alternative air suspension fix

i have a l322 td6 vouge (bought aug 09) and after a few days of owning it, i got the dreaded ' Air suspension inactive ' message.
after hearing about this before and doing a little more reading up on it, i have realised no matter what i fix, something else will proberly go wrong and i may end up chasing faults forever......

Im pretty sure i have chased the fault back to the Suspensions ECU. I am not willing to pay for a new one of these and although i am an electrical engineer, land rover have not left alot of information on the components of the ECU which makes testing items and replacing them a little difficult.

So i have built a small switch box which plugs into the socket the ECU originally plugs into and i can now manually lift my suspension up and down. Not being 100% happy with this i have now modified a remote control circuit board to plug into this socket and now have a key fob that operates the suspension.

This only slight down fall (depending what you use the car for) is the car no longer automatically drops down when you hit 62mph, this has not proven to be an issue, the car still performs fine on the motorway.

I can now fully inflate the bags and can now get higher than off road hight or i can sit the car right down on the bump stops.

just thought i would let some people know....

cheers
mat

Great post! i too bought the same car in Aug 09 and got the same message a couple of days later. I recently had the computer diagnostic done at a LR specialist who merely said the settings were set on temperate not cold. On changing these to cold climate the EAS worked again. A couple of times it didn't but seemed to re-set itself on switching off and re-starting. However, on starting up for the first time after being away for a week, it gave the message again. This time the LR specialist computer said the compressor wasn't pumping up to capacity and a new one (at £500 fitted inc. VAT) would be required. I find that difficult to believe, 2 different causes only a week apart - do you know of any way that the compressor can be checked for leaks/seals and plugged/fixed?
Also, how much did your elec kit cost you? Are you making any more?

The only reason i think a compressor would not pump to full capacity is if the seals were gone on the compressor, in which case they can be replaced and certainly not at a cost of £500. Could also be the pressure switch. I have checked all usual culprits on my vehicle but to no avail.
I can make more if anyone wants them i guess, i bought parts from various places, the remote control side of it came from Ebay.
The install is pretty easy too.

You should make a few more of those thingymabobs. i would buy one. an im sure quite a few people would.

I see you own a P38, i would need to investigate the wiring a bit more on the P38, as i only have details for the L322