L322 First day with Sally

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BillyboysLad

Member
Posts
39
Location
Southport, Merseyside
Hello all

L322 Td6 Vogue 2003

I took delivery of my new car yesterday and started to try to understand her and become more acquainted today. Her name is Sally and even though I may be ever so slightly biased, she is beautiful. Ever so slightly neglected in the past for sure and certainly showing signs of her age, but a beauty nonetheless.

She is my first ever LR so I am happy to regard myself as a first hand novice, but I have years of experience wrenching on other cars and machinery and am in the fortunate position of having friends and neighbours with various variants of LR’s including P38’s, L322, Freelanders and Discos, so I am well aware of some of the gremlins that I am about to encounter, and hopefully some new ones.

I drove her last night for the first time, a test drive really, as I had bought her unseen. Yes, I know that is a foolhardy, possibly stupid, and certainly very risky but I had my reasons and took what I felt was a worthwhile gamble. She drove delightfully, but with some immediately apparent issues, which if you will allow I will elaborate on shortly. I have today received a full service kit for both engine and gearbox, which I am aiming to use tomorrow, weather dependent as I am working outside, I will only then begin to run her properly as service history is sketchy to say the least. She is showing service mileage as minus 11k! I should have said that she has just covered 150,000 miles.

So this is how she currently operates, I hope that I can explain it properly…

Central locking does not work in any capacity, either with remote or with the key in the door. All doors will lock manually. Then the only way to unlock it is to climb over and use the internal door pull.

Upper tailgate, unlocks sometimes, but mainly it does not. It has worked with the key remote, and it has worked by pressing the button on the tailgate sometimes, but mainly not. It never opens by pressing the button on the dash. So for most of the time I have to climd into the back and pull the emergency tab to open.

Lower tailgate is a real issue, being addressed, but a current issue for sure. Won't open at all. Button on the top of the tailgate was inoperative and the emergency lever on the left hand side had been snapped off! After what seemed like an hour I finally managed to get a precision tool (long bladed philips screwdriver to be precise lol) and click up the stub of the broken lever and the tailgate finally dropped down. I dismantled the micro switch and found that it was stuck down, ahah I thought, I will soon fix that, IPA cleaner and a bit of fettling and hey presto a moving working microswitch. I checked for continuity with my meter and refitted thinking I had solved the problem, but no. Still does not open remotely, and I have to resort to messing about with broken levers etc.

Error messages on dash - Air suspension inactive and HDC inactive. The car is sitting on air, at what I would guess is ride height, certainly not access height. Compressor is not firing up or struggling and there are no signs of any loss of air during the night. Bear in mind I only got her yesterday of course. I have noticed that she does alter slightly particularly when I jump out of the car, (it is a long way down and I am not particularly tall!) So I am guessing she is just doing her thing? (I am concious that I am doing a lot of guessing at this stage of my education).

Exterior lights, horn, windows, side mirror all work perfectly, even the sunroof is amazing, slides back and forth and tilts virtually silently.

However the interior lights will not work. I can switch them on manually but they will not come on opening doors or tailgate.

Windscreen wipers or washers will not work, in fact the wipers are parked at a rather strange angle, 2 or 3 inches above what should be their place. I thought perhaps they had blown a fuse or motor or a linkage? I have physically removed all fuses and relays in the two fuse boxes, just checking for any signs of blown fuse or corrosion etc. Everything seems fine. I also swapped a few relays for others with the same number just in case one of them may be faulty.

I do not yet have access to a diagnostic reader, although there is an EAS reset dongle that came with the car. That will be a few days away, I am not at all concerned immediately, as the car is a project and not daily transport and I was just wondering if the loss of wipers, internal lighting and non opening tailgate could be connected?

The car has a new MOT, well 11 months now, so I must assume that the wipers at least must have been working then so this is a new issue?

I can also report that the battery is in good condition. It looks newish, has a static charge of 12.7V and a charge of 14.6V with the engine running. HOWEVER, when I was checking the battery over I noticed that both terminals were loose! Eureka! I shouted, surely this must be the cause of all misgivings. Turns out that the post diameters on the battery are simply too small for the clamps on the leads, I had to cobble together a quick fix with silver foil and petroleum jelly, all is now tight and secure as a temporary solution but has not made any difference as far as I can tell unfortunately. I have checked as many grounding points that I can see during my quick look around today and all seemed in good nick and tight.

