Well, only 6 years after starting this thread I reckon I can tick this job off the list... all the black/AshGrey door cards fitted, and (almost) all the speakers working. Delighted. All I need now is an MOT so I can get out and enjoy it!

I initially decided to use the 'mid speaker' wiring as the feed for the crossover, after removing the capacitor. Before going any further though, having removed the capacitor, I reconnected the mid speaker and got a good volume so I was happy to proceed.

However, once I'd done the wiring (as above) with the tweeter and the mid on the same crossover output, and tested it all, I was getting next to nothing from the mid speaker. I guess this makes sense if it was only getting the tweeter signal.

I slept on that, after having done one door, and then decided to rewire it using the bass / woofer wiring as the feed to the crossover. The crossover now only supplies the woofer and the new tweeters; and I re-connected the mid speaker to it's original wiring (minus the capacitor). All good. Decent output from 8 out of 10 speakers, and I'm really pleased with the sound - though I'm no audiophile. Quite pleased with the neat-ness of the install too, fitting the crossovers in the space where the door amps go.

As I'd done the rear doors before learning about the capacitor in the mid-speaker wiring, those two speakers are still being fed via the capacitors and aren't doing much. So one tiny thing to do yet, once I can find the enthusiasm or the need to remove the 2nd row doorcards again, would be to remove those capacitors from the mid speaker supply - but I can't call that any kind of priority. It makes me wonder whether the factory headunit, even one using the ISO plugs, was sending out a 'chunkier' signal to the door speakers, necessitating the capacitor on the mid speaker wiring, but still allowing enough to get through to generate some output?

Anyhow I'm happy, and grateful for all the advice that's helped me get this far. Ta.

Thanks Gd.
The new speakers have arrived but I won't get near them until next week now. I appreciate the comment about supplying the mid and tweeters from the same output on the crossover though. I wouldn't have thought of that, or with my limited knowledge of electronics, would have been paranoid about doing some damage. I had kind of reconciled myself to having two speakers in the front doors (tweeter and bass) and just forgetting the mids. This means I should get all three going. I'll update when I've done the job. Ta.

Thanks very much for that. I haven't managed to open the electrical manual yet, so the references will be handy.

I think mine was maybe a base model, with various options ticked. I suspect it was initially bought as a company car back in the day, so maybe minimising purchase price to minimise tax??

Anyway, I'm fairly confident the door cards I've just taken off are original, and there's what looks very much like factory wiring to all the mid speakers. I could send pics (where are we hosting pics now that Imgur has stopped working?) but I don't think it's really worth it - just a pic of the standard door wiring.

If I'm understanding you correctly though, for the mid speaker wire, an open circuit/lack of continuity doesn't mean anything's wrong just that the capacitors are 'blocking' the tester? This then leads me to think that the wiring to the mids is OK - assuming they are connected. I could accept that one door might have a break or a fault, but to have that happen to all four seems unlikely.

My next step is to look at the door wiring - unwrapping the loom to see if I can find where the speaker wires in the door join the main loom. If there's something obvious there, fair enough, if not I was planning on taking my feed for the JBL crossover directly from the main incoming wiring pair, and ignoring the mid speakers.

Thanks again.

Righty-ho! In the interests of providing as much info as possible, and helping myself, I've been out with the multi-meter...

All 4 mid-range speakers in the old door cards are testing OK - between 3.3 and 3.5Ohms. Confident I'm not futzing up the testing, as the "dead" woofer was showing as dead on the meter too.

With the radio playing I was getting a ca. 12.xx mA signal from the feed wires to the tweeters and woofers on both front doors; nothing from either mid-speaker feed.

Not especially surprising in light of the next checks, continuity. Both front doors have full continuity from the loom ISO plug to the woofer and tweeters - positive and negative. Both doors have continuity to the mid range speaker on the positive, not on the negative. I shouldn't but I think it's fair to assume that I'd find the same on the back doors if I could be bothered to remove the door cards again.

