L322. A bit of a challange !

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Hi All,
Im a new member whos wife has a L322 2002 TD6. She has had it a couple of years and its been great, suspension has always been inactive. Anyway, it went for its MOT in November and failed on both subframes and almost every bush on the car and yes the suspension. I decided to fixit for her as she really liked it. So I found second hand subframes, replaced all bushes on rear as well as drop links, camber bolts and arms. put it back in and everything seamed fine. Removed front subframe fitted new front subframe, new track rod arms and put it all back together. id been getting various codes for the suspension such as can bus, static air pressure when filling and had cleared these.
Anyway went to take it for a MOT and the car was very low on the left hand side. Of course Garage decided not to look at it and ive got it back to fix. New codes 32 can bus fault and 64 articulation validy fault. So reading up I thought the ride height sensors were wrongly fitted easy fix. but they are not wrong. Looked in the live data and the following stands out that I don't understand.
Front left volts 35.5. front right volts 3.8. rear left volts 2.2. .rear right volts1.9.
So I got another height sensor thinking the front left was faulty and plugged it in, still very high reading 35.volts. none of which means anything to me other than it stands out. the front left strut is covered in grease, so thinking is the shock inside faulty, but not sure if it even has grease in it. its not from the drive shaft gaiters though.
2 months in now and ive no idea why its sitting low on the left hand side. but today it then went up on both sides then I get code 32 can bus fault. I don't like passing it on to a garage but wonder if they will just chuck new parts on and still not function properly. also strange unit on rear subframe with two airlines connected with an electric plug connected. Looks in a bad way. not been able to identify it.

Any help appreciated

Steveeasy
@steveeasy
i feel your pain.. so will @kds o_O and others,
we have been there, seen it,done it,fixed it .. oh no to soon , not fixed it, bought more stuff, pulled out more hair..kens is fixed
mine is soon to be as well, just waiting for weather to dry out a wee bit, then chocks away:D
we had some strange issues with sensors with seen info an returning info, then was surprised that how little movement in the sensor arm there was, that actually shows up on the graph/ scale on the diag tools, its like a few degrees of movement up and down then its out of limits,
wrongly, i thought just because the arm on the sensor could move at least 45 degrees in up or down that it would corrolate on graph / scale on the tool, but no, its a few degrees in either direction for the front..and thats it.
so that brings me to can the sensor arms move nice n freely
and like the pitures sent earleir do your arms match pointing out ward
also make sure the brakets are not bent, ( on all four corners) weak or out of shape as a few mm here n there will throw it all out.. i know first hand.i have the head ache to prove it:mad:
wiring can chafe, then rogue signals,and pins on the connectors can rust, that will throw things out, also make sure they dont have anything like lm grease on them as that will cause electrical conductivity problems,
make sure they are thoroughly cleaned and use dielectric grease ( anyone with an old bike or old car has found this out the hard way )
hard faults can be stored in unusual places so check every ecu, if faults persist then the eas calibration wont happen
steering geo is another good one to give problems
make sure pump is good and have enough bar pressure to proceed with the testing, doors shut, battery charger on ( some cases engine running)
then theres diagnostics and the people using them:rolleyes: hmm
mine visited an indi garage,he should get the c@ck of the year award,
and with autologic made mine worse, then worse still, and then worser still ,
not bad three attempts and sh@gged the lot, not even close and left mine in access mode,charged me, ( although i only gave him a £20 note and never went back).
thats when i started looking into mine with interest n loads of advice from these guys.
ive put up pics showing mine so high n low then saggy n all over the place
then i had a fault code that didnt make sense, re eas, then changed over to my other diag tool and it erased the fault never to come back, and allowed me to be at least in the ball park and able to use the car and got it sitting relativly square
so i think there are many tools out there than can do many things for the l322, but, then when it gets to the really technical bits ,either they dont allow the function or they throw a wobbly,
then the better tools can be pricey, its all horses for courses n size of wallet:oops:
and lets face it the l322 as nice as it can be.. is a giant collander with many ecu's in it ! not a good start:)
i am at the stage of getting mine to sit just right,
i had to get inpa to finish off the job,
as i am doing it on a bit of a budget and thats a proven cost effective way of doing things..
but we had a devil of a job getting it all to work, :D:D:D:D:D(BIG THANK YOU @kds)
now all my gremlins have been ironed out i should be done weather permitting tomorrow
good luck in getting to the bottom of it all, keep us informed;)
 
OK.
this morning before I left car sat perfectly. cleared codes and it dropped. took the day off work, drove 30 miles and when I got there told me could not reconfigure suspension today now but would read my codes instead. whats new !!. Still He thinks the problem is not the front left but the rear right. Said had to do continuity tests on wiring. Still not sure what the valve is on the rear subframe. when I removed the rear subframe it was attached to the top of it but the two pipes had rusted and fallen off. I thought it was the crossover valve but not sure.

The heights were all mad on his machine but he says due to the potential faulty sensor on rear. The volts issue actually was not shown on his reader . Car drove like a crab. think I need to get the camber bolts set properly. put new ones in so should be relatively easy.

So some progress. Think im going to look at the rear height sensors then.

