@JMCLuimni - You're welcome to attend if you want... just ship the Linley over and it'll give us all something to ogle :)

Seriously though - where in the US are you based? The next time I'm over there, if I'm anywhere near where you are, then I'll have to stop by and see the Linley and H&H in person...

I was hoping you'd be in Morat... We need the chef extraordinaire... We can get your door latch sorted this time aswell...

I'm not going to propose any actual dates at the moment, until things have settled down a bit more. June might be a bit hopeful, but then also even towards the end of June is still another 7 weeks away and we should know by then whether there's a second wave coming, or if things are in a position where we can travel a bit further afield.

Thanks guys... it's been an interesting project, but I am glad that I now have it finished and back together.

It'll be nice to try it out on a couple of longer runs when I can get out and about again. Whilst the unit was expensive, it runs a LOT better than the previous ones that I've had in there, and seems to handle Nav, radio, bluetooth, DVR etc all without getting choked up.

I used it with the screen wedged in the dash last year for a few longer trips and it would struggle after awhile - but that was before I fitted the heat sink and the fan. I really can't believe that they don't put a bigger heat sink of some form of forced cooling in any of these Android devices by default... but seems to be better now.

So, I was thinking that now I have all this spare time on my hands, and no work to go and do for the foreseeable future...

Once we all come out of this crazy lockdown, and can move about again... who would be interested in a workshop weekend, to catch up and try to get a few of those post pandemic tasks done?

I'm happy to host one again at my workshop if people are interested - I'm not sure when will suit everyone, and obviously we have to wait until places are open again!

I'm thinking tentatively June at some point. Is there anything that collectively people want to work on or get looked at/fixed?

Thoughts?

It's actually a piece of black vinyl. I had some left over from covering the trim that I made for the extra buttons in the cig lighter position.

It is a bit noticeable, but I was thinking of getting a Land Rover logo to go there instead, but it's a bit further down the list!

So... It's been ages since I've posted anything up on any RR forum. Mostly due to how busy I've been with work, but also due to not having actually gotten some of the projects that I've been trying to work on finished, so figured 'what's the point' in posting up about them.

Well, other than the fact I now have NO work (the tour I was on has officially been cancelled, so my calendar is completely empty for the rest of the year now!) and have been at home for probably longer than I ever have in one stretch - I also had all the required parts to finish off a project I started some time in August/September last year.

Some of you might remember the incident involving the self-destructive power steering pump, overheating, and heater core blowing out incident I had... yup, the one whilst in the middle of the night, doing 70mph, then "pop" hot coolant everywhere, burning my foot in 3 places, and a cloud of steam that I couldn't even see out the windscreen...

Somehow I got stupidly lucky (or I just did a REALLY good job building the engine) and other than replacing the heater core, and the offending PAS pump, cleaning up a lot of coolant from the footwell (thanks Sloth for helping out and also for attacking the carpet with his carpet cleaner!), and re-taping a lot of the wiring looms... the only other real casualty was my touch screen nav unit that took exception to being sprayed with hot coolant whilst it was on and running.

So whilst looking on eBay for possible replacements - 7" versions to swap out what was already there, my eye got caught by a bigger 8.8" widescreen version, which had a detachable screen, and a single DIN main unit. The advantage of this is not having to hack the case apart and cut it down to fit in the dash. But the disadvantage of it being pretty much full width of the fascia, and this would need a LOT more work to make it fit. Oh, I also upgraded to some fancy piano black Vogue SE trim awhile ago and didn't really want to cut through any of that wood finish, as there's no way I'd be able to make it look right.

So after much umming and ahhhing, and looking at the price of the 8.8" units (well over £300!!) I decided 'screw it' go big or go home'. Since I was already at home I figured I should go big, so ordered one. I also ordered their DVR camera to go with it, as the one I had was a bit crap. This one also appeared to take a memory card in it - so I was hoping that it meant it recorded it internally and used the USB for managing the camera, rather then the old unit which was just a USB camera, with all the recording done on the main nav unit. I am sure this added to some of the issues I had with it given it was constantly having to write to the memory and loads of USB traffic, which it never seemed to like.

