Hi folks,

Anyone here got nanocom and also an oscilloscope? My nanocom is playing up talking to EAS, and I'd like to see a known good trace of a chat between the two, to aid finding the fault.

Thanks,

Miah

Hi folks,

Lock mechanism in my daily has gone US, no longer detects the door opening, closer doesn't seem to return on it's own properly (guessing broken spring or similar) and makes an awful metal against metal bang when closing.

I'm guessing it's not worth attempting to repair it, but are the rumours of the rear doors being pigs to work on true?

Hi folks,

So I've got a rangey in just now which has faults on two out of three blend motors. Simplest solution is to throw a brand new set of genuine motors at it, or so I hoped.

I've bought them, hooked them up, and after resetting the faults... I get faults still. O.o

Far as I can see electrically, the motors are all fine, as are the potentiometers. So I dug a bit further into the pinouts in RAVE, the nanocom HEVAC pdf, and testing voltages with a multimeter. Doing this I discovered an oddity. Two of the three blend motors use red/black as their negative potentiometer voltage reference, as you'd expect based on RAVE. But the right hand potentiometer is mis-wired in all the harnesses I've looked at.

Pin 1 is supposed to be the right hand potentiometer positive voltage reference, and pin 5 the negative. Based on the multimeter, RAVE is correct. But the nanocom manual has them the opposite way round, which you could easily write off as a mistake, but the wires themselves are backwards in the harnesses I've seen.

Can anyone that's got a harness handy have a look and see what colour wires go into pins 1 and 5?

To save you digging in RAVE to figure out which pins that is, if you look at the connector, pin 3 is empty, so pin one is two to the left of the empty slot, and pin five two to the right. Both are on the outside edge of the HEVAC ECU.

Thanks!

Hi folks,

So I'm pulling my hair out trying to find the cause of my untoward emissions. At idle, everything is in the red. At fast idle, lambda goes green, hc sometimes goes green, and co is around 500ppm (200ppm is the limit).

V8 4.6 gems with a top hatted and rebuilt bottom end a couple of years ago. High torque camshaft. Top end skimmed, stem seals done and valves ground.

Its always suffered a bit from being rich at idle, and idle itself is slightly stumbly. Last year it scraped through the mot with a lot of loud pedal action getting it roasting hot etc.

This year though it is not playing ball.

Stuff I've done:
New plugs. Old ones all looked identical in colouring, couple had slight sooting down the side of the ceramic centre core.
New leads.
Coil pack resistances checked ok.
New fuel filter (genuine).
New air filter (Mann).
Air intake flexible pipe replaced to fix leak.
Lambda sensors tested on an oscilloscope, showing one was sluggish. Replaced and confirmed both switching at the same speed.
Valley gasket replaced (slight oil leak) and resealed, ram pipe and plenum sealed with threadlock.
Vacuum hose to fuel pressure regulator was slightly perished, but not leaking. Replaced anyway.
Fuel rail lifted with injectors in place and pump fired up to check for leaks. None found.
Tested each injector on the rail and no issues found. Not a scientific test but I don't have an injector test rig.
Refitted rail and found slight air leak at the o ring for cyl 1, replaced o ring and problem fixed.
Also found a very slight air leak from one of the LPG stubs, so fixed that (have now actually installed the LPG injectors).
Wurth fuel treatment run through.
Bp ultimate run through.
Oil flush, change and filter.
Nanocom mostly shows the fuel trims are around zero, with the short terms dancing around both sides of zero, more so at idle.
Also shows o2 sensors switching ok (oscilloscope confirmed this though).
Have tried three different gems maf sensors, all seem to give the same results.
Cleaned the idle air control valve (iacv) and plenum ports to gleaming.
Oil strainer checked and is clear. Oil breather hoses both clear and not perished.
In desperation I tried adjusting the idle adjustment screw, but it hasn't really helped, plus nanocom reports the idle steps as a percentage rather than raw steps, probably, so its anyones guess what it should be set to.

Probably more stuff that I've forgotten.

Anyway I'm out of ideas. I really need to get it to run cleanly before I finish off the LPG install, not least for my pocket!

Runs well otherwise, plenty of power and pick up, as Gordon can attest to :)

Any and all suggestions welcome!

Hi folks,

Working on a 2.5 just now that stalls easily setting off in first-high. Nanocom shows modulation up at 95% so I'm guessing the pump static timing needs a wee tweak?

