^ I’ll definitely come back and do those BBUS tests at some point when I feel stronger. They do seem simple enough.

However, today, the ‘alarm fault’ message just disappeared. All by itself as far as I can see. So I feel it’s a question of letting sleeping dogs lie.

Thanks guys,

Well, I thought I’d cleared it, but this morning it had come back. The thing is, I haven”t had a roof liner (and therefore no ultrasonic sensor above the B pillar) for months and months. All the time it was in my garage and being taken in/out; and my short private road runs pre-MOT, there was no sign of this. Just came on after the MOT.

Interestingly now though, on the Nano, it doesn’t appear as a fault to be cleared - but does on the dash…

I have to say one of the things I never do with this car, having read so many horror stories, is leave the key in the ignition, or even in the car! So I think my keys are both transmitting and unlocking, but I will definitely go in and change those settings. If they work for you after 444,444 miles I’m sure they’ll suit me.

I’ll also check out rave for the alarm sounder. Should I assume it’s dead by this stage (22 years) or is it likely there’s still some life in it?

^^^ 100%! My finger was hovering over the button as I was driving along waiting for the space, but I can’t say for sure what mode I was in when the foot got planted.

Tomorrow’s fun is probably taking the ‘other half’ out for a spin ( or more accurately, letting her take the car for a spin). I probably need a sensible car for a 3 or 4 day trip to Glasgow - i.e. hers. So her choice will be the Defender or the Range Rover. I know what she’d have more fun in.

Thanks Harv - so good just to drive it!

At one point, on a B road, I was behind a little car, and a lorry. Quite obviously the little car was going nowhere. Because I know the road, I knew when the straight sections were coming. It’s just glorious to see the space, plant your right foot, and have this 22 year old thing just leap forward!

Yes, given current fuel prices, it’s expensive - but you can’t take it with you!

Ok, seeing as there’s an existing topic I’ll try putting this on here.

For all the months the car’s been in my garage getting worked on I”ve had the battery on or off as needed - no issues as far as I could see, and I wasn’t always as good as I should have been about following the ‘igntition off, disconnect within 30 secs’ procedure. Still, no issues.

Took the car for its MOT, and when I collected it there was an “alarm fault” message on the display - but it didn’t seem to cause any particular problem.

Running about in the car today it seemed a little ‘sluggish’ sometimes on responding to the lock/unlock on the key fob (new battery about 8 months ago - buttons barely used since).

Then at one location I’d left the car unlocked while chatting to someone - maybe 15 minutes - came back and it was immobilised. Jumped out, lock/unlock, and it started.

Got home, plugged in the nano and cleared the alarm fault.

But….. what’s going on? What did my MOT tester do? I’ve had the immobiliser thing kick in before too, but it spent days ‘powered up’ in the garage, and unlocked, without having an immobiliser fit…? Puzzled, me.

Edit - meant to ask too. I’ve read something, somewhere about the alarm sounder being nicad powered, and that these can die. What’s the real story?

Well, not today, but yesterday my car got a completely clean MOT, no advisories, nothing!

So thanks to all for the advice on sunroofs, and heater matrix ‘O’ rings and indeed everything else.

Even happier to report that during a post-test ‘Italian tune up’ the car has lost all its tendencies to wallow and leap about the road. You can still tell it’s a 2 ton beast, but through the bends it’s much more predictable.

Now all I have to do is fill the tank….!

Well, further progress…. But my O rings didn’t arrive!

Managed to track down the last 300mm pozi2 screwdriver in town, so thought I might as well give it a go now that the plusgas has been doing its thing. It certainly was trying to cam out (even with a smear of cutting paste) so a two handed job to keep enough pressure on the end of the screwdriver, and to turn it. A bit of to and fro did help to keep it coming. Quite a bit of thread lock on that from the factory isn’t there? In fact it strikes me as odd that they would put to much thread lock on a fixing with a screwdriver head? Not that I plan to do this again in a hurry, but I’m going to see if I can’t find a hex or torx screw in time.

Even with the pipes disconnected in the engine bay, and pulled back a bit, it’s still awkward to get in there isn’t it - (rhetorical question!). I got the old O rings out - squared off and brittle as expected. So all that needs done now (once the new O rings arrive) is to clean up the end of the pipes, and see if I can’t get some pics of the matrix pipe ‘receiver’ to see if there’s any dried coolant or gunk in there that I should try and get out - though I’m not sure how that would go.

All in all, and coming from someone who started mechanicing on the old BL minis, this job has a high PITA rating for a newbie.

Well, I got there….. and my O rings didn’t arrive!

To be honest, because of health reasons I’ve not been up to scratch since the new year, and without going into any detail, the main impact is a lack of proper sleep. So it’s better for me to do short bursts, rather than long days. So I was happy enough to leave it at lunchtime with just the coolant to drain, and the matrix screw to tackle. I did give it a good going over with Plusgas, so here’s hoping that will do its stuff overnight.