Steveeasy
 
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I followed the car and it looked like it was going to flip over. The rear wheels were completely tracking in the wrong direction , looked awful. still Im not the driver. I think I may now know what has caused some of the issues. when I got the new/secondhand rear subframe I did use the height sensors that were left on it. Now I can see(hopefully) the rear right is high. so im going to clean the rear sensors. If I can find out what the valve is that lives way on top of the subframe, this might solve other problems. Booked in for next Wednesday.

Steveeasy
 
OK.
this morning before I left car sat perfectly. cleared codes and it dropped. took the day off work, drove 30 miles and when I got there told me could not reconfigure suspension today now but would read my codes instead. whats new !!. Still He thinks the problem is not the front left but the rear right. Said had to do continuity tests on wiring. Still not sure what the valve is on the rear subframe. when I removed the rear subframe it was attached to the top of it but the two pipes had rusted and fallen off. I thought it was the crossover valve but not sure.

The heights were all mad on his machine but he says due to the potential faulty sensor on rear. The volts issue actually was not shown on his reader . Car drove like a crab. think I need to get the camber bolts set properly. put new ones in so should be relatively easy.

So some progress. Think im going to look at the rear height sensors then.

Steveeasy
@steveeasy
re car dropping,
mine did drop sometimes on f/o/s
then flat on the floor with in a month, it burst.
can you get the car in off road height, then with a decent light check the condition of the rubber air bags, (when you look through the wheel arch in normal, its not that apparent to see all the cracking)
being ex gas tec as well i have ldf ( leak detection fluid) i spray it on and look for the bubbles to appear, can be bought in plumbers..toolstation etc.
when my one let go, i couldnt see it untill the car was jacked, then i saw the split and the general condition of the bag, wow sh@gged or wot.
but a genuine leg delphi and 2005 with 121k so it done well, i guess if we treated the air bags the same as our tyre side walls we wouldnt have as many faults:rolleyes:but they are out of sight n out of mind:D
spray the ldf around all of the pipe joints and pipe work, may be there will be a tell tale.
 
Dwarfer,
Thanks for the advice. Ill see if I can pick up some of that spray. Seams like im going to be paying a bit more attention to the system now. Its my wifes car and she was happy with it in inoperative mode. Still don't know what this valve is on top of subframe. the Guy at garage did not really know either and they do nothing but RR. When the RR failed its MOT on subframes, both LR Garages near me had never replaced a subframe. Probably why they don't know about this valve.
Steveeasy
 
Dwarfer,
Thanks for the advice. Ill see if I can pick up some of that spray. Seams like im going to be paying a bit more attention to the system now. Its my wifes car and she was happy with it in inoperative mode. Still don't know what this valve is on top of subframe. the Guy at garage did not really know either and they do nothing but RR. When the RR failed its MOT on subframes, both LR Garages near me had never replaced a subframe. Probably why they don't know about this valve.
Steveeasy
May be the cross-link valve, this I believe opens/operates only in off-road mode and allows more suspension articulation.
 
Well ive been out today with another 2 rear height sensors to see if the existing ones were working. They do but I still cant get the car to level at the rear. Is there a way to actually see what the factory height settings are.?. The chap from garage said before he looked at that hed have to check the whole system before doing a reconfiguration which takes a long time. each height has to be set at each level. one fault and car drops on to bump stops. this could get expensive im thinking.

Steveeasy
 
I've never checked the whole system, I just clear the faults and do the calibration which just involves a few simple steps.
My foxwell set the car at a calibration height then you measure all wheel heights from the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the wheel arch and enter them into the foxwell which then works out the rest.
 
Still don't know what this valve is on top of subframe

Can you see it on this picture?



upload_2021-1-24_13-15-25.png
 
I've never checked the whole system, I just clear the faults and do the calibration which just involves a few simple steps.
My foxwell set the car at a calibration height then you measure all wheel heights from the bottom of the rim to the bottom of the wheel arch and enter them into the foxwell which then works out the rest.
 
Not sure I understand this bit but im sure its relevant ,could you make it clearer for a L322 numpty please.
thanks
Steveeasy

This is the inside of the sensor and you can see where the wipers wear on the track. There are 5v across the track and the voltage varies along it's length which the wiper picks up and sends to the ECU. As the track wears the voltage change is no longer clean (generally at normal ride height as thats where the wiper spends most of it's time) so the ECU throws up a fault.

upload_2021-1-24_14-15-12.png
 
That's sounds great. I wonder if that is all that is needed. have you had similar issues then to alter settings.
Steveeasy

I did have problems for a while but after the new sensors and bad connection on the front were resolved it's not as bad as it was. I think a lot of my problems were because I was trying calibrating the car on my block paved drive which is far from level having had a Disco1, Disco2 and L322 parked on it over the last 14 years. Once I recalibrated on the carpark at my local Tesco it's behaved itself a bit better (whispering so she doesn't hear me). Been ok for a few months now :D.
 
Oh and the tracks on the sensors wear at the normal ride height bit so if the suspension is off the car will be reading a good part of the sensor.
ok, understand now. your saying if it is in a different position it may not be throwing a code, but if when it returns to its normal ride height it might well do. is that correct ?. good point would not have considered that.
thank you
Steveeasy
 
[Ok pic of RHS of car at lowest ride height. The other side is down. Its goes up but this side is allways 3-4 inches higher. The core reader though says the front is lower on the right and rear is lower on the left.
 

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