The UK has been added to the travel ban from midnight EST Monday (tonight), so I wouldn't be able to fly back. My NZ passport is in the UK at the moment, and also my work visa for the US in in one of my UK passports, so it would be no go getting back in until the travel ban is lifted.

That being said, watching the news here, things are shutting down left right and centre, so I'm in the middle of writing an email to the companies involved for the tour to see what their current plans are, but I'm going to see about them getting me a flight back home, maybe before Friday even as I'm starting to worry that I won't be able to get out of they lock much more down.

Hi all,

I just wanted to write a quick post on here as I haven't been here in ages, and I've had a metric shitload of emails from people (some on here, some just enquiries from the website) which I've pretty much had to read and hope I'd find a time to reply to - which I haven't!

The last 6 or so months for me have been stupidly busy work-wise, I spent probably 5 nights at home between the middle of November and Christmas Eve when I flew out of the UK to the USA to go on tour with a theatre show.

As some of you know - my 'real' job is in the entertainment industry, I'm a Lighting Designer/Tech/ AV tech etc for events and shows. My current role is the Head Lighting Tech on an USA National Tour of 'An American In Paris' which we started tech rehearsals in Washington State on the 2nd January, after I'd been to South Carolina just after Xmas to de-rig and get an LED video screen packaged up to be shipped to the tour. The tour opened in Yakima, Washington on 11th January, and was supposed to be touring all the way through until the 7th June - where most of the shows are all 'one nighters' Ie we do one show in a venue in a day, and then move somewhere else - instead of like a lot of shows where you'll be in one venue for a week!

From memory we are due to hit about 85 ish venues in 30 odd states, and do 130 odd performances. Our schedule has a load of travel days where we as crew are travelling overnight on a tour bus, and then in a location for most of the day, before leaving again in the middle of the night for the next venue. We also had 2 full days off scheduled in the whole tour!

Our show tours in 3 x 53ft trucks, one of which is JUST lighting/video equipment, the other 2 have audio, costumes, scenery, props etc in them. My day generally starts just before 8am walking into a new venue and figuring out where we are putting everything that day, where our mains power comes from, where we have to run it to, how we are running cables to keep them out of the way of doorways, loading access, cast access etc.

At 8am, I'm in charge of unloading our truck, with local crew who are varying levels of usefulness in each city. By 0830, the truck is usually unloaded, I've had my morning workout in the process and we then get to hanging all the lighting. Some of it is on a pre-rigged trussing system which we hang with electric chain hoists - other parts of the lighting package hang on battens in the theatre.

We generally are finished with our load in by 15:30/16:00 and have a couple of hours to go out and get coffee/food, before being back for a show call to run the lighting for the show. The show itself usually starts around 19:30, and runs for just over 2 1/2 hours, including a 20 minute intermission. We're usually finished the show just after 10pm, and then we start loading it back out, and then once everything is packed away and flightcased, we load the truck about midnight. We now finish our load out around 00:30, have a shower in the venue, and then get on our tour bus and go to bed (there are 12 crew travelling on the bus, and we have a bunk to sleep in and a couple of lounge style seating areas). We generally leave a venue about 01:30 once everyone has showered and on the bus. Maybe we'll have a drink, or a bit of food, and then head to bed, with the alarm set of 07:30 to get up and do it all again!

A couple of weeks ago now we had 7 shows in 7 venues, in 7 days.... one of them was a matinee show, where our normal 8am load in is earlier at 6am!! I worked over 90 hours, so then when we had a travel day, I spent most of it in bed asleep! We've been through the midwest, where some days it was around -21C when we were unloading the truck OUTSIDE!!! And then reloading it outside in the same kind of temperatures at midnight!

Every day is different - venue, crew, how much of the show goes in depending on venue size/layout/access... we had one place where we had to unload the 3 trucks on the street and everything went up on an elevator on the outside of the venue to get it inside... and it started snowing on the loadout, whilst we were trying to load the trucks on the road!

This is my 'normal' kind of lifestyle, and P38's are my hobby, which I do love working on - but unfortunately it's all had to take a backseat due to this tour and schedule. Likewise, emails that I've had, I've tried to read and then failed at responding to - because of time, or where I have had time off, I've been sleeping, or trying to get out and about and see some of where I've been etc. So my apologies to everyone who has been in touch, and I haven't gotten around to replying to - and the fact I've not been on here either!

