As Sloth says...

The 2 motors share a common wire, which when locking is ground, and then positive is pulsed on the CDL motor wire for normal lock, and then both the CDL wire AND superlock wire for superlocking.

The way superlocking works is that the superlocking motor moves a pawl out of the way (it stops the latch from going into superlocks by default) and the CDL motor then moves the actual locking mechanism past the normal locked state into superlocked state.

With the superlocking motor disabled, the second motor movement you hear is just the CDL triggering again, but it just clunks as the superlocking pawl is still in place and thus won't let the mechanism move .

Cutting both wires will render the latch motors/locking inoperable completely.

I'm with the others on just replacing the fuse box. It is a lot easier in the long run!

Also worth checking the big 2 way connector in the RHF footwell, behind the kick panel.

There are connectors in there which are infamous for going green and foreboding and causing random.electrical issues. That somewhat aside, theres a 2 way connector there (on my P38, it was brown) which has the main power feeds from the fuse box that go to the blower motors.

Ok mine the connector was a bit corroded and also the wires themselves weren't looking the best. I cut the connector out and crimped the wires together with an inline joiner. Having a bad/corroded connection there won't help the relays either, as it's causing a higher resistance, and hence more current being drawn.

The discolouration might be solder, but more than likely just crispy flux.

As someone who's had one apart and powered up on the bench before, I can tell you that there isn't next to no current running through there.

From memory, it's actually just a momentary connection to ground (it's either got a floating 5v or 12v on it which is then grounded when either the button is pressed or the knob is turned) which then wakes the unit up.

The DSP amp has a permanent power feed which is where it draws it's current from. The thin grey/black wire is just a 'wake up' line that the head unit puts 12V on when it powers up, to tell the rest of the system to power up too - but that wire isn't current carrying either.

However, if your volume knob/power button isn't working - then you'll probably have to swap that encoder out, as the spring action is internal to the encoder, rather than a separate switch/spring mechanism

I don't know where people get £500 for a Nanocom from?

Looking on the BBS website - it's usually just over £300 direct from the manufacturer...

As Sloth mentioned - the text OB copied/pasted and that I then annotated as to what it ACTUALLY does, was someone who 'got lucky' with absolutely NO understanding of how the system works.

The P38 security system isn't rocket science to understand - there's no transponders, RFID, or any of the fancy stuff the newer vehicles use... the remote fob is PURELY RF driven, which yes has issues - but these have been covered time and time again with symptoms (battery drain being the biggest) and various fixes from unhooking the RF receiver, to adding a second fob/relay to switch the RF receiver on/off, to replacing the RF receiver with the upgraded version.

The door side of things is purely down to 3 microswitches - 2 of which are used in the locking/unlocking, EKA, and all that.

Granted, I'm more electronics biased, and I spent the money on a Gen3 receiver the first time mine went flat from RF interference... but the system is REALLY not that difficult to research, understand how it works, and make sure you're locking/remote system is up to scratch and working.

I left my P38 for 6 weeks when I was away working last year, and came back to it and it unlocked on the fob and started straight up. Surely I can't be the ONLY one with a P38 who has one that works as it should, without having to disable everything in fear that it will shit itself. The ONLY thing switched off on mine is the passive immobiliser, and that's because the coil around the ignition is faulty, and I got annoyed with having to press the remote button every time it timed out and re-immobilised. But when I get around to replacing the passive immobiliser coil, I'll switch that back on too.

That should work (unless it's gone into complete lockout again). If you know the EKA then on a 2000 then Nanocom should do it.

You can also read the input status of the microswitches to see if one is faulty.

No, syncmate won't do it.. that will just resync engine ecu and BECM.

If you can't enter the EKA then could be a dodgy microswitch in the door latch, chafed wire etc...

If you had a Nanocom, then you could (on later ones) enter the EKA and disarm the BECM (again, after KEYCODE LOCKOUT has gone) via the OBD port which would bypass any dodgy latch issues

Yes... when I get home in a fortnight ;)

What you need a pic of?

Yes, the Alpine units will let you turn them on and listen to the radio etc with the ignition off.

They'll only let you do it if the code has been put in and all that, and I think they have a timeout of 20mins to stop the battery from being flattened too far.

Sounds more like a head unit issue to me rather than the DSP amp end.

I'd be able to make a DSP replacement to drive the full speaker setup, if I had a look at the wiring in the vehicle to see where the extra speakers were fed from - RAVE doesn't show any addition wiring diagrams for the vehicles with additional speakers over the standard 'premium' spec.

Factory nav is an easier one to replicate - I'm pretty sure I have a solution for that, just haven't got around to wiring something up to try is - mainly as a) had no time, b) not yet had any demand, and c) I don't have a working nav drive to test it on (I could test it on a normal line level signal though for proof of concept).

