P38A A series of faults

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Datatek said:
If you press the EAS lock button, you can select motorway height and it will stay there. I run both my P38's locked at motorway height, saves wear and tear on the pump with the constant unnecessary height changes on our regular shopping run.
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Useful to know, thanks! My ride height is going to be determined mosty by how the trailer sits behind it, which definitely means that it will be locked.

Mot booked for Saturday with wheel alignment, everything now crossed to see what I find tomorrow when I arrive down in Kent
 
Rubberknees said:
Like the Alpine. Many moons ago an uncle of mine had one in ice blue. Great car til he let a local garage do some repairs a nd b*ggered it up and it never ran again. Is that the one with the 1725 cc engine if my memory is correct
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Yup, 5 main bearing crank 1725 with twin 150 CD Stombergs to deliver all of about 92hp...with my previous one the engine was sent off to Holbay for a rebuild using a Hunter H120 cylinder head (smaller valve remarkably) and high compression pistons installed along with a slightly tweaked cam, lighter flywheel and blueprints. It should have been good for about 130hp so would have had standard Tiger performance due to the lighter weight of the 4 pot engine
 
Slooby said:
Useful to know, thanks! My ride height is going to be determined mosty by how the trailer sits behind it, which definitely means that it will be locked.

Mot booked for Saturday with wheel alignment, everything now crossed to see what I find tomorrow when I arrive down in Kent
Click to expand...

Always lock when towing. Usually at normal ride height but see how level the trailer is.
 
Slooby said:
Useful to know, thanks! My ride height is going to be determined mosty by how the trailer sits behind it, which definitely means that it will be locked.

Mot booked for Saturday with wheel alignment, everything now crossed to see what I find tomorrow when I arrive down in Kent
Click to expand...
I need mine locked at motorway height for the caravan and the car transported trailer I hire occasionally. Even that is too high for my 750kg 4 wheel trailer, needs the swan neck replacing with a drop plate but as long as I have the Transit, I have not bothered.
 
A drop plate hitch would be so much more use, but there doesn't seem to be one available for the P38, at least not a branded producted that uses a Dixon Bate style drop plate like you can get for the Disco, Classic, Defender and Series...

Am down in Kent and have been sorting a few things, including a last minute idea that I should sort out the heater matrix pipe O rings...was going swimingly right up until the bit where you cut the rear passenger duct up behind the instrument cluster and I managed to make a lovely incission into one of the aluminium pipes :mad:

If I could trust my TIG welding this would have been a simple fix, but I'm nowhere near being able to weld with it even crudely, so I've had to resort to JB Weld, hopefully it will have cured in time for the MoT tomorrow
 
No MoT, had to cancel as I couldn't get the heater pipe O rings I was trying to use (wrong size, stretched over the pipe) to seal. Managed to get some 22 ID x 2.5mm O rings from the local independent motor factor, but not in time to get it all installed and over to the MoT station. I'm still putting the dash back together now...mostly because I'm cleaning out years of dirt, and because I'm installing tge Ronbox too...
 
Heater pipe O rings successfully replaced second time around, Ronbox also installed and appears to be working (the dash mounted 'sport' button lights up so I must have spliced it in somewhere right).

But

We have suspension errors again post battery disconnection :(

Not sure why yet, will check on Thursday when I get back to it. Only thing I will say is that the compressor pump was very busy while I was filling the cooling system with the engine running it was constantly shuffling the front suspension, is this normal?
 
Slooby said:
Heater pipe O rings successfully replaced second time around, Ronbox also installed and appears to be working (the dash mounted 'sport' button lights up so I must have spliced it in somewhere right).

But

We have suspension errors again post battery disconnection :(

Not sure why yet, will check on Thursday when I get back to it. Only thing I will say is that the compressor pump was very busy while I was filling the cooling system with the engine running it was constantly shuffling the front suspension, is this normal?
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If you were leaning on the car while filling I guess it was compensating,
 
tomcat59alan said:
If you were leaning on the car while filling I guess it was compensating,
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I thought that too, but I noticed it raising the nsf about an inch and then lowering it again while I was looking underneath to check the radiator drain wasn't leaking. Also the off side is looking a little lower than the near side having been stood for a bit
 
Slooby said:
I thought that too, but I noticed it raising the nsf about an inch and then lowering it again while I was looking underneath to check the radiator drain wasn't leaking. Also the off side is looking a little lower than the near side having been stood for a bit
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Did you leave a door open so the storage tank fills completely? 10minutes should be enough.
 