Why am I writing this now?? Well, I have a bit of time off... due to the coronavirus outbreaks, we were told a couple of nights ago that some venues were cancelling or rescheduling, and we now had a week layoff at the start of April (which would have been a welcome break by that point!!). The next day (Friday 13th incidentally!) we got a message to say that as of the 14th we were all being laid off for 5 weeks until the 21st April. We were in Florida at the time, and everyone has been disbanded back home. Well, ish... I'm currently sitting in New York, waiting to find out if I'm flying home on Friday, or being put up somewhere out here to hole up and wait out the layoff. Part of me wants to get home, so I can then have some time to myself to reset, and hopefully catch up on a load of p38 jobs for myself and other people. Part of me worries that if I do that, then I'll struggle to get back out here with the travel ban to the US from the UK/Europe - if that's still in effect when the tour is due to restart.. so hence I'm in a bit of limbo waiting to see what's going on.

At least it's given me the time to start replying to some emails, and get on the forum again a little bit. Hopefully I'll be able to spend a bit more time on here and get the rest of my emails caught up on over the next few days!

Thanks for your patience if you have emailed, and I apologise in advance for when the tour starts again, and I have to get back into the routine of lots of work, little sleep, and zero spare time!!

Marty

Welcome!

And apologies for not having returned your email (I think I might have replied now - I've been trying to catch up - but if I haven't, then more apologies and I will get around to it...)

I have been stupidly busy with work, and not been on any forums, and had trouble finding time for anything outside of work other than eating and sleeping - yet alone checking and replying to emails!

This is the first day I've been on this forum in probably nearly 3 months!

Welcome again, and hopefully I've either replied to you, or will in the next few days whilst I'm going through my inbox and trying to catch up!

Marty

Sounds like she needs a fob filter... or a 3rd gen receiver!

If there's that much spurious RF then it is possible the keys won't sync, as the signal that actually gets to the BECM, even with the antenna disconnected, could end up garbled by whatever else is being thrown out by the other device.

That or the code the fob is sending isn't match to the BECM (I can't remember if I've had one of her fobs at home with the BECM to check this).

I'd kinda like to see the whole vehicle with everything installed to see if i can work out the fobs etc at some point, but I'm unlikely to have that kind of free time anytime soon!!

Sorry to hear that! I hope that he's OK, and gets through it!

Send best wishes from me too when you next talk to him - sorry I haven't been active on here for ages!

Marty

Welcome Dopey!

I also don't frequent LZ nearly as much, because of W

That and I haven't been on ANY forum in the past few months because I'm away on tour... though I've been laid off for at least 5 weeks, from yesterday due to the coronavirus outbreak... Currently back in New York this week, waiting to find out if I'm going to be flying back to the UK on Friday, or having to hole up somewhere out here until the tour is rescheduled to start... The worry being if I get back to the UK, and then can't get back to the US to restart the tour if there's still a travel ban in place... time will tell...

Re the Police Setting...

I don't think having UK POLICE set without the wiring will screw anything up, as people are led to believe. My 2001 has UK POLICE enabled, and no sign it's ever been a police vehicle. The BECM has no way of knowing if anything extra is connected to my knowledge.

I did find one thing different on mine awhile ago, but can't fully remember what it was - I think it was something to do with being able to have the tailgate open (I presume so that the police officers could get access to their equipment) and still lock the rest of the vehicle, without it thinking it's a mislock and not setting the alarm (so then the rest of the vehicle is secure). Unless there was additional wiring added for the tailgate locking, then even with the rest of the vehicle locked, you still wouldn't be able to open the tailgate, as the switch would still ground through the RHF latch. Maybe that was part of the wiring changes - so that when the vehicle was locked, you could still open the tailgate, but it wouldn't set the alarm off... but without actually being able to see a converted one to see what they did, there's no real way of telling exactly what the setting actually did!

But that aside, I've seen a number of normal P38's (mostly later ones) with UK POLICE set as enabled, and there seem to be no nasty side effects...

If you do find they are the wrong way round, if also swap the locks over - as the lockset consists of both the physical lock and key blade AND the remote fob.

Swapping the key blades over will then give you the correct remote fob with the incorrect lock/key blade, which is then a mish mash of locksets. And as sloth says... Seems silly to have spent so much other time and effort to get these vehicles as good as they are, to then half arse the locksets.

It could be worth trying to turn passive immobilisation on and resync then. If that still doesn't work, then probably more in depth investigation would be needed...

As Gilbertd says...

If they weren't ordered for your VIN, then the code the fob is transmitting won't match what the BECM is expecting to see, and as such, no matter how much syncing you try will get it to work.

The fob code would need to be read, or decoded from the lockset barcode, and then the BECM reprogrammed to match what the key is transmitting.

I have the ability to do that, but would need a key fob and the BECM logic board.

I'm also looking at a pretty busy first half of next year, so wouldn't be able to do much about it until the middle of 2020 I'm afraid!

I've seen 22mpg on mine on petrol, when I first put the new engine in and did a long motorway run in it.