So, an 'earth fault' somewhere?? Or with a 'mid range' install maybe the mid speakers were never supposed to work?? I'll have a look at the electrical pages in the WSM to see if I can make any sense of them, and maybe find where the earth issue or connection might be?

In other news I have ordered a set of the JBL component speakers so at least I'll have good woofers and tweeters. Maybe I'll be satisfied at that as far as sound is concerned - but I do always like things to work as they should so I'm interested in chasing down why the mid-range cabling doesn't have negative continuity.

Also, FWIW the car loom is simply two ISO connectors. There's an extra small/medium yellow multiplug on the loom too - just floating in my case - but I'll see if I can figure out what that's supposed to be too. (UK X plate vehicle - 2000my)

Resurrecting my own thread it appears - with apologies for being AWOL for ages. On the plus side the P38 just keeps on keeping on.

When I got my black (“Ash grey”) interior it came with door cards. They became “in the way” apparently, so I started swapping over today - the first time I’d taken the originals off to see behind them. I was 99% certain that my car had no amplifier in the boot but have checked this again, and I now know that there are no amps in the doors. Highline BECM, but Lowline front door outstations. 10 speaker install with 3 in each front door and 2 in the each rear door. I think this means everything should be easier - but what do I know!

One of the large rear speakers is gone (tested in 2 known working locations) so I’ve swapped in the working ones from the front into the back doors. I will be getting new speakers for the front - quite probably the JBL ones, but….

I don’t seem to be getting anything from the mid-range speakers in any location, and fairly sure the tweeters in the front doors are also doing nothing at all. I’ve read the point about the bass speakers rusting and stopping working. Does this affect the mid ones too? It’s just a bit puzzling that they would all go. To my mind it points to something else but I don’t know what?

Is there another part of the system that’s hidden behind the dash somewhere? (Edit - after further googling/reading - I feel there must be “something” I’m missing? Otherwise how do the bass/mid/tweeter speakers get the appropriate signal??)

To recap it’s a Pioneer head unit, that replaced the Sony one in the car when I bought it. I never had or even saw the factory one.

I feel a bit of a “cheat” not contributing anything for ages and then coming straight back with a question, but I do appreciate any help.

Thanks

Ah well, at least I’m not alone… I have squirted a little bit of lube in the lock. Can’t do a great deal of harm.

I’ll also check the fusebox, though I don’t really associate the beeps with bumps.

I’ll be more switched on (pardon the pun!) if it happens again. But fingers crossed it’ll not become a big problem at the wrong time….. though I should have whispered that.

Hi folks,
Driving home this evening. All going fine, nothing in the display, when I heard 3 beeps. If there was anything in the dash display it was only there for a split second.

Stopped, left car for an hour or so and then was driven home in the car by my wife (I’d had eye relaxant drops put in and couldn’t). Got home, and as we arrived got the three beeps again, twice I think. This time I looked at the display and, just maybe, it was going through all the start-up series of warnings (low screen wash; window not set; etc).

Because I wasn’t driving I can’t say if the beep sequence did happen twice, or whether my wife had momentarily turned the key back on again - she can’t really say.

So could it be that there’s an intermittent fault at the back of the ignition switch (or somewhere else) that makes the car react as if it’s just been switched on? Meanwhile the engine keeps running and the car keeps on travelling down the road.

I think this is a new thing. It may have happened this morning on the way in, but I didn’t pay it much heed because everything kept on working. Now that it’s happened another 2 or 3 times on the same day I’m thinking something’s going on.

I had a previous incident with the central locking/immobiliser in a hospital car park drenched in radio signals, and there was a suggestion the ignition switch might have been a bit sticky. I have a little tin of graphite lock lube and I’ll drop a squirt into the switch. Is this likely to be all that’s wrong, or do those ‘symptoms’ suggest something uglier is rearing its head?

Ta.