Whilst writing this small novel, I could mention that my quick survey revealed that there is no belt on the AC pulley, does this suggest that maybe it will leak like a sieve or has done already and is now devoid of any gas or just that it broke? Who knows what I will find.

No sign of wet carpets or corrosion within the car I can find at present, except for a small pool in the spare wheel well, left hand side this morning. This must be fairly recent as there is no corrosion other than a bit of surface. I have had the rear light cluster off today as a tail light was out, no signs of water ingress through there so tailgate seals likely? Thoughts please.

I know this is a lot of mindless information, but it is helping me relax after a long but enjoyable day.

I must just add that I am so impressed with the toughness of the interior carpets in particular. A previous owner must have spilled a large quantity of what I believe was old sump oil, perhaps transporting it over rutted terrain, as you would! Anyway, it stunk to high heaven and along with copious amounts of dog hair, crayon, evo stick and copydex the rear cargo hold was in a real mess. But having removed the lot, jetted, scrapped, shampooed and sanitized they are literally like new. Bravo Mr Land Rover for that at least :)
If you get to read this final bit, you have done far too well, I am an avid reader of your forum and hope to become a regular contributor in the future.
Cheers, Mark.
 
EAS inactive, turn steering wheel lock to lock if battery has been disconnected, interior lights, press and hold the light button till you get a beep and dash says interior lights on. central locking might need the key re sync video on powerful uk youtube on how to do it.
 
Thanks guys, sorry for delay in reply.

I have so much going on at present, my dad is very poorly and I am renovating mother in laws house so we can rent it to help pay for care fees etc, as well as all the other trials and tribulations of life of course :) Not a complaint, by the way, everything is as it should be. Just means that I do not yet have any time to spend with Sally.

Progress: - My fabulous mate called round late last night with his hoversack, literally, with his Snap On diagnostic kit (he used to own his own workshop). Handy guy to know. Anyway I was fascinated by the wizardry, lots of fault codes, but generally non were life threatening or even alarming. Cleared and I now have fully functional EAS and HDC. Happy days. Not able to resolve electrical issues at present though, so my main issues are no wipers and no central locking. Reading late last night on this forum I have just discovered where the wiper relay is located, what a handy place to put it not! Anyway, I will remove battery and mess about some more over the next few days hopefully.
Engine oil and filter changed, not to impressed with what came out tbh, very black and certainly thicker than the new. Impressed that the oil pressure light went out immediately though, I have had previous vehicles that took several seconds.

Much still to do, but thank you for the welcome. To be continued...
Cheers, Mark

ps I had already tried the steering angle reset but to no avail. Not tried the internal lights yet though, thanks for the heads up kds
 
Thanks guys, sorry for delay in reply.

I have so much going on at present, my dad is very poorly and I am renovating mother in laws house so we can rent it to help pay for care fees etc, as well as all the other trials and tribulations of life of course :) Not a complaint, by the way, everything is as it should be. Just means that I do not yet have any time to spend with Sally.

Progress: - My fabulous mate called round late last night with his hoversack, literally, with his Snap On diagnostic kit (he used to own his own workshop). Handy guy to know. Anyway I was fascinated by the wizardry, lots of fault codes, but generally non were life threatening or even alarming. Cleared and I now have fully functional EAS and HDC. Happy days. Not able to resolve electrical issues at present though, so my main issues are no wipers and no central locking. Reading late last night on this forum I have just discovered where the wiper relay is located, what a handy place to put it not! Anyway, I will remove battery and mess about some more over the next few days hopefully.
Engine oil and filter changed, not to impressed with what came out tbh, very black and certainly thicker than the new. Impressed that the oil pressure light went out immediately though, I have had previous vehicles that took several seconds.

Much still to do, but thank you for the welcome. To be continued...
Cheers, Mark

ps I had already tried the steering angle reset but to no avail. Not tried the internal lights yet though, thanks for the heads up kds
Chin up mate,most on here have had the proverbial kick in the nuts so we can sympathize:(:)
 
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