Since my Trip computer was reset when I had all the dash out a couple of months ago, I've done about 1700 miles - mostly on LPG and the average MPG is back up to 19.2

Previously over about 8000 miles on Trip 2, which was a good mix of motorway speed and around town driving, I was seeing somewhere around 18.6mpg

I do run mine on petrol at times just to keep the injectors running some fuel through etc, and also the keep the fuel trims in check, as even though the LPG setup now seems to be pretty good on mine, they do drift a little bit.

On a Thor, a Bosch MAF and Bosch Lambda sensors are the most important parts - aftermarket just don't work properly, and will cause it to pull the fuel trims out, which then will give bad mileage, and also rough running, bad idle, and almost stalling if the trims get pulled so far to the end of their range.

I had a Bearmach MAF on mine when the original one decided to fail the day I picked the RR up... it ran fine, but at idle was showing about 30kg/hr airflow instead of the normal 20-25 - so the ECU was constantly thinking there was more air going in, so was richening the mixture up, and pulling the fuel trims out constantly. It would then run really rough at idle. You could hook the Nanocom up and reset the fuel trims, and it would instantly come back to running smoothly - for another few weeks.

Once I had the money, I bought a genuine Bosch MAF, fitted it, reset fuel trims, and it's been fine ever since - well, until the O2 sensors failed and cause bad readings at the other end... But again, I know people who have had aftermarket sensors on the Thor, and they don't read quite right a lot of the time, so they then report too rich/lean in the exhaust gases, so the engine ECU compensates based on that, and again you get the rough running etc.

But ideally - with a combination of longer runs, and some around town driving you should be seeing 17+ on a Thor, on petrol. But definitely get the petrol side sorted properly and so it's happy before trying to get the LPG tuned - as already mentioned - the LPG system is slaved off the petrol system, so if that isn't right, then you're just pissing in the wind with the LPG side.

My Thor with multipoint has a 75L usable LPG capacity tank, and depending on what kind of driving I'm doing, I get between 210 and 250 miles out of it. I've been hammering the motorways this month, and usually when there isn't loads of traffic, so been getting around the 240 mark most of the time.

I modified some Hana Gold 4 way injector rails to fit right down under the bananas (most Thor's get the injectors fitted on top and either plumbed in the upper manifold or the hoses run through the bananas to the lower manifold) so my injector feed pipes are pretty short.

You should definitely be getting more than 150 miles out of it though. Definitely sort the MAF and get the petrol running right before anything else. Also, spend the extra and get a genuine Bosch MAF - the aftermarket ones are not quite there when it comes to the tolerances and still throw the fuel trims out after awhile (as me how I found that one out!! and it wasn't even a 'blue box' special!)

I believe that STC2778 Is the Booster/Modulator block with ETC - and STC2779 is the NON ETC version (which you'll have at the moment)

It should also be stamped (from memory) on the metal plate with the part number with ETC on the version that has that.

The ECU - I believe is ANR4898 for the version with ETC - though ANR1250 also comes up as an earlier part number on LRcat that says ETC - but I wouldn't be so sure... I would definitely go for the later version ECU...

I might actually have an ABS ECU kicking about in the garage, but I won't be home until the weekend to check, and even then don't know when I'll be about long enough to get it to you!

The rears are't THAT much of a pig to work on - but more involved than the fronts, as the rear door latches are attached to the window regulator.

So while you have to disconnect the window, and drill the rivets out on the regulator to remove it all as a whole - the up side is you don't have to contort yourself or the latch inside the door to get the sodding thing out or back in again, like you have to do with the fronts.

Crank sensor, or make sure the immobiliser code matches between the engine ECU and the BECM, as a Thor will crank but not fire if the code is incorrect.

Sometimes the ultrasonic sensor itself fails aswell - but they are a part that was used in come Discovery models aswell from memory.

As Gilbertd mentions.. not BECM at all... Either a wiper motor relay, or the park switch in the wiper motor itself. Mine did exactly what you described the other week - bit seems to have unstuck itself and is now behaviour Ng properly.

Ignition Key In also as mentioned - there switch is triggered by the flap that covers the barrel when the key is out. If that is sticking, then it doesn't always slide back into place, and you get the ignition key in message. I can't remember, but this may also trigger an alarm fault if you then lock the vehicle with key/fob whilst it still thinks the key is in, as it might get confused.

If it is saying "sunroof not set" when you press the buttons for the sunroof, then it is turned on in the BECM. If it is turned off, then any input from the sunroof switches are ignored.

It's probably worth unplugging the sunroof motor and seeing if 12v gets to it when the button is pressed. Will tell if it's an issue with it getting power, or whether the motor is faulty.