So a little while later, a package from China turned up - this is what I was going to have to try and fit in a P38 dash:

So after setting it up on the desk, and playing around with it a bit, I was pretty happy with the unit as a whole. They managed to forget to send the DVR camera, so after a few emails back and forth they sent that out to me... cue another few weeks waiting...

But I decided I liked the look of it, though the stupid google boot animation had to go... I managed to find a whole host of information online about the Joying units - ROMs, how to change various things - including the boot animation etc. So to go with the 'factory fit' theme, I've made a Range Rover one...

It is actually animated, fades up and down and ends up on that image until the unit is booted.

So, now I have the unit... how the heck do I fit it in the dash? And what am I going to do, given the fact I don't want to chop up my nice black trim any more? I had the thought (before actually buying the unit!) that I could take one of the standard grey plastic fascias and cut that up... they're not quite dime a dozen, but certainly a lot easier to replace if I screw something up at any point along the way!... And as it happened, I had a spare one kicking about in the garage.

I sanded it back to try and get rid of the textured finish, then set about attacking it with a rotary tool and some saw blades. As it turns out, this screen size is pretty much a perfect fit and the same width as the factory radio bezel, so as far as visually lining up, was happy!

I used some extra ABS plastic that I'd cut off the cubby box that did live here before and used it to make some edges in around where the screen would go, to give it some rigidity and keep it in place. As you can see below, I plastic welded it in place with a soldering iron and added ribs either side (you can see some on the LHS below).

I then cut off some of the threaded screw stands from the back of an old window switchpack front trim and plastic welded them in place. The unit came with some mounting brackets that had plastic clips in them, which once removed and flattened out actually work pretty much perfectly for mounting the screen with very little modification, other than widening the holes so that some window switchpack screws would fit to secure it to the trim. The screen is a pretty tight 'friction fit' as it is, but wanted something to secure it from behind, so any harder presses on the screen didn't have it falling out.

The next step was to get some body filler and tidy up the edges where the cutouts were done for the screen. I melted a few bits of plastic in to fill some of the bigger areas, but some fine body filler would do the rest. I covered up the screen in cling film so it wouldn't get damaged and then mounted it. I wanted it in place, so I could fill up to the screen as much as possible to get as nice a fit as I could.

I left the filler to dry and then took the screen out. I was left with a few overhangs, but overall a good result I could sand back.

I was also having a look at other ROMs for the unit, as the 'new' UI that it came with had a clock on the RHS, which I kinda liked the look of, since I would be ditching the LR clock to fit this in. The down side to this is that a) it was ALWAYS there, so apps wouldn't go to the full widescreen (you would have the clock down the side and then apps would take up the rest of the screen - which was around the same size as the 7" screen I had previously... the whole point of this was to go widescreen and have a bit more real estate). Also b) you couldn't move where the clock was... If I could have had it on the LHS so it was opposite side to the driver, then I probably would have lived with it...
But in my research I had noticed on the EU 'version' it had a different UI... I managed to download and flash that ROM to the unit, which then gave me a full widescreen launcher and all the apps run widescreen now. I lose the clock completely, but overall I'm happy with this, as I get to have the map for example across the whole screen, which before wasn't possible.

Back on the fascia side, I got into the trimming and sanding of the body filler, and was pretty happy with the results:

I did do a second round of clingfilm screen, fill gaps - but after that it looked good enough for me... And it was onto paint! Grey Plastic primer first, but at least 6 or 7 coats probably to help build it up and get rid of any last texture in the plastic:

I then sourced and ordered some Jet Black paint, and 2K clear coat lacquer for the top coats. Whilst waiting for that to turn up, I played around with the unit some more. I fitted a fan in the top of the casing, as with all these android units, it gets pretty warm on the MCU board. I thermal epoxied an old graphics card heatsink on the MCU, and then put a 50mm silent cooling fan into the lid of the case to keep some air flow. CPU workload and heat on my previous unit were a couple of things that made it run stupidly slow at times - even with a fan, it would sometimes lock up, so I went a bit extra on this one!.