Slooby said:
Heater pipe O rings successfully replaced second time around, Ronbox also installed and appears to be working (the dash mounted 'sport' button lights up so I must have spliced it in somewhere right).

But

We have suspension errors again post battery disconnection :(

Not sure why yet, will check on Thursday when I get back to it. Only thing I will say is that the compressor pump was very busy while I was filling the cooling system with the engine running it was constantly shuffling the front suspension, is this normal?
Click to expand...
On one of mine, the compressor cycles repeatedly with the bonnet open, I have no idea why as the EAS works fine.
 
tomcat59alan said:
Did you leave a door open so the storage tank fills completely? 10minutes should be enough.
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I was in and out of the car so often I can't remember if I had given it long enough with a door open to be fair

Datatek said:
On one of mine, the compressor cycles repeatedly with the bonnet open, I have no idea why as the EAS works fine.
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Ah, now of course I did have the bonnet open for all of this so it could well be what was going on, and you can bet the damp floor of the drivers side from the leaking O rings had something to say about all of this too, despite the BECM appearing to be bone dry and corrosion free :/

MoT now re-booked for this coming Saturday, fingers crossed that when I hook my laptop up to the OBD to clear the suspension error codes that I can communicate with it all and not have it all through another tizzy
 
Well I am utterly befuddled; got my EAS cable and FTDI USB to Serial adapter out of the packet they were sent back to me in, having been back to the chap who made the EAS cable to confirm that they were ok, which they were, then went through the sequence of getting the laptop running, cable plugged into the USB port and communicating, then car ignition on, cable plugged into OBD port, EAS unlock launched, set to communication through Comm Port 5 (which is where device manager said it was) clicked 'Initialise' and watched as the TX buffer reported the repeating FF and 01 codes as expected, but the HX buffer just said: PP

Trying each of the three USB ports on my Laptop made no difference, then removing the OBD socket from the plastic trim, spray in contact cleaner and with the aid the the EAS cable help it do its thing. No difference.

After being round the houses for a while I just thought sod it; see if the suspension will work with the engine running...it works fine...well ish...the pump keeps cycling on and off jiggling around with the front suspension. No sign of any leaks as the suspension hadn't sunk since Sunday when I left it. Also tried leaving the door open for it to fill the tank and it stopped running after less than a minute.

So, there's clearly something odd going on; still not sure if the pump running every few minutes is an indication of a problem about to manefest itself in an imminently burnt out pump or if being driven will keep it in check, then there is the question as to why I cannot communicate with the EAS controller, clearly something sitting between the OBD port and the BECM/EAS ECUs has gone walkabout, but where?
 
Grrrrrr said:
The delay timer hasn't been replaced with a standard relay, has it?
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Not sure, however after I did all the work on the suspension I used EAS Unlock successfully to clear the error codes. Then the suspension started going to full height and refusing to budge and I started to experience progressive communication issues with EAS Unlock first with my Laptop and the USB to Serial converter seemingly failing, followed by using a desktop with a Serial Port where I witnessed the comms start to degrade while interogating the EAS ECU in the form of random responses on the live data stream.

I then left the car alone for several months until a few weeks ago when I bought it a new battery and after fitting everything suspension physically apeared to start behaving, bar this shuttling at the front and the pump, but there is seemingly nothing comming through the OBD port
 
Slooby said:
Not sure, however after I did all the work on the suspension I used EAS Unlock successfully to clear the error codes. Then the suspension started going to full height and refusing to budge and I started to experience progressive communication issues with EAS Unlock first with my Laptop and the USB to Serial converter seemingly failing, followed by using a desktop with a Serial Port where I witnessed the comms start to degrade while interogating the EAS ECU in the form of random responses on the live data stream.

I then left the car alone for several months until a few weeks ago when I bought it a new battery and after fitting everything suspension physically apeared to start behaving, bar this shuttling at the front and the pump, but there is seemingly nothing comming through the OBD port
Click to expand...

If it worked before and has stopped then it has to be a connector sonewhere. The OBD plug sometimes corrodes from water ingress. And then there's the infamous connectors behind the passenger kick panel / A-post.
 
Take the muffler off the valve block, close the doors and listen to its behavior.
If it's pumping, stopping and adjusting on level ground there's a conflict with height sensors.
Live data will show if the figures are flickering or there's a difference in the height sensors.. :)
 
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