to the BeCM, so they'd probably try and sell me one of those too at a grand plus fitting and 'programming'.

No, it would still need the EKA to be entered. If you were very careful, you could enter it by grounding the same two wires in turn to simulate the turns of the key. You'd need to ground the CDL wire (the green/red wire) while entering turns to lock by grounding the blue/red wire and then for the turns to unlock you'd need to remove the ground from the CDL line and just ground the keyswitch line the required number of times. A bit painful but it should be possible to do it if you were really desperate. Disabling EKA does seem to be a really bad idea. Fine while everything is working as it should but drops you really in it when you've got another problem.

Anyway, latch removed, repaired, refitted (and the wires clipped well out of harms way) and all back fully functioning now.

Because EKA is disabled in the BeCM so all it needs to turn the immobiliser off is for the door to be unlocked with the key (or fob if that had been synced). Grounding those two wires simulated the key switch and CDL switch being operated (which is what happens when you turn the key in the lock). So yes, plugging in a fully functioning latch and using the key in it to unlock it would have done exactly the same job. Even with the key switch not working, as long as it starts off unlocked, you don't really know that you have a problem. Turning the key in the lock mechanically unlocks the door which triggers the CDL switch so all the other doors open but this is just the same as unlocking with the sill button. Locking with the sill button doesn't set the alarm or, as long as passive immobilisation has been turned off, the immobiliser, so you could drive around for years not knowing your key switch is dead. That is until one day it decides to work when you lock the door and not when you unlock.

That fact that the latch was fully functioning is what had me fooled, not realising that the wire to the key switch had been ripped out made me assume all was well when it wasn't. As the rain has just stopped, I'm going out there to whip the latch out and sort it now.

Not really a viable option then. Getting hold of a later one and getting Marty to clone it would seem to be the only way to do it. You'd just need to find a BeCM.

I thought the same when I had to do it on mine years ago. Seems the adaptation will lower the reference voltage for a closed throttle if it detects that the TPS value has gone below what it is expecting, but doesn't seem to raise it. I suspect that this is because it assumes the throttle may not be fully closed for a reason.

A point that only Simon may understand and isn't really relevant to this thread but the same happens on the Leonardo on my car. After driving for hundreds of miles at a time at a fixed throttle opening, if it come off the throttle slightly, the Leo detects the drop in TPS voltage as closed throttle and closes the stepper down. If I then come off the throttle completely, it sees the lower voltage and resets the closed throttle setting so decelerates smoothly after that, It will only do it in France (or any other country where you aren't constantly slowing down for roadworks, dickheads that don't understand lane discipline, temporary speed limits and the various other things we find in this country) and can drive at a constant speed for hours at a time.

As Marty explained, all it did was simulate the key switch and CDL switches being operated. As the key switch was no longer working, when I unlocked the car with the key, it was the same as unlocking with the sill button, the CDL switch operated but the keyswitch didn't so it triggered the alarm which then left the car immobilised. With EKA disabled, it wasn't possible to enter the EKA (even if the key switch had been working) and the alarm set off for some other reason. Seems that disabling the EKA is a pretty dangerous thing to do.

All I can say is that it bloody worked! So huge thanks to OB for posting it and Marty for deciphering what it said. Fitted the battery from the SE which had been on charge since yesterday in preparation of moving it, Pulled the door panel off, unplugged the connector to the latch, grounded the blue/red and green/red simultaneously and the central locking fired into life and unlocked (and then relocked) all the doors. Put the key in the ignition and the message centre told me the alarm had been triggered but the engine started. No longer immobilised, RESULT!!! Not only that but the Nano could now connect to the BeCM so I've enabled the EKA again. Whether this is deliberate so that you can't connect if the alarm has been triggered, I've no idea but the software and firmware versions are 31 and 33 so it probably isn't possible to enter the EKA with the Nano anyway. Can the soft/firmwares be updated or is that something that owners of earlier cars are stuck with?

Cause of the problem was that the spurious loop of cabling due to a later latch with flying leads having been fitted at some time in the past had been caught by the window mech and ripped out the key switch wire. So, with a bit of soldering and heat shrink, it'll all be sorted.

Got to be worth a try in the morning. As said, it isn't going anywhere at the moment and neither is the SE as it is blocked in the driveway by the Ascot. Which means that at the moment the import I collected from the docks today is having to sit outside rather than on the driveway in front of the garage where it needs to be......

I've got two fobs with it and they both synced up perfectly using the turn key and press button method. But as the battery has gone flat, they both need to be re-synced but it won't let me do that while it is immobilised. I haven't disconnected the battery yet. I intend doing that and taking it off to put it on charge (it's parked too far away for the leads on my huge charger in the garage to reach). Then, hopefully, I can put it back on and it will play nicely.

I suppose worse case I could take the BeCM off and put it on the SE and see if I can connect to it when it's on that. At least that will let me enable the EKA in it.

Some of you may remember that I noticed that EKA was set as Disabled in the BeCM on the Ascot. It didn't seem to be a problem but now it is. As you probably realised, I've been away and it hasn't been touched for 10 days. I was pleased to see that the EAS appears to be working fine as it hadn't settled at all in that time.

However, went to move it today and the doors didn't unlock on the fob, none of them. Opened it with the key in the hole and only the drivers door unlocked. Found that the battery was completely flat. I mean totally, zilch volts. Connected jump leads and noticed the hazards flashing. As the sounder has been disconnected, that meant the alarm was going off. Closed the door, manually locked it and unlocked it again and the hazards stopped so I'd turned the alarm off. Tried to start it and the dash said Engine Disabled, Press Remote. Now the remote isn't doing anything as the flat battery has caused it to lose sync. I can't re-sync it as it won't do that while the engine is immobilised.

So, grabbing all the paperwork for it, thrash off down to local friendly main dealer and get the printout showing the EKA code (so I at least now know which of the 5 different 4 digit numbers handwritten on the various bits of paper is the EKA code). Back home, try the EKA and it does nothing. But as EKA is disabled in the BeCM, that's probably why. Out with the Nanocom and plug that in. Go into the BeCM settings and get "Error, Unable to communicate with the ECU". Clean the contacts on the OBD connector, still the same. Check RAVE and find that the BeCM uses the same pins as the engine ECU, ABS ECU and HEVAC. Try them and find I can connect to all 3 (although the HEVAC did put up a bit of a fight) but still can't connect to the BeCM. Tried it the usual way with ignition off, tried it with ignition on, rebooted the Nano umpteen times but it still won't connect.

So, anyone got any ideas? I've got a car that has lost sync (no check engine light) so it either needs the remote button pressing but as the remote has lost sync, that won't do anything, or the EKA entering but as EKA has been disabled in the BeCM I need to connect to the BeCM to enable it before it can be entered.