I also had a play around with different home screen launchers, and finally settles on this one - from memory it's called 'car web guru' or something like that. some of the features don't work with my unit, but you can customise the look of the home screen - and again, I wanted something that could look like it was factory, so after a LOT of tweaking, ended up with this:

The DVR camera also turned up, and I got that installed in the RR and tested it out:

This camera DOES have a TF card slot, and now has a 32GB card in it. It connects to the main unit with USB and you can view the camera feed in the DVR app, and set the camera recording settings up. But then after that, it records on it's own to the internal card. You can view (and I think copy) the recordings from the main head unit. Far better than my old one and from tests I did, I believe that now it's set up, any time it's plugged into USB to power it (even if it isn't the head unit) it will automatically start recording.

At this point, I then headed away for work a lot, shows in the UK and then off to Canada, and then the USA where I was on tour until this pandemic brought me home. So it was now time to pick up where I had left off nearly 4/5 months prior.

This was how I'd left it, primed and ready for colour:

I'd been priming it with spray can paint, but had bought a HVLP spray gun, air filter and all that good stuff to use with my compressor to spray the top colour coat and clear coat. So onto the colour:

After about 4 or 5 coats of colour, it was time for some lacquer:

I gave it probably 5 or 6 coats to start with:

I ended up with an 'orange peel' finish, which I didn't like - so I sanded it down to then be able to put some more clear coat on it. Unfortunately I managed to rub through to the primer on a couple of spots - right at the top where it curves slights to the edge of the trim. So after some swearing, I sanded the rest of it a bit more, and then sprayed another 4 or 5 coats of colour back on it to cover up the primer. Follow that by more clear coat - but this time thinned down a bit. I got a nicer finish, but a few dust marks which I attempted to sand/polish out with some high grit paper. All I ended up with was a flat looking finish, so after some more swearing, it got another few coats of lacquer, with me saying to myself that even if there were a few specks of dust, then it would do - as realistically not many people will notice, and I just wanted it finished!!

So the end result:

Then it was time to fit the screen:

And take the RR apart to get all the switches out, and the aspirator temp sensor:

At this point, I realised that the little white plastic 'button' I had removed from the top of the headlamp switch had been put in a REALLY safe place (I still haven't found it) and that my original black trim didn't have one, nor did any of my other wood trims. I'd kept this hole free to be able to put it back in again, but now I was facing having a sodding hole in the nice new trim, that I could have filled right back in the beginning...

Then I saw a thread on here about battery going flat by leaving the lights on... and I figured that whilst I haven't done it personally, is it was possible to have the lights on with the ignition off that I could utilise the hole that I now didn't have the button for to make as an indicator LED...
I drilled the hole to fit a 3mm LED and then sanded the end of one down a bit so it now has a frosted look. I went with blue, and it is wired in so it has a 12V positive feed spliced into the wire that would go to the clock. The LED is then grounded via the headlamp switch when it's turned all the way to dip beam.

So then it was onto the conundrum of what to do with the aspirator temp sensor... I could just leave it in the dash, but it would then read whatever warm temp was in there, and I didn't fancy leaving it unplugged and having a book symbol the whole time!
Since I've had the Android units that do radio aswell as nav and everything else, I've replaced the single DIN head unit space with a cubby tray to be able to put phone and all that in. So I figured if I drilled a hole in the top of this and made a mount for the aspirator sensor, it would then be able to suck air through the hole, and it would at least get SOME external air flow.. So a bit of alloy plate and some PCB standoffs later, this was made:

So now, all that was left was to take the trim out to the RR and get it all fitted... The final results are below: (the first pic is missing the headlamp switch as the locking tabs broke off as I was fitting it, so had to LED convert another one and refit... boring!

Done.... for the moment...

It works with the factory steering wheel controls, the DVR works nicely, the maps are pretty decent on the big screen. I think it looks as close to 'factory fit' as I could make it, given that it's totally aftermarket. It's also got 4G built in, so I have a cheap giff gaff data sim installed, which gives me online searching when I'm out and about, also live traffic, and ability to use google maps for anything that isn't in the iGo offline map (iGo also will get live traffic if there's an internet connection, which is handy).