Hi folks,
A while ago, when I had my rear bumper off I remember seeing that the metal frame looked really terrible and crispy. The bits where the bumper actually hangs onto the chassis at the back were definitely wafer-thin and “touch and go”. I’ve been paranoid ever since that any slight tap and the whole thing will crash to the ground. Living on borrowed time is how I see it, so I’ve been keeping my eyes open.

A week or so ago I saw a replacement listed on eBay, by a seller I’ve used before, with the plastic described as ‘wavy’ but the steel in very good condition so I ordered that. He wasn’t lying - apart from a bit of light surface rust, the metal is very solid indeed.

This afternoon I persuaded the metal and plastic to part company. I wasn’t too brutal, as I was trying to learn/figure out how I would do the same with my own one so as to combine the good metal from the eBay one, with the good plastic from mine, so I was trying to get the plastic cover off ‘gently’. Predictably the 4 brass nutserts bonded into the plastic at the sides of the bumper (under the body colour trim) just spun around, so I had to get a hacksaw blade in there and saw through the bolts.

Then I had to prise the plastic and steel apart so that I could get the same hacksaw blade in between metal and plastic to cut through the adhesive/bonding agent used. Finally a pry bar and some wooden wedges to ease plastic and metal apart and the job was done - plastic in useable condition had I wanted to; metal in good enough nick that with a bit of care and treatment it would probably see me out. Galvanising would maybe be over the top, but possibly worth thinking about if I could add other stuff to make up the minimum weight. I just don’t know enough about how the galv would cope in that sort of location.

Anyway it’ll be a couple of months before I have the RR into the garage to tackle the long-ish list of jobs I’d like to tackle, so I thought I’d ask if anyone else had dealt with this, and whether there were any specific things to do/avoid or workarounds that I might need.

(For example, for the 4 brass nutserts where the metal side panels are bolted to the plastic - under the body coloured trim -I can’t see any reason why I wouldn’t just drill straight through these and then use a stainless countersunk head machine screw and a nyloc nut in this location. Or a socket head cap screw with a low profile head. I know what I mean, even if I have it described it too well!)

But any advice / hints very gratefully received. Thanks.

Gilbertd wrote:

You should have the sensors in the pre-cat (as in, nearer the engine) holes and bungs in the post cat holes. Bungs with the right thread are often sold as replacement sump plugs.

Thanks as always - but interesting.. I would imagine that mine is still as it left the factory. Based on appearances, and the low mileage (63k or so) when I got it. I have one sensor each side, and they are definitely
post-cat. The bungs (or what little is left of them) are pre-cat.

I'll see if I can get pics to confirm, but that's the position.

I did wonder about welding a nut/washer into the surplus bosses instead of a bung..?

Thanks for your reply Pete, I hadn’t seen it till now. I just went with an intermediate pipe/silencer from one of the LR suppliers.

But everyone will be delighted that I’m back with yet another question!

Today was supposed to be rear brakes on a Skoda Yeti. That was nixed when I couldn’t get the caliper carrier bolts to shift. Allegedly 90Nm, but access is disastrous and even my big Milwaukee impact gun, which can work up to some huge torque, didn’t budge it one mm. Was destroying the UJ and achieving nothing. One for the professionals.

So I thought I could divert onto the RR exhaust… not much luck there either. I’m leaving the downpipes/cats till another day as dropping the gearbox crossmember is not the sort of job I want to do on a whim.

Couldn’t even do the middle pipe as the existing bolt flanges on both the downpipe and tailpipe are probably past using again. I might be surprised when I try cleaning them up, but I don’t want to try that until I have replacements to hand. I’ll need to get some of those “split” versions ( and they all seem to be in Shenzen…)

So, eventually to my questions. The new downpipes have two bosses each (1 before and after the cat). Fair enough, my existing one is the same. “Hopefully” the sensors will come out of the rearmost ones, but whatever bung/plug is in the front bosses is almost entirely gone. I estimate I have 0% chance of those coming out, and even if they did they’d be no use on the rebuild.

1) Looks like the plug is MYB100040L… no longer available. Is the thread a M12 fine pitch? I don’t have anything like that to hand to check. I think I’ve seen some Disco2 versions in stock - would they fit?