I don't see why pulling the fuse and or battery would kill the head unit or the DSP.... The DSP amp is pretty much all solid state, and probably has an EEPROM on it somewhere - but it shouldn't be affected by power loss... likewise with the head unit... The only thing I've heard that you can kill by sudden power disconnection is the nav drive.

I can't tell you what the difference is like between poly bushes and original - but between doing the ball joints, anti roll bar bushes and the radius arm bushes, mine feels a LOT sturdier on the road - especially over potholes etc.

Previously it felt like it was going to throw you off the road into a hedge everytime you hit a pothole. Now it just feels like there's a bit of play in the steering (I'm thinking steering column in my case as pretty much everything else has been replaced) - but it feels like it's sticking to the road, rather than trying to launch off.

The bushes make a decent cracking sound as you press them into the tool, as they are being squeezed down to size, but don't think it is likely to damage them, so you should be fine.

I'd be more worried if they didn't have the tool and just used a massive press to jam it in and hope for the best!

My 20T press was just fine for radius arm bushes.... with the proper tool to press the bush into first to squeeze it down to size.

They're probably more likely to have damaged the casing of the bush trying to just ran it into the radius arm without the tool and just a bigger press...

I'd doubt a shop who ranted that much about the p38 would have spent £80 on the right tool for the job.

I had all mine pressed out and new ones back in the radius arms in about an hour... I was going slow though to make sure I was happy I wasnt going too break anything!

You can try that... but I believe they simply got lucky in the post mentioned... Grounding the various wires isn't 'bypassing the security system' but rather just mimicking the microswitches in the door latch.

I'll try to 'decode' that horrific paragraph - I know it's a copy/paste as whoever originally posted it obviously didn't understand paragraphs... (It's been going around awhile, and in fact had a guy on facebook message me with that exact posting the other week say I might be interested in it) are:

How to disarm the alarm...... I have discovered a way to override the range rover alarm system. I recently had the unpleasurable experience of the transmitter not responding while the vehicle was armed in the super locking mode. So the first thing I tried was the EKA procedure.....It did not work, in fact all it did was open the driver's door and trigger the alarm. All of the other doors including the rear hatch remained super locked. I attempted to start the vehicle and got a display on the dash that said "ENGINE IMMOBILIZED". I tried to resync the transmitter and that didn't do any good. After about an hour of trying to start the truck I got fed up and took of the driver's door panel to have a look at the wiring. I found a harness that comes from the actuator and plugs into the door control module; it has seven wires in it. Orange w/ black actuator motor (CDL Motor) Pink w/ black actuator motor (Motor Common) Blue w/ red alarm arm/ alarm disarm (Key Switch) Green w/ red alarm disarm (CDL Switch) Purple w/ white doors unlock (Door Ajar Switch - NOT DOORS UNLOCK) Orange w/ white (Superlock Motor) Black ground Grounding the blue/red wire momentarily arms the alarm and locks the doors.(with CDL open circuit (locked) triggering this to ground effectively is turning the key to 'lock') Grounding the blue/red wire a second time activates the super locking mode. (yes, this will do if done quickly enough - as with turning the key in the lock twice in quick succession) Grounding the purple/white wire while the alarm is armed will trigger (panic) the alarm. (because if the alarm is set and you open the door, it will set the alarm off) Grounding the blue/red wire when the alarm has been triggered will silence the horn and stop the parking lights from flashing. (this only tells it the door has been unlocked with something like the sill button - I wouldn't necessarily expect this to stop the alarm going off though) I discovered that if you ground the blue/red wire & the green/red wire at the same time it disarms the security system even if it is in super locking mode, the immobilizer is also disarmed and allows the vehicle to be started. (this is effectively just triggering the CDL to unlock, and the key switch at the same time - making the vehicle think that it's been unlocked with the key in the door. In theory if the EKA is disabled, then yes this would then let you start the vehicle) Grounding the green/red wire while the alarm is in a disarmed state locks the doors without arming the alarm. (yes - this is as if you've just locked the door with the sill lock button and not the key in the door and is normal) Grounding the purple/white wire while the alarm is in a disarmed state unlocks the doors. (this makes no sense as the Purple/White is the door ajar switch and has nothing to do with the central locking part) My actuator was unplugged when I tested my new findings

With all that aside....

In THEORY... If the EKA is disabled then you should be able to just unlock the vehicle and it should bypass all of the EKA malarky... or you might have to lock it first with the key, and unlock it again and it should unlock all the doors and let you resync the remote.