If it doesn't come up Sunroof Not Set, then it could have been turned off - but it could have been done because there is a fault in the sunroof itself (more than likely a broken runner) - but you won't find that out until you try it!

Trip computer is a BECM setting aswell that just might not have been enabled on yours.

If it is saying "sunroof not set" when you press the buttons for the sunroof, then it is turned on in the BECM. If it is turned off, then any input from the sunroof switches are ignored.

It's probably worth unplugging the sunroof motor and seeing if 12v gets to it when the button is pressed. Will tell if it's an issue with it getting power, or whether the motor is faulty.

Trip computer is a BECM setting aswell that just might not have been enabled on yours.

I've just been testing the units I have here and looked at the wiring on my test set of blend motors, and also another set which I have kicking about.

Pin 1 here on both sets is Grey, and pin 5 is Red/Black, which is correct as per the RAVE ETM - right the way from the 1995 version through to the 1999 onwards version - so my guess is the Nanocom manual is incorrect, or they must have done a firmware change before production of the HEVACs - one of the units I've serviced was a REALLY old AWR1011 unit, dated 1994 and the software version showing in the SETTINGS on Nanocom was 0.... which I've never seen before - I've seen 4, 5, 6, 7 but nothing really lower than that (though most of the units I do are AWR5051 and newer).

But it sounds like your blend motors themselves are wired as per the manual and how they should be...

The distribution flaps should be moveable with very little force - the later heater boxes are obviously a bit different to the early ones, as you can move the distribution flaps on one of them with your little finger (yes, I was surprised too the first time!)

One thing with the HEVAC... it will ONLY actually clear the faults with the ignition cycled - so if you go in an clear the faults, it will say it's cleared them, but it won't actually erase them from memory until you power off and back on again.

Are the flaps/motors at one of the end points currently or set to middle? If they are set to middle, then it sounds like something else weird is going on. If they are at one of the end stops, then I'd reset them to middle (can move the motors with a 9V battery) as it could be that at the end point it's showing out of range on the HEVAC due to calibration.

Other things it could be... it could be the wiring being backwards on the connector. I fit a new set of blend motors to my RR not so long ago - I'll try and see if I got a picture during reassembly which shows the connector/wiring colours.

Another possible option is that it could be the driver IC in the HEVAC controller that has failed. It's a fairly rare occurrence, but it does happen. They are replaceable. One of the symptoms of them having failing is a constant error in the HEVAC with it telling that it is short to positive and possibly negative at the same time.

First thing to check though is how tight the distribution flaps are. Also, one of the sets of flaps can become disconnected from the drive, as the drive rod works it's way out the other side of the heater box (can only see it with maybe the glove box out, but definitely with passenger air bag removed.

There are possibly a few other places to check aswell - I'll have a think... I've done heater boxes/blend motors on 8 or 9 P38's now, and reconditioned more HEVAC controllers than I can remember - so I'll rack my brains and see if I can think of anything else..

oohhh, I've actually got a HEVAC on the bench that I need to finish testing (I have a P38 heater box with blend motors I use) - so I'll try and get a picture of the blend motor connector. I don't think anything is messed up in the firmware of the HEVAC controller - as I've tested everything from the early AWR1011/1012 through to the later JFC102540/102550 controllers with the same set of blend motors, and they've all reported proper values, and calibrated properly. I'll see how my set of blend motor wiring matches up with the RAVE wiring too.

Yes, as far as I know, it is possible - you just remove the cam etc on there that it's on as LHD and replace it with a RHD version - the casting of the metalwork has the posts for both LH and RH cam kits - you'd just fit the one you need.

You'd want to remove the new key barrel though and put your one in - which required either drilling out the roll pin, or cutting the tab off the key barrel so you can get it out and swap over with your original one.

Going to that extreme - you'd be just as well off putting a new cam kit and painting your original handle.

Really dumb question.... if it's not on the input site, or IACV, or injectors... then how are the O2 sensors looking - if they are out and reporting to rich/lean (when it's not) then it could also be throwing things out.

Other really dumb question... do you definitely have cats in there? I swapped my cats when mine failed emissions (because they'd done a petrol test instead of LPG, but despite arguing with the numpty on the counter, I figured it was just as easy to change them and then it would pass on whatever they tested it as.

I was somewhat surprised when I took the old Y pipe out that there were actually no cats in there - they had been hollowed out.

With new cats, my emissions reading was actually 0%, 0ppm. It was up a tiny bit this year (but only marginally - nowhere near the limits - and they tested it properly the first time) - with 1 year old exhaust.

So maybe it's possible that everything 'up front' is working OK, but the cats aren't doing their job properly anymore and that's why it's failing?