2) The workshop manual mentions sealing washers for the O2 sensors, but they’re not shown on the parts diagrams. Again assuming these crumble to dust when I get to that stage, are they just M12 copper?

Ta.
Donald

Brilliant - thanks very much indeed - I do appreciate it.

The JLR parts finder did show some for overseas markets, so I avoided those, but it was far from clear.

I had also wondered about those bosses/holes on some of the pics, and was going to go out and lie underneath the car to see what the story was - but not a great day for lying under cars today!

Hi guys,
Well, I've dropped in a few times over the last while to find answers to various things, but otherwise not been around for a while.

On the big plus side, the RR is still just trucking on. It's been more-or-less my daily driver for the last couple of years and just keeps on doing its thing. I know I'm asking for trouble in saying that....

Just passed it's MOT last week with 2 or 3 advisories - one of which was the exhaust having a mild leak. I also know that my front CATs are knackered (but at least they're quietly knackered, and not making that horrible tin-can noise any longer..) I've also grown too tired of the howling and roaring caused by the previous owner's centre silencer delete.

So it's new exhaust time, or at very least the front pipes and centre silencer. The problem is I find various part numbers for the down pipes. My VIN is A448*** and I get WCD105350, WCD105360, WCD000860.... and I can't readily see any difference. They all seem to say they're OK for a 4.0L V8 with CATs.

Can anyone point me in the right direction please? If there are any pitfalls/obstacles to doing this job I'd also appreciate a 'heads up' - I've seen some references to a gearbox cross member?

Any help and advice gratefully appreciated as always.

Ta.
Donald

Well, that was all very entertaining. The headlines:
1) I'm home, with the car, and it got here under its own power!
2) thanks very much GilbertD. I hope you have a sense of how much your support was appreciated.

Once I'd got the BECM bypassed, the car started as sweet as anything. No issues whatsoever.

In the hospital car park, after I'd synched the keys (or not, if the immobiliser was on) I was getting nothing from the fobs. No lock/unlock; no engine.

Once I'd got the engine going and got to the office (where the car often sits) lo, and behold, both keys lock/unlock the car without any further attention. The only thing I can think of is that the particular corner of the hospital car park I'd parked in is swamped in radio traffic. The previous owner made a point of telling me that he'd cut back the aerial in the fob receiver, but even then I think there must be too much. There's the hospital itself, and on the far side of the car park, the biggest ambulance control centre/depot in the north of Scotland. Police HQ about 1/2 mile away.

I reckon if I reconnected all the wiring back to standard, and tried again, that she'd fire up.... but it's one less thing to worry about at a busy time of year. I'd always intended to implement this wiring 'hack', but to make it switchable. In normal circumstances the BECM and the immobiliser would be connected. If I came up against anything like today, I could flick a hidden switch and get going again. This episode has convinced me this is the way forward, but its a job for a warmer season.

Thanks again GD.

Hey ho. Thanks very much for keeping an eye on this and adding suggestions.

I've done the key sync thing, both ways, and it's not making a difference. I do get a "press remote" message on dash, but pressing that makes no difference.

Going to get down to it and do the wiring now.

Hmm. So back at the car, with nanocom ad EKA.

The ignition switch is OK; nanocom says it's asked the BECM to reset the alarm state, but I'm still getting engine disabled.

I'm about to do the rewiring thing now, see if that will get me out of jail.... or at least the hospital car park...

Edit - wiring isn't so easy with the cars adjacent closely parked, and the rain, and the need to get the driver's seat out of the way.

It has to be something simple, but complicated....

.... and finally, I'm getting absolutely nothing from the keys. Pressing lock or unlock buttons does nothing with either. Door latches? So two faults coincidentally at the same time?

It was all so good at 6.45 this morning.

Brilliant! Thanks very much for replying so quickly. I'll be heading down again shortly, and this is really useful.