Does that sound about right, or am I holding the wrong end of the stick?

I've seen mention online of people tweaking the pump position whilst watching nanocom, anyone tried that?

Ta.

Hi folks,

So I'm replacing the gearbox radiator on my 4.6, and heat was required for the pipe connections.

The temperature sensor took a tiny amount of heat itself, so I'd like to test that its working correctly still.

Is it an open/closed circuit style thermistor or a resistance based one?

Its currently short circuit, 0 ohms.

Thoughts?

Hi folks,

Was doing the o rings on a 4.0 westminster today for a guy in Glasgow. Or attempting to, anyhow.

Got the old ones out, they were a little square, but less crusty than mine were. Someone had been in there with the silicon sealant too. Cleaned it all up as best I could in situ, and put the new o rings in, screwed it back together, coolant back in and bled.

However, water is squirting out of somewhere around the black plastic bit where the pipes sit into. Almost seems like it's coming out of the back of it, but it's possible it's travelling down the bolt hole and out?

I've checked that the two pipes are engaged with their individual notches, cleaned off as much silicone as I can, and lubed the new rings so they slide in cleanly.

Any thoughts? Have I missed something, or is it the matrix that's US?

Thanks.

Totally off-topic, but today I helped my mate dismantle the dash of the parts donor Citroen XM on the driveway.

The sheer amount of copper behind there is staggering, so much cabling..

Anyway, what follows might not be news to some, but I'm putting it here in case someone finds it helpful.

Got the heater unit out of it, and interestingly enough it's almost an exact copy of the one in the rangey. The only real difference is that the XM unit is slightly more pauper spec, in that it doesn't have provision for separate heating zones (independent left/right flap control). The independent flaps are there, but bound together, most likely with the same type of metal rod that the rangey one uses for the top flaps.

As this XM is itself a semi-pauper spec one, with no air-con, it only has a single blend motor, used to control the temperature (this is digital on the XM). The distribution and recirculation flaps are cable driven.

Blend motor is an exact match for those in the Rangey, and unlike ours, it has a ~ 15cm pigtail before it hits a connector. Why they didn't do that on ours, who knows.

The heater unit itself is, as mentioned, very similar to the Range Rover one. The only real difference I have been able to spot is the lack of zone control. There are mounting posts for a blend motor on the drivers side, but the hole for the lever is missing, and a bit of plastic moulding in the same area is missing too. Wouldn't be too hard for someone enterprising to modify though.

Hi folks,

With plenty of assistance from gordonjcp, I have finally joined the hallowed ranks with a 1997 vintage 4.6 HSE:

Things I've noticed that need attention thus far (more for my own reference than anything else):

• battery seems quite weak (alternator is putting out 14+ volts so not that)
• head gasket on o/s bank is blowing. a lot
• heat shield missing on that bank too
• feels quite low on power to me, although it did leave gordonjcp in it's dust - probably mostly down to the head gasket
• side step on o/s is flapping about a bit, looks like it needs a bit of welding
• radio has been replaced with a Kenwood offering, but the wiring has been utterly mangled, and what's left sounds awful
• radio aerial isn't connected (seems to be two connectors behind there, separate ones for am/fm?)
• various controls aren't backlit, including the heating lcd - probably bulbs
• headlining sagging
• b pillar etc trim has gone all wierd, not sure what the fix for that is
• drivers seat slightly torn on the usual edge
• whole car including steering wheel shudders at just over 50mph, not always, but fairly reproducible
• needs an lpg conversion desperately, i've only had it a day and it's already consumed about 60 quid in fuel
• airbag/srs warning
• all the windows are complaining about not being 'set' at power off, probably related to the flat battery issues
• sticky boot unlock button
• engine is a little oily, but not leaving any obvious drips
• slight damage to some of the cream dashboard plastic in places
• cruise control doesn't seem to do a lot; gordonjcp noted the vacuum lines are knackered, but don't know if that's masking any other issues
• heated seats seem to kinda work, but quite slow and weak
• gordons car has some kind of heated windscreen, but not sure if this one does, or if it's just not working
• heater controls (other than fan speed) don't seem to do a great deal (air con clutch seems to be kicking in though), so demisting was pretty much useless

Probably missed a few things, but that covers the majority.

Can someone bung me a copy of this 'rave' thing, assuming that's the best place to start with taking things apart?

Regards,

Miah