urgent reply needed on suspenion please

morning to you all

my mate has just phoned to ask if i can help him out , his 97 p38 suspenion is down on all four air bags it sounds like its gone in to fault mode to me , he has told me it kept downing down on one side in recent weeks but as i've been away and and unable to check it out he kept using it as whenever he went out it lifted up no problems he thought it would be fine to run till i got time to help him he's phoned me this morning to tell me it wont go up , being mostly a disco man i'd like to know providing it's not the compressor or airsprings can i get the motor up on all fours to get it to mine 20 miles away and are there any quick checks i could do to find were the fault is
thanks upfront

Land Rover Reset Tools for the EAS software, and a cable from Ebay will allow you to read and reset faults. Sounds like a leaky airbag to me. It can be driven slowly on the bumpstops, I did at least 20 miles with a caravan on the back of mine with the suspension down, uncomfortable but possible. You can also get on Ebay a set of valves to manually inflate the suspension from a compressor or garage airline.

Go to rangerovers.net and there is instructions there on how to manually inflate the airbags using pigtail wires and the ECU connector. I drove around like this for a few weeks until I got sorted with fault code reading.

Leak somewhere and compressor's been working overtime to keep up and has probably faulted and will almost certainly now need a new seal at least, as has been said you can drive it on the bump stops but it's not very comfortable, if you reset the fault without repairing the leak/leaks your wasting your time.

hi if you go under the passenger seat where the brain is for the suspension if you unplug it you can put a jumper lead between pin 1 and 11 on the connector and that will power up the pump after a while the car should lift if the pump is working but if its a air bag down no it wont raise up other option is you can by a suspension bypass kit off ebay for about £40 which you plug the pipes into from your suspension box under bonnet and use a normal compressor/air line on it and that will raise it up can be used even if 1 air bag split but not advisable as will wallow all over the place

cheers gents

quick update checked compressor by removing relay 20 and put a 12v supply directly to pump and run ok with no air leaks from valve block , i have ordered
the pc lead and software off the net so i can reset the fault code and try and get the motor up off the deck as i think it's a nackered airspring , i plugged my small compressor airline in to one of the air pipes of the valve block and she started to rise ,
i'll keep you informed lads

New to all this so excuse mistakes!

Just been through the whole suspension nightmare and did the EAS computer software stuff. While this is all good fun, I got fed up trying to defeat the computer and bought the MARS kit from Carroll Rovers as advertised elsewhere. Good value even though customs stole £32 from me as well.
All I needed was a flat blade screwdriver and a compressor.
Opting to bypass the EAS completely I fitted it within 20 minutes, applied around 80psi (for a 87cm ride height meantime) and hey presto, no more problems. So far proving suspension doesn't leak, now I can move on to the compressor and computer - but at least I have a car that works!.

All I need to do if I really want to work on it (why?) is depressurise the system then plug it back into the valve block to play with it.

Takes me back to the days when I last drove non-german cars, forgot what goes on under the bonnet!

akwaugh said:

New to all this so excuse mistakes!


Takes me back to the days when I last drove non-german cars, forgot what goes on under the bonnet!

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If you had reliable German cars then I reckon you were lucky, I've had 2, a Porsche 944 and a BMW 325. The Porsche was the most unreliable car I've ever owned, rarely on the road for more than a month at a time, by comparison the P38 is ultra reliable. The BMW was better but it used 5 litres of oil every 300 miles or so from new. BMW reckoned it would improve with use. By the time it had done 50K I had to carry a 25 litre drum of oil to go to Scotland BMW were totaly unhelpful. After that I went for Japanese reliability

Datatek said:

After that I went for Japanese reliability

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Used to have this 15 year old little 1200 Honda Civic (like those old Rover 212s and 214s). It actually floated away in a flash flood once with me in. Then water entered the footwells, weighted the car enough for the wheels to touch the road again and I drove out, sitting literally up to my lap in water. All I'd done was ride the clutch and kept my revs up so no water up the tailpipe. Got to dry ground, opened both doors on one side and jacked up the other to slosh all the water out, got in and drove home! Story doesn't end. Was convinced I'd pay for that little misadventure with all sorts of things seizing up and rusting and who knew what. Nope, just the radiator fan motor. I loved that car! P38 wouldn't even sneeze at that "flood" today but given a comparable "extremely beyond design specs" adventure I'm not certain how it'd bear up...