Bluetooth audio is pretty good for calling, I can stream media audio from my phone aswell, and the quality of this is pretty decent - definitely better than the FM radio quality in these head units (or really any aftermarket head unit in the RR).

The ash tray and cigar lighter have been replaced with a dual USB charging socket, and a modified infotainment controller from an Audi - which gives me a few more manual input buttons. The LEDs are all controlled through an arduino and the buttons act as a resistive network to a USB HID device which you can map resistive button presses to keyboard commands. This unit then presents itself to Android as an external USB Keyboard. It's a bit complex, but if anyone is interested I'll do a follow up post in this thread on that bit itself.

Anyway... thanks for reading - I hope it was an interesting write up.
Marty

Glad it's sorted - and not in the BECM at all...

Just to clarify a couple of things though... on the ignition wires you mentioned there was no power on them - which isn't the test I do on them. I use the continuity test or even the low range Ohm setting on the multimeter to check for continuity to ground, rather than a voltage. A lot of the things on the P38 (which I think is what confuses a lot of garages) are controlled by a connection to ground to activate something - rather than getting 12V to something.

Switchpacks... the actual window switchpack component is screwed into the back of the trim and can be removed and swapped over. Also the switch caps themselves come off if that's what are faded (again with the whole switchpack unscrewed from the trim) .

If you don't want the old switchpack, then I might be interested in it to add to my collection of ones to repair.

The OBD socket is powered from a 5A fuse in the underbonnet fuse box. It then goes through the infamous 'kick panel' connectors in the RHF footwell and then on to the socket. It's a solid Brown wire from memory.

I'd check both of those first for the OBD power, and then check the pins at the connector itself, as it's also known to get corroded.

Outstations... there are only outstations in the front doors - the rears have everything driven directly from the BECM - and feed their inputs back to the BECM directly too.

Does the white/pink wire STILL get a connection when the ignition is in P2? It should have connection in P1 and 2, but not P3?

As you turn the key to P1, do you get a 'click' from the BECM (as it turns a relay on?)
Also, you can check an output from the BECM to the underbonnet fuse box - you should get a connection to ground when the key is in P1 on the white/light green wire on the 16way Green connector on the front edge of the BECM (pin 8)
The HEVAC/radio etc will get power from the BECM on pin 6 of the 10 way white connector on the back edge of the BECM - which is a White/Pink wire aswell (but a bit chunkier!). If you get 12V there when the ignition is in P1, then it's obviously switching internally as it should and the ignition signal is making it from the logic board up to the power board...
That switched feed is on F8 on the BECM fuse box, so could be worth checking that too.

Though chances are it's probably all OK, as the switchpack gets a permanent 12V feed, and if that isn't working, then whilst it could be a faulty switchpack and a coincidence, the fact the cluster doesn't work aswell, kinda points a bit to a BECM issue - as they all communicate with the logic board.

I'm about at home at the moment (still... funnily enough!) and if you think it is internal to the BECM and want me to take a look, then I'm happy to. It might be repairable - or I have other logic boards here if is isn't and needs cloning to another one. But that would be worse case scenario - it could also be something really silly like a broken track on the logic board (which once found) needs a bit of TLC.

Check the wiring from the ignition switch TO the BECM.

It sounds like the ignition position 1 (ACC) side isn't working. Position 2 (Ignition) and Position 3 (Start) are obviously OK.

That would possibly explain why some things won't power up even though the fuses are OK, and they might even have power if the BECM is ignoring the inputs because it doesn't think the accessories are actually on.

I'm on my phone, but I'll dig out the wire colours/pins in a bit to let you know where to look. But I'd take the RHF tread plate up first and look for signs of damage of corrosion to wiring under there first

Marty

leolito wrote:

Wow so much info from just one look!