I would only recommend trying that on a decent charged battery, as low voltage to the BECM will cause all sorts of headaches no doubt.

Depending on the software version of the BECM, then (and I know this because I had one on my bench from Canada that powered up with the alarm going off, even after unlocking) even if the EKA is disabled, then doing the 'disarm' procedure in the BECM with Nanocom will still reset it. Obviously you need communication to the BECM for that though.. And the BECM software to be V36 or later.

This predicament is one of the reasons I don't encourage owners to disable the EKA when I reset lockouts etc - as you've found, there is no way if the EKA is disabled and it has a fit to get around it - well other then I've just mentioned above - but that requires nanocom at least!

I also don't believe that you will be able to enable the EKA with it in an alarmed/locked out state... Just like you can't disable the EKA or turn the passive immobiliser OFF when it's immobilised or expecting the EKA - because otherwise all someone would need to steal the vehicle is diagnostics to do that, and a manual key blade.

You might be able to 'write' the EKA setting back to 'Enabled' and it might say it's written successfully, but I believe if you exit out of the BECM and go back into it, it will have reverted to 'Disabled'

I would personally check the door latch microswitches whilst the battery is out an on charge - as if it's got a dodgy microswitch, then that could be causing it to not unlock properly with the key in the door and disarm like it should (in theory) with the EKA disabled. If this is the case then triggering the wires in the above post will mimic the key being turned and should get it unlocked... If that doesn't work, then it's possible the BECM has gone into lockout and will need resetting with something like my Faultmate to clear the lockouts from the CPU.

You can,

BUT

You need to know the fob code that's being transmitted from the key fob... which unless you have a fancy fob reader like myself, you can't extract the ID from the data stream.

And even then, the BECM will only accept 4 sequential fob ID's (which work out as key 1-4 of a locket funnily enough). So you can't use 1 key from one lockset, and one key from another lockset to give 2 keys. As only one lockset can be programmed at a time.

If you found another lockset which had 2 keys in it, then could program them to work, so you'd have a second key. But your original one for the vehicle would cease to work...

It's actually easier and a lot less hassle (and probably nearly cheaper when you take into account buying another lockset to use) to just get another original fob from Land Rover.

I'm away at the moment, Morat :( Back in October for a few days though... I can work on a latch when I'm back and send to you though if that helps?

Microswitches - they're a pain on the later ones. I use Cherry DC series switches, but they require pinning I use M2.5 rod) and a couple of new holes drilled in the casing for them to fit properly. Since, typically, the later ones with the moulded microswitches have their locating tabs in different places to individual microswitches (which the earlier types used!)

Also worth checking the connectors from the door loom to the body loom (in the body side after the sheath that the loom runs through)

The pulses for the window moving are sent through separate wires than the outstation serial link. So it could be that one of those is corroded and has a bad connection, so the BECM isn't seeing the correct pulses to tell where the window is in its travel..

Mine seems to do about 800 miles between the max/min levels of the dipstick... which is about a litre to top up again...

And that's on the new short engone from V8 Dev. It is running 10w40, but even so, it's about the same as before I did the rebuild.

I replaced the oil separator, but the last time I had the upper manifold off there was a fairly large (or what I'd imagine to be more than normal) amount of oil in the inlet tract.

I'm also not 100% sure how good sealing the valves are.. they were skimmed, but after everything else I found when getting them back from the local shop... I wouldn't be surprised if they're letting more through and it's using it that way.

Engine still runs nice though...

My 2000 vogue, (non SE) is oslo blue, but think the lower tailgate is ok.

That, and in away working now through pretty much until October!

I'd only recommend Fobfox... I haven't had a key refurbed by him - but know a fair number of people who have... I've dealt with him about other things P38 locking related, and he knows his stuff with the P38 remotes, and tests them thoroughly..

If it's been locked with the remote, but you unlock it with the key (or from inside which sets the alarm off) then it will either need to be disarmed with the remote or the EKA...

If the remote buttons are a bit iffy, or there's interference, then that can knock the remote option out... the EKA is the only way then, which also isn't helped by the rod falling out... almost sounds like a 'perfect storm' of P38 problems...

As I mentioned in PM - even if you can't get/afford a Gen III Receiver at the moment - your '96 will have shipped with the first Gen I receiver which will let anything through - if you can get hold of a Gen II receiver, and (if you still have RF problems) disconnect the antenna, that might sort that..

You can (cheaply) get new button pads for the key fob, so that should hopefully sort that - commonly sold with replacement batteries... which if you replace the battery, do it with the vehicle UNLOCKED - as it will need resyncing once the batteries have been replaced - and if the vehicle is locked, then you'll need to do the EKA first, before it will let you resync the remote...