I can see that getting duct tape around the duct is going to be entertaining….

Thanks for the morale support so far.

Thank you both. Didn’t mean to give you unpleasant flashbacks Gd!

With two recommendations for cutting the duct, that’s where I’ll be going then.

It’s interesting that there are two ‘inaccessible’ screws on this job, and one hole seems to do both. I now understand why the larger holes have been made. They had seemed like overkill to me, and a bit cack-handed.

I should have a longer go at it tomorrow.

OK - time to fall back on the collective brain again.

I headed out this afternoon thinking that all I needed to do was drill access to the hidden ducting screw, move the ducting to one side, and access the matrix pipe clamp.... Eh, no. Maybe it's that I'm pussyfooting around and haven't gone all RRAAWWR! and medieval on the plastic parts, but I'm just not seeing how, even having followed the instructions, I can get good enough access to the matrix/pipes.

The pictures in the 'wayback' instructions don't include any looking down into the empty dash area, so I've marked up a couple here.

In the pic above you can just see the temperature sensor clip on one of the heater pipes. But immediately after I took this pic, I did manage to move the air duct a little further - down and back (at the bottom end) - but this brought it hard up against the plastic cable duct (which the instructions have not mentioned moving. Now that little gap has closed:

At the moment, unless I can get the duct to move considerably more out of the way, I don't see how I'll be able to do this job without taking the dash out. The plastic panel, that was drilled to access the ducting screw, needs to come out at least. I'd already loosened it to allow me to get the ducting this far.

I can, just get my hand in to the matrix at the moment, with my wrist flexed backwards, but there's no way I'd be able to get two hands in there, or have enough room to clean pipes or install O rings and manouvre pipes and clamp back into place.

I guess the only question I have is about the ducting. At the moment, if I pull it away from the heater at the top, it just slots right back into place. If that needs to "off", and I also need a hand or two to manouvre the lower end of it, then I'm going to need someone else to help. I don't see how I can access both ends of this duct at the same time, with sufficient grip/strength to move it. And finally, where am I putting it? The 'wayback' instructions say it can be 'swung away'... and at the moment, I'm not seeing how I can get to 'swing' it anywhere, far less out of the way.

Those instructions also mentioned that someone had removed the dash top to do this job, and thought it worthwhile. I must admit that's where my thoughts are at the moment.

(Edit - been doing some more searching too, and the other option is of course to get the multi-tool onto the duct. I saw one reference to a 'preferred' place to cut it - but the pic was missing. I don't "like" cutting things like that, even if it doesn't make an awful lot of material difference, it seems like a 'bodge' to me. But if needs must....)

Well, my O rings aren’t supposed to be here until Thursday or Friday, but I thought I’d just get on with it. If nothing else, the sooner I can get some plus-gas on the screw head the better, and the more likely it will behave itself.

I didn’t quite get that far, but I did get to the point where I now need to drill the hole to access the ‘secret screw’. As it’s my first time at this, and wanting to make it as stress free as possible for myself, I removed more of the stuff in the centre console to get some visibility in there (HEVAC, radio, and switch/surround). Only a few more screws and multi plugs, and I feel that I have a much better idea what’s ahead.

Tomorrow I’ll hopefully get the heating ducting removed and some plus-gas on the screw. I’ll leave that to do it’s stuff until the O rings are here.

I have at least got a glimpse of the matrix where the pipes and O rings are, so it’s no longer some hidden, mythical thing. Lots of red coolant around there too. Before I clean that off I’m going to see if there’s any evidence of it having come from the matrix itself, as opposed to the O rings - but I am banking on the O rings themselves.

Thanks for all the help.

Useful video, thanks - particularly as it’s some nice ‘high res’ images of the pipes and matrix.

Whatever you might put on the O rings would have two purposes surely - 1 not to degrade the O ring compound and 2 - allowing that little degree of necessary flex and movement.

Does RAVE say that a dab or red HOAT coolant is OK? Would a dab of silicone grease not do the same thing?

I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but it’s obviously the access problems rather than the technicality of the job itself.

Thanks Gd,
Lots of good reading on those links. I’ve already made an order for the genuine O rings.

Reading that, and other stuff it occurs to me that the O ring seal was probably disturbed when I was fighting with the heater pipes in the engine bay, doing the head gaskets - and it’s barely done 10 miles since then…..

Another consideration is that I am planning a carpets and seats swap but I really wanted just a few months where I could drive the thing before getting stuck into the next job…. so O ring change is definitely the first step and see if that can get me the couple of months of fun/reward that I think I need right now.

Ho Hum… I was prepping my car for it’s overdue MOT. Parked in the sunshine, opened the driver’s side door, and noticed some little ruby-red drops glistening on the carpet….. After all I’ve been through recently I wasn’t a happy bunny.