Now I def can see is not original, as it has a 2012 date and "BUONO" which means "Good" in Italian, probably a manufacturing quality label or such.
I will take out the door card of the donor and see if is the same... donor looks less messed up with.
Windows' mechanism do work fine (except rear left), driver was a little jumpy but I always assumed were the guides being old. Now it might be something else ...

I am not afraid to take the regulators out, just an annoyance as you say. On the other hand, I have one rear door to replace (been hit in the past and full of body filler) ... the insulation to put ... door handles to replace ... :-)))

Haha, thanks... I've spent a lot of time inside P38 doors, usually replacing door latches - though I have replaced the regulator on my own P38 - and generally have a fairly good idea at what connectors are for what these days.... the occasional one still stumps me - but that long flat 'superseal' connector was never one that was used my LR in the P38, which after looking closer and seeing all the other random plugs and wire colours, made more sense that it wasn't original. The 6 way one with the yellow end on it are 'econoseal' connectors and WERE used all over the P38 - and in fact my first thought was that was the reason you had issues with locking, as there's one like that to connect to the door latch. The I saw where it was, and the rest fell into place a little bit!

I'll be interested to see what is in the other 3 door now... pics or it didn't happen!! haha

Marty

I replaced the foam surrounds that were on my subwoofer speakers... bought a pair of generic 6.5" foam surrounds and the speaker glue to fit them.

Pretty easy job - I had to use a couple of bulldog clips to get the inner part to stay sticking to the cone as it the glue was setting, but once it had stuck, the outer rings were easy.

So far so good, and they're working again.

Dave3d - first check LHF footwell kick panel connectors - the subwoofer feed wires from the head unit run through those connectors, (Orange and Orange/Black wires). So if you haven't cut them out already, then it might be worth a look, as I cut a set out and soldered the wires together for another owner (to fix a different issue) and he said afterwards that the sub suddenly started working again... realised afterward that the sub went through there :)

What are the wire colours going into those plugs? It looks to me that someone has replaced the window motor with an aftermarket one and that's their attempt at splicing them in... you mentioned 'Window not set' messages to me, which if that is the window motor, then it looks like there are sensor wores coming out of it to the long flat plug - which is going nowhere, so the BECM won't be seeing an input on the anti-trap feeds, and thus won't set the windows.

I wouldn't be able to tell if those motors even have sensors that are compatible with the BECM without knowing more about them - but if they have been replaced in EVERY door, then it will explain you not being able to 'set' the windows pretty simply!!

From what I can tell, they have spliced the 2 thicker blue wires into the feeds for the motor from the outstation, and left the rest alone.

That 6 way plug with the yellow insert is what SHOULD be plugged into the window motor, if it were a genuine P38 one...

The good news if you want to swap them back to being original is that they aren't that expensive second hand as they hardly ever fail... the bad news is that the replace them you ould need to take the window regulators out. Though on second look, it appear the regulator is aftermarket aswell - as it's definitely not the LR shape... again the proper ones aren't expensive - just annoying to (probably) have to change all four...

If the windows actually work properly other than not 'setting', I'll try and find some info about the window motors and see if there's a combination of the wiring that's there from the inbuilt sensors to see if they will trigger the BECM properly.

The lock barrels are easy enough to replace. They are held into the handle with a single roll pin.

Either drill out the old roll pin, swap the lock barrel over and fit another pin, or do what I've had to do a couple of times and cur the corner tab off the lock barrel where the roll pin goes through to be able to release the lock barrel. On reassembly, I've then carefully drilled another hole and put a small fine thread screw in to secure the barrel to stop it from twisting out.

I personally would go the route of swapping the lock barrel, rather than having a different key blade for the door vs the ignition etc.

In answer to your question though - the remote fob would still work as it's coded to the BECM, there's nothing electronic in the locks/doors etc other than the microswitches in the door latch.

EDIT If you're going to the trouble of buying a NEW door handle/lock - then you should be able to order one from Land Rover, to your VIN number and it will come with the door lock etc which is coded to your vehicle and existing keys. It might be worth at least giving LR a call and seeing what price a new door handle/lock barrel is for your vehicle vs the cost of even a second hand one off eBay, and then the time to faff about with it.

