First one looks like someone was so impressed with the body mods, they took an axe to the bonnet.

I would agree that it's a red herring, one side of my heated screen has been progressively failing since I've had the car to the point now where it doesn't work at all on the drivers side. I would have expected an open circuit fault to show but there's no faults on the HEVAC at all.

I'd say the pair of relays is not only to protect the tracks in the fuse box but also the relays, when working the heated screen does draw a hell of a lot of current.

The lockup clutch will only drop out if you are travelling slowly, once you are at a reasonable speed, it stays engaged. To give you further engine braking, the fuel injectors are switch off on a closed throttle above a certain set rev limit, so the engine isn't even firing to give you more engine braking. Even on LPG, as it slaves off the petrol injectors, if they are off, so are the LPG injectors.

For a quick overtake, I just poke the Sport button when getting ready and then floor it. Not only does it hold the revs in each gear longer but it seems to make it kickdown that much quicker.

The two connectors for the airbags are both in yellow shielding so easy to identify. The one under the seat is to the side airbag in the seat but the one under the dash feeds the one in the steering wheel. If you drop the panel under the steering column off, you'll see it running along a bracing strut with a connector partway along. As long as the ignition is off when you disconnect them and stays off while they are disconnected, you won't get a fault. Just pull them apart and give a good squirt with the contact cleaner.

Last one is easy, give the connectors under the drivers seat and under the knee panel a squirt of contact cleaner (worked on the Ascot).

The engine ones are probably due to the odd running before and shouldn't come back now it's running right.

HEVAC ones are weird, for there to be that many current faults suggests something very odd. When I first got my white one, I had odd intermittent faults with the HEVAC that turned out to be dirty contacts in the multiway connectors. Again, contact cleaner sorted them. I've been playing with the HEVAC and blend motors on the Ascot tonight. I'm not sure the faults reported by the Nano are strictly correct. On the Ascot, Nanocom is reporting RH blend motor feedback short circuit but testing it with a meter on the leads show no short circuit but what it does have is a short circuit motor (3 Ohms compared to 40-50 Ohms on the other two) on the LH blend motor. I checked the inputs and when the RH temperature was changed and the feedback could be seen moving but the LH one doesn't (because the motor isn't moving as the HEVAC has detected a short circuit motor and doesn't try to move it). Same goes for the blowers, you can manually adjust the speed and watch what the feedback does.

But that's probably too late now as you and the car have scuttled off in opposite directions.....

Aragorn wrote:

The climate control is interesting, i tend to turn Auto off in the A4, and direct the airflow at the windscreen and footwell vents. However in the A4, the automatic fan control part stays on even though you've turned "auto" off. So it'll still ramp the fan up as the engine reaches temperature, and shut it back once the cabin is warm enough. If you then adjust the fan speed, your adjustment is applied as an offset to the automatic speed.

I did the same thing on the P38 when i got it but havent paid too much attention to how its operating.

RTFM, if it is in AUTO and you change where the air is being sent or the fan speed, it is still in Semi-Auto mode, so will adjust the temperature but leave the things you've set manually as they are. Personally, I just leave it in AUTO all the time and let it adjust the airflow to where it thinks it is needed, the fan speeds to what it thinks are needed (I like the way that the solar sensor causes the fans to speed up when the sun hits it and slow down when in shade) and keep the temperature at what I've set.

As for cruise, it's not so much a feeling that I want to be in control as a feeling that I don't want to feel out of control which I do if all I'm doing is pointing the car in the right direction. Although some would argue that it's better for fuel consumption I'd argue against that when it tries to maintain speed on a steep uphill. I tried it once on a Crysler Grand Voyager while driving through Switzerland, I saw 8mpg on the instantaneous readout when it was trying to maintain speed up a hill that it wasn't possible to maintain speed on as it didn't have the grunt to do it.

I just don't like the feeling when cruise is being used, it's almost like the car is rolling down a hill in neutral. On a normal saloon car it's probably OK but on something heavy like the P38 the throttle being floored to attempt to maintain speed when going up a hill feels wrong to me. I'll give it a bit of extra throttle but allow it to slow down if the hill is that steep. I've also had cruise cause a car to kickdown when towing a trailer up a greasy hill after a rainstorm and the rear wheels broke traction, fishtailing at 60 mph isn't a lot of fun. For the average speed camera sections I just use the speed warning that nobody else ever seems to use.

I don't like cruise control either and don't miss the fact that the ex-plod doesn't have it but as the Ascot is going to be sold on when finished, if it's fitted I want it to work (at least when the new owner drives it away).

That one is starting to lift in the same place as mine, you can see the end of the windscreen vent being pushed up. If this one was like that I'd probably leave it but it has lifted the full width of the vent so the vent sticks up about an inch and looks silly.

The Ascot is a 96, so that would explain it. I'd not seen it before either but the dash does seem to be a bit harder than on mine so maybe suffers worse than the later ones.

