Water in the ducting hasn't come from the AC, that's definitely left over from what got in through the pollen filter housing. If the weather stays like it has been today, leave the car parked in the sun so it's at cooking temperature inside then run the engine for 10 minutes. If the AC drains are clear, you'll find a big puddle underneath the centre of the car. I parked mine for a couple of minutes this afternoon and came back to it to see a stream running out from underneath and that was with the engine off.

I'll second the stick it in the top hose method too, at least then you will be taking a reading from the actual coolant temperature. If you are going for silicon coolant hoses then you must have pretty looking anodised bits too, it's just not done to have silicon hoses without.

Your network cabinet reminds me of when I had a car that needed some serious welding doing to the underside and required large sheets of steel. I used an ex-Civil Service issue filing cabinet......

I meant not using the JBL ones that come in the kit and just keeping the original ones. From the spec the JBL ones look to be a larger diameter so I'm not sure if they will fit inside the housings. It might just be the plastic surrounds though so I could cut them off and they might fit. I suspect the JBL's will sound better though but I'll try hanging them in temproarily first before getting involved in serious butchery and glue.

Yes but why? As I've got separate mid range and tweeters, it's only the woofers that I really need (or ones that produce a bit more bass than the ones that are in there). Too late now, the JBL's are on order and will be here by Wednesday.....

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

dsp sounds good in mine in my opinion. sub on 4, bass on 6, and treble on 3.

I used to have the sub on 7 but then the Mrs put radio 1 on once. I couldn't be doing with it.

I tried a bit of Alterbridge (Blackbird) but even with the sub on 8 it hadn't got the grunt, or the top end for that matter, that I get on my home system (NAD amp and CD deck, Dual (better known for turntables) speakers) with all tone controls flat and sounded not much better than my existing standard speakers. When you do the sort of mileages I do, often at night on my own, a bit of decent quality makes all the difference, especially when you know how good a system can sound.

I'm going to go for the JBL's but the only reason I'm considering not using the tweeters is that, according to the JBL website, they are larger diameter than the stock ones so might need a bit of butchery to get to fit in the housing. However, in saying that, the ones on eBay are the 600C while the website only gives data for the 600CE so it may be that the eBay ones are a superseded model and are slightly different. I'll find out in the next couple of days when they arrive.

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

what's the range of the tweeters?

No idea on the standard ones but for the JBL's they quote 50Hz - 20kHz for the pair. I'd try swapping in the JBL tweeters to see if they sounded any better than the standard ones. I'd assume the woofer goes up to about 5kHz with the tweeter doing the top end. All this audio stuff is a bit low frequency for me, I'm used to dealing in frequencies in MHz and GHz rather than something getting dangerously close to DC as far as I'm concerned.
blueplasticsoulman wrote:

Would band pass on the mid-range be a bit overkill for what you want do do?

There's no band pass other than the 2.2uF cap in series with the mid range speakers. The head unit has a 9 way graphic with +-12dB on each band (as well as all the DSP settings) but supplies the standard full range output per channel (F & R left, F & R right). The high pass filter on the speaker output can be set for anything between 30 to 250 Hz while the sub output has a low pass filter that can be set over the same range. So I could set it so anything below 50Hz is only sent to a sub and everything above goes to the rest. Presumably, I'd need to give some overlap? Set the sub for everything below 80Hz for instance with everything above 50Hz going to the rest of the speakers? I think I'd probably need another road trip across Europe with my tame sound engineer in the passenger seat to set it up. Fortunately it does also have a save setup feature so if you ever disconnect the power you can recall it and put it back as it was (however, it doesn't save the stored radio stations, display colour, Bluetooth pairings, source select method, etc) .....

I'm leaning towards the JBL's too, at least they are made by a company with a reputation even if they are the most expensive of the lot. The sub out on the head unit has a low pass filter that can be adjusted between 30 and 250 Hz, while the main speaker output has a high pass filter that can be set over the same range so a crossover threshold can be set.

Not according to RAVE, low line and mid line all had the speakers driven directly from the head unit no matter what the year. High line had individual door and sub amps until they started fitting the DSP unit. Maybe someone has tried to improve the sound on Sloth's parents car? With it's cost and infamous unreliability, I reckon the DSP is the one to steer clear of personally. In a car with low line, mid line and early high line, it's possible to fit a modern head unit with, at worst, the addition of the attenuators. If you've got the DSP system then you are restricted to fitting a Grom or Pure DAB unit, both of which cost as much as a decent head unit alone, and retaining the original head unit. That's fine until the DSP amp turns up it's toes then you'd need to fit one of your units using door amps or spend a stupid amount of money on a new DSP amp.

I can understand people wanting to keep the car looking original but having driven OldShep's car and been keen to see what this fabled DSP system sounded like and in my view it's a bit lacking in performance. As for the head unit, FM radio, CD or cassette. Hmm, there's nothing that is going to demonstrate the sound quality on FM, I haven't seen a cassette in years (I've probably got some somewhere but have no idea where and the sound quality from them was never much cop at the best of times) so it had to be a poke around in the boot and load a CD. A Grom adds USB and Bluetooth, while the Pure unit gives DAB as well but for £150 I've got FM radio, DAB radio, 2 x USB (one front one rear), aux in, a CD player that can play discs burned in MP3 format (so around 10 hours to a CD) and Bluetooth connectivity including handsfree calling for the phone. OK, it may not look original but doesn't look too out of place and with the right speakers, It'll sound good too. I just need to find out what speakers to go for.

and the front grille has gone grey and faded just like mine had (but not any more).....