How “robust” are the matrices really? This car is 22 years old, but only 78k miles. Is this liable to be a simple O ring job, or is it usually 50/50 whether it’s the matrix too?

Contemplating cancelling the MOT test (Wednesday) because I won’t get the parts in time. I’d hate to ‘chance it’ and then find the car stranded and needing recovery. Guessing the ‘matrix bypass’ is just a U bend of 19 or 21mm pipe, and that this gets done in the engine bay?

How long would a ‘drippy’ situation last? For all the use I’ve given this in the last few months (or year) it might have been leaking for ages, and it’s just that it caught my eye this time in the sunlight.

Off to research O ring and matrix changes.

Indeed. I had all sorts of deeply frustrating and annoying sunroof shenanigans yesterday. This included an unplanned cassette out/cassette in, and an even more unplanned removal of the sunshade and its clips (though they behaved OK).

To be honest I don’t know if they are C or E clips strictly speaking, but it’s the 2.3mm ones we need for the sunroof. They are just too tiny for anyone with normal sized fingers to work with in a properly controlled way.

Thanks David - I'll compare that against what I have and see what I think.

I "think" I used Arbomast in my new seal, and that is supposed to remain permanently flexible, so it's just possible I'd be able to get the current 'new' seal off in good condition. I do also have two used ones, which as far as I can see are undamaged.

I'll tinker a bit more, cleaning and lubing stuff, and see where that takes me.

I had ordered a complete cassette from a breaker, but I’ve put that ‘on hold’. Once I saw just how good mine was I baulked at the idea of paying good money for something which would probably be more worn, or in poorer condition.

I’ve a couple of other half-thoughts for potential causes - to do with the placing or alignment of the glass onto the metal sunroof frame, but that would take annotated pictures to demonstrate or explain properly.

Booked for an MOT next Wednesday, so I either need to get this sorted, or pray for a dry day!

Hi folks,

Pete - same story really. New seal from Island; had to trim a bit off the end once fitted. And, until now I thought I’d done a reasonable job of getting the seal on nice and tight….

Gd and DavidAll - it’s occurred to me that you can help with your spare sunroof glasses, even if they don’t get shipped up to the far north. If they still have seals on them, and aren’t buried in the darkest recesses of the garage, would you be able to measure them for me - front to back, across/inthe middle of the glass? Maybe with a measurement for gross size (seals uncompressed), and then with the seals compressed?

I think I measured the window aperture in the roof at 490mm (but I was “clinging on” and didn’t have a stepladder).

I then removed the sunroof again, and that measures at almost exactly the same, certainly once you allow for seal compression. Which leaves me thinking what’s the target I’m going for? Exactly the same as the aperture, a little bigger, or smaller?

I know the glass is supposed to be adjusted in the frame, but that talks more about vertical adjustment than fore/aft. Is there any fore/aft adjustment? I don’t think there can be given that the forward-most mounting bracket has the pin on it which engages with the glass/frame. There’s no play there that I can see.

I wonder if I loosened all the 8 bolts holding the cassette in place, if I could nudge the whole thing forward a month - compressing the front of the seal, and giving more leeway at the back…? Clutching at straws?

Having looked at your website Simon, it does look like a 'no brainer' - but only if I can get fuel reasonably close by.

Someone - possibly GilbertD - did post a link to a map of LPG suppliers a little while ago. Any chance that could be posted again - if only to remind me that, where I am, a conversion doesn't make so much sense.

Ta.

PS - welcome David !

Thanks guys,

Yep, I'm up near Inverness, so not very handy for Surrey, or Peterborough - though I do appreciate the offers. I think this would be an ideal way to confirm my suspicions, but probably just as easy to peel of the 'new' seal and put one of the old ones back on, taking more care to get the seal fully 'home'. If this is the issue, it's obviously only a marginal difference. I did have to use a little force to push the glass in/out of the aperture - nothing excessive, but it's just clearly too much for the mechanism. I know that if I were to keep trying to use it like that, something would break, and I'd have a bigger problem.

The EAS - to be honest I don't know for sure (yet), but clearly something to do with the valve block or driver pack. I copped out and bought a refurbed block/driver from an ebay seller I've used and spoken to in the past. I just fitted that and all the problems disappeared.

They are keen to get the old one back, and offer a little refund for that. I had thought of hanging on to it as a spare, but on the other hand they'll test it when they first get it and might help me by providing some more detail into what seems to have gone wrong.

I suspect that when I rebuilt the block I probably used some lube on some of the O rings. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - I'm really familiar with O rings in service..... in a scuba environment. It would only have been a smear, but maybe that would be enough. Or it could be the driver pack? Anyway, I'll hopefully be able to update at some point.