I used a 6mm push on pipe connector on the end of the old pipe and the new pipe with a bit of tape to help them stay together. The pipe was clipped along the bulkhead but once it was pulled out of the clips, it came out reasonably easily. Hardest one to get at was a clip right in the centre beneath the ignition coils.

blueplasticsoulman wrote:

i see. I was under the assumption that you could put the glue on the dash, and then spray the activator on the part you want to fit.

No, the dash is a plastic moulding that then has a vinyl covered foam layer bonded to it and the bind has let go. I'm assuming it's due to the car being left standing in sunlight, but rather than crack like a lot of dashtops do, it looks like the vinyl has contracted so it has pulled the foam away from the plastic moulding. I need to get some adhesive on the underside of the vinyl/foam bit and then clamp it down to the plastic moulding and hope it stays stuck down. Then I can put the vent back in.

Incidentally, it's also started to lift above the instruments but not so much that the edge can be seen as it is covered by the surround. If you look at one of the pictures of his car that DevonP38 posted (http://i.imgur.com/WbA7s9d.jpg), you'll see that his has done the same but a little more so you can see the edge of the vinyl/foam sandwich.

Just replaced the full run on the Ascot. Bit of a bugger to do and it turns out I didn't need to do it all, the split in it was behind the engine, the end under the dash was fine. I could have just chopped it off where it goes through the bulkhead and put a join in.

How am I supposed to spray anything when there's a windscreen in the way? It needs doing in one hit, get some glue in there, then clamp everything down and wait for it to go off. How long I have to wait isn't important as long as it's gone off before I take the clamp off.

That's not going to be any good, it'll have set before I've even got a layer over the full width. I had considered Tiger Seal as I've got an unopened tube of it that I bought for something else but have been saving uses up as once the tube is open it goes off after a week or so. With Tiger Seal I can put a longer tube on the nozzle and get it into where it needs to be too.

Got a little niggly one on the Ascot(?). The dash foam is lifting either side of the drivers windscreen vent. There's the vinyl covered foam and underneath that is the plastic shell and they have parted company. I can make up a clamp to be able to hold it down but need a glue to put in there before clamping it. I'm thinking along the lines of some sort of epoxy but it needs to be something that doesn't go off too quickly or it will be going off before I get the clamp in place. It also needs to be something I can put on with a (bent) brush as I think taking the windscreen out or the dash off isn't really an option.

Anyone got any recommendations?

Not sure why the feature is there but it is unlikely to flatten the battery overnight by waking up for 2 minutes every 6 hours. It does give you early warning of a leak although I suspect that isn't why it's there. Mark's main problem seems to be that he's got relays 18 and 19 permanently energised, even with the ignition off, and that isn't good. That is almost certainly why the battery is going flat, one of them powers the engine ECU. That's why I suspect the fusebox has been changed for the wrong one. It's a '96 car so the fusebox was originally an AMR3375 which was superseded by the AMR6405 which is presumably an updated version that would be more reliable than the original. £105 from Island 4x4, so not the end of the world.

I recently reinstated the air suspension on a car a mate bought which had also had 4 Schrader valves fitted under the bonnet to allow each corner to be inflated individually. He found that without the automatic lowering at speed, it felt decidedly unstable at anything over 60 mph. He got an O ring kit for the valve block and a rebuild kit for the compressor, did those then I fitted them and checked it over. There was a couple of leaks where the air lines had been mucked about with when the valves were fitted but some decent quality joiners and a couple of feet of air line and it now works perfectly. Total cost for the lot? About £60.

I know all about the EU bureaucracy, a mate lives just outside Nice in France and that is just as bad. He lives 2,000 feet up the side of a mountain and needed something that could do it in all weathers. I found a 2.8 litre Nissan Patrol on LPG over here and bought that on his behalf. He had to insure it as a Nissan 280Z as the petrol Patrol had never been imported into France and the 280Z was the only car using that engine officially imported. As for the LPG, he'd got no chance. He would have had to have the system ripped out and a system approved by the French authorities installed instead. Even then, he'd still have had to insure it as a 280Z though. It came back here and was sold on. As for boats, nothing over 9.9 hp without a licence (sans permis), fortunately, I've got an ICC for inland and offshore for powered craft up to 24m so can legally use his boat or hire one but nobody else can.

It needs a bit of varied driving, slow speed, acceleration, deceleration, high speed, etc. You'll know when it's right when it will idle when you first start it and drive as it used to do.

Reset ECU sets everything to factory defaults, all the configuration settings and the fuel map. So if you did hit the reset button, you've royally screwed everything and it will need setting up from scratch BUT NOT UNTIL YOU HAVE RUN ON PETROL ONLY TO LET IT ADAPT. The fact it won't idle on petrol when you first start it shows you have screwed the petrol adaptations as well.

Run solely on petrol, change the leads when they arrive and let it sort itself out on petrol and only then start playing with gas again.