Once I'd lubed the ignition switch and jiggled the key around a bit I did hear the 'clunk' on key removal, but I didn't know about the barrel centre popping out. I'll watch for that.

I am fairly sure I have the EKA 'somewhere safe'..... Because the car has been so good I've let my P38 guard down a little and I'll need to dig that out.

And popping a fuse into position is a whole lot easier than pulling propshafts! I'm going to store a screen-dump of this on my phone for future reference.

Thanks again!

(Meant to ask though - on your last bit about just sticking the box in neutral if it's to be pulled onto a truck. Will the gearbox go into neutral if the engine isn't running? Is that solenoid powered then?)

Hi guys,
Grovelling apologies are due. I've not been on here for ages, and contributed nothing, yet here I am asking for help.... On the plus side, the reason why I've not been on is that the car has been amazingly, consistently reliable for many months, and as I've been really busy at work I was happy just to keep on truckin'.

Today though... early morning appointment at local hospital. Jump in car at 6.45am, turn key, engine starts, drive to hospital car park. All good. I was a little early, so I sat in the car (turned off, but ignition key in switch) to look at my phone. After about 10 minutes or so, I got out, hit the lock button on the fob and... nothing. "Ignition key in" message was displaying even with the key in my hand. I didn't have time to muck about so I locked it with the key and got the big 'beeep'. My fault was clearly leaving the key in the ignition for that extra 10 minutes.... another lesson learned.

Came back to the car, and nothing had changed. "Ignition key in" message displaying, and if I tried to turn the engine on "engine disabled". I called the cavalry and got my wife to bring down some lock lubricant and the 2nd key. Gave the ignition barrel a squirt of lube, and jiggled the key a bit, and I 'think' that part of the problem is gone. However, the central locking still won't respond to either fob, and the engine won't start.

Fortunately our hospital car park no longer has a 'pay and display' so I'm not racking up parking charges, but I can't leave it there, so I'm looking for a solution.

There was a guy on here a while ago selling modified Engine ECUs to bypass the immobiliser. I bought one, and fitted it, but never got to the point of disconnecting the starter relay wires from the BECM. So at the moment, my plan A is to wait for it to get a little brighter and to stop raining and return to the car with a length of wire and some crimp terminals in the hope that once I take the BECM out of the circuit, the engine will start. That would - hopefully, fingers crossed - allow me to get the car home.

I do have a Nanocom, but I'm a very inexperience user. Would this help me at all - and would it even fire up with the engine disabled?

Then 'worst case scenario' - how do I get the vehicle transported home in this condition? I do have 'AA membership' - not sure if that will help, but failing that I can get a local recovery firm to come down once the car park empties. The gearbox is in 'park'. Would I need to get underneath and disconnect both prop shafts from the diffs?

Any advice is always gratefully received - but particularly grateful in this instance!

(year2000 4.0L Thor)

Ta

Donald

Very happy to do that. “There but for the grace of God”.

Thanks again. I hadn't realised they had such potentially significant value - that's food for thought, and if I can get a decent fraction of that price above then it certainly makes any decision about replacement easier.

As I said, the Defender is hogging the garage at the moment - front axle refurb and transfer box/overdrive re-install. Realistically, looking at other commitments in the calendar it's going to be there for at least the next fortnight to three weeks.

Apart from the noise, if all else is running OK, is there any real/likely issue with using the RR over that period? Gives me time to order up replacements cats and centre silencer anyway. (And also take a better check this is the issue. Finally a use for the 'mechanics stethoscope' I bought on a whim about 2 years ago!)

Thanks again.

ChrIs - My first thoughts were something like the shields - heat shields or something rubbing against a moving part. Then it was clear the noise was present even sitting still.

On the point about large and small cats, is the conclusion that bigger is better or more long-lasting; cheaper = smaller and will clog up quicker? Maybe it doesn’t really matter. If the originals lasted 22 years, though I’m in no rush to get rid of the car I can’t see my still using it in that timescale. And I saw the genuine ones for £4000 - that certainly ain’t going to happen.