What door amps? Nothing fancy like that on mine, just bits of wire back to the head unit.

Mine started off with the low line speaker install, woofer and tweeter in the front doors and woofer only in the rear (section E6, page 4 of the 1997 ETM in RAVE). I connected the midrange (and fitted the cap) when I changed the door trims so have bought it up to mid line spec (section E6, pages 6 and 7 of the 1997 ETM in RAVE) albeit with HK midrange speakers. So I've got no door amps, just speakers driven directly from the 4 x 50W DSP output from my Kenwood head unit. The Kenwood also has outputs for a sub so I may add an underseat sub (something like this http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MBQ-Car-Underseat-Compact-Slim-Active-Amplified-Amp-Subwoofer-Dual-Voice-Coil-/252690944978) which will fit under the rear shelf where the factory one would have been if it ever had one, but won't take up all the space. All I'll need to do is run a pair of coax cables and power from the head unit to the rear.

The intention is to replace the speakers in the doors first. If I find something that sounds decent and gives a bit of bass, I may not need to add a sub but if I can't feel the bass on the door skins, then that will be added later.

Nice but not at 9 grand..... As for the other one, it may look nice but there's bucket loads of trouble waiting for whoever buys it. With only 12k on the clock it'll still be on the original, now perished, air springs and the tyres won't be a lot of cop for that matter either. I suspect quite a few other bits will have reached their best before date too.

No, no crossover, just 2.2uF capacitors in series with the mid range and tweeters so the woofer receives the full range.

RutlandRover wrote:

I think I figured out how to adjust the glovebox to adjust the panel gap though, so that's now a new task fore when the rain stops.

I'd be happy to see how you do it, as you know the fit on mine is pretty crap too.

You can try that but if it is intermittent the most likely thing is a sticky idle air valve. Take that off and give it a good blast with carb cleaner.

Inspired by a question asked on the other side by someone who is now registered on here too and by the lack of bass on my system. OK, so I've got the original LR speakers rather than the HK ones but need to swap the 6.5" woofers in all 4 doors at the very least. I've got an aftermarket Kenwood DSP head unit driving the original speakers. Well, nearly original as I changed my basic spec door panels for ones from a higher spec car and found that as well as the wood on the outside, they had a pair of HK midrange speakers still bolted to them. So I've got bog standard woofers and tweeters but HK midrange at the moment. A professional sound engineer spent a good 2 hours while we were driving through Holland playing with the settings and got it as good as it can get but the woofers are decidedly lacking in the bass department (and there's no sub). As I've got OldShep's 2001 Vogue here with a working HK DSP system in it, I bunged a CD in the changer expecting amazing sound quality. No matter how I fiddle with the settings, it's good but nothing like as good as I expected it to be. In fact, it's not that much better than what I have. Maybe I've been spoilt recently with listening to the Bose system in an Audio RS7 and the Naim system in a Bentley but I don't see why it shouldn't be possible to at least get close.

So, I need to change the speakers. They need to be 4 Ohm, with as low a frequency response as I can find and not stupidly expensive. I'll probably need to add crossovers too. Most 6.5" speakers are 2 and 3 way coaxial but that isn't needed and so far I've narrowed it down to http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-Skytec-6-5-Hi-Fi-Polypropylene-PP-Mid-Woofer-Bass-Speaker-Driver-Cone-200W-/182455996924 (nice low frequency response but 8 Ohm so no idea how they would interact with the HK mid-range and standard tweeters I've got in there and I've never heard of Skytec), these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JBL-300W-TOTAL-2WAY-6-5-INCH-16-5cm-CAR-DOOR-2WAY-COMPONENT-SPEAKERS-TWEETERS-/190885731881 (A name everyone has heard of, 4 Ohm but frequency response only down to 50Hz although they do come with a pair of tweeters, which I don't need, and a pair of crossovers but are described as mid-range) or these http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Bass-Face-6-5-Inch-16-5cm-165mm-800w-Mid-Bass-Drivers-Car-Door-Sub-Speakers/351990186243 (which seem to meet the spec but are just for the speakers so crossovers would need to be bought separately). My head unit also has an output for a sub so I will probably add one of them too.

Anyone tried any of these or got any other suggestions?

Orangebean wrote:

I will make a note of the numbers next time I've got the Nano plugged in though.

Don't forget that the numbers are just that though, numbers. They are not specific heights but a number between 0 and 255 which corresponds to the angle of the height sensor lever arm at any specific height. So they will almost always differ between two different cars. The difference may be even greater between your two as they have different height sensors and height sensor mounts.

If you display the map by putting it in off road, does your location move when you drive?

BrianH wrote:

N22 is quite nice compared to some other parts of London - Harlesden or Thornton Heath for example!

N22 is Harlesden which is why I said that one but I agree on Thornton Heath, and quite a few other areas that are just as bad......

It could be worse, at least NW9 is Edgware so a reasonably pleasant part of London, you'd need to really worry if she was in N22, she'd be sitting on a pile of bricks with no wheels and all the windows smashed......

The picture of a globe and stars do indeed confirm she can see satellites but you are talking about an early generation GPS receiver so will take some time to work out where she is and lock on. That's always assuming she can see sufficient satellites, there are times when there just aren't enough of them visible.