Yes, you can split the handles.

When you remove the spring return cam bit (that gets replaced in the kit) you can then remove the rest of the handle from the back part, where it's usually held captive by the cam/spring return part.

Hard to explain in some ways - but yes, it's possible - I've done it a number of times when one part has been more worn that the other - just required a new cam/spring return/roll pin on reassembly

Random guess... 3567?

I've fixed a few of them...

Mine probably comes down to backing into a wall, and putting a crunch in the rear bumper... or when I was offroading and bumped the RH Rear on part of a hill which has put a bit of a ding in it, but is mostly hidden by the finishing trim...

Or there was that one time I got my first P38 airborne, and the passenger (who was stupidly not wearing a seatbelt - but was actually surprisingly ok!) cracked the windscreen with his head...

The only one recently, which Sloth can attest to was somehow bending a pin when putting an ABS Modulator in and then having an all night mission to either swap the modulator back out, or try to straighten the pin. We got it straightened, brakes bled etc - and then a couple of weeks later I had to swap the modulator again as the brake pedal would sometimes just lose pressure and sink when you put your foot on it. If you hit it to stop, then it was fine. Deduced there must have been an internal leak in the replacement (I'd rebuilt it, and there was one part which was a pain to do - so probably that which caused it). Not got around to having another look at it.

If it was on the drivers side, then I believe it is usually in the face vent and is actuated to block off the crotch vent when you turn off the airflow.

I could be wrong, but it looks like the right shape/size to me.

Can you take a picture of the connectors at the head unit? The connectors on the post '99 are different to pre- '99. pre '99 had a 10 way pink connector, which has the 4 door connections and the sub wires aswell. Post '99 they changed it so there's an 8 way ISO connector for the doors, and then there is a separate set of mini-ISO connectors which the CD changer plugs into the factory head unit with AND the subwoofer output is fed from here too.

If it's a mid/high line spec vehicle then I would expect there to be 8 wires coming out of the main ISO connector - 2 for each door, and more than likely have amps in each of the doors. The premium (DSP) system only had 4 wires coming out of the main ISO connector as a left/right feed, which was then split to the correct doors by the DSP amp, but this was pretty much only on the vehicles with factory navigation.

The easiest way to identify what system you have would be to pop a door card off and get a picture or 2 of what's in there and also a picture of the connectors at the radio.

Marty

You will probably have to sync the 3rd fob aswell, like the other 2 - and as long as it isn't the same key # as one of the other two, then it should be fine and you'll have 3 working fobs. If it is the same as one of the others, then it will de-sync one of the others, and you'll only be able to have 2 of them synced at the same time (but the other one will be a good spare to have!)

It's entirely possible that passive immobilisation has been turned off on your vehicle, which also disables the 'friendly sync' of the fobs. It could also be possible that if passive immobilisation IS enabled, then there is an issue in fob 1 which means that it's not receiving the pulse from the ignition to then send a code. There is a little inductor on the fob PCB which picks up the pulse, and especially on earlier fobs it seems, they had a habit of coming off the board.

The upshot of the tour being pulled (at least for the moment) was that the next day, we were supposed to be loading in again at 6am - and the venue was supposed to be small, and a pain in arse... so got spared that!

I've been in touch with the companies and I'm now flying back home tomorrow evening. Leave NYC at 8pm, and fly to Toronto. Then have a lovely 00:50 flight from Toronto, which with the time difference means I'll land back into the UK about 11:50. All things being well, and as long as I don't cough to loudly anywhere official, I should be back home mid-afternoon on Thursday.

As to when the tour will pick back up.... I'm not taking my chances of it being April like they've said. More likely in May at some time, assuming that they don't just pull the rest of the tour.... It feels really weird to be heading home having not finished something! But the other upside I guess is that I can get back to work on some of my RR projects, for myself and others....

I've still got trim to paint for my nav installation, so that might be fairly high on the priority list of things to do!! That and I need new tyres for the RR - assuming I can get them fitted somewhere!