P38A A series of faults

Datatek said:

The one thing neither of my P38's have been is a money pit, niggling faults aplenty but parts are cheap.

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Slooby said:

Oh joy, my new cable and the FTDI adapter are both cooked then. The error message and beeps now hapoend when the OBD2 cable is connected to the socket with nothing else attached yay

Could anything going on in the socket, rather than the cable cause this? Or for that matter anything going on damage the cable/FTDI adapter/OBD2 socket/EAS ECU



It's a Sadist...

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Slooby said:

I fear rogue data may have been sent to the ECU then as I cannot rule out not exiting EAS Unlock before turning the ignition off.

I've got to concentrate on the house move now, so it'll be a week or two before I have the time to look at the sadist again. Still I'll have all my toys in one place by then and if I can get the P38 running normally I might start putting the hybrid IIa V8 together...

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Slooby said:

I had a problem where the USB to Serial adapter got got and stopped working. Then we had the weird data readings and the next time I went to use the cable on the desktop it kept crashing EAS Unlock when plugging it in, or trying to connect with it plugged in, followed by the bleeping whenever the cable was connected to the OBD2 port....I think there is an earth issue in the port and it's damaged the cable

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Slooby said:

Off to collect the weapon of towing and axis of all things anti-LR...A Toyota Hilux...I shall not be swayed by it's modern conviences, cumfort and relaibility it will be soulless. Blinkers firmly on

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Slooby said:

Been quite a while since an update which I realise last happened mid moving everything from my old house back to the family home in Kent where I grew up.

Here we have Letti my '65 IIA 88" Design-a-Chassis V8 Hybrid being extracted from the top hard standing at the old house:

Ruby my '88 VW T25 1.6JX TD Transporter sitting behing my mate's Series 111.1.12L 109" (aka Bill) about to head down to Kent:

Since then various things have gone on, including...

The collection of projects being deposited in the orchard:

('87 JCB 3CX Sitemaster hiding from view the '74 SIII 109" chassis, the Bradbury Liftmaster MkIII 3 Tonne 4 Post Ramp, with Alice my '73 SIII 109" and Letti next to her)

As a fool and his money are easily parted some of the equity from selling up left over after the divorce settlement has been put into buying a Bridgeport Mill to join my Lathe, both of which are still waiting for me to create enough space inside my workshop to fit them inside:

Once they go inside the workshop (blue door to the right) the Bradbury gets errected where they are currently stood, yes that is a Mini under the sheet, the '68 MkII that started me off in tinkering with cars way back in 1987, it needs some love again as it has deteriorated badly since we completed the restoration in 1991.

I've also aquired an R-Tech 160Amp AC/DC TIG and one of their Plasma Cutters to join their 180Amp MIG that I bought a few years back. I must say I am properly struggling to get to grips with TIG welding, really not helped by my genetics kindly giving me what's known as a 'familial essential tremor' aka bloody shakey hands that only get worse when I spot that I'm shaking and my brain decides to compensate and everything gets really out of sync...

Then last weekend the madness fully set in...night on 31 years ago an 18 year old me was given some money by my grand parents which was duly spent on buying a 1967 Sunbeam Alpine Series 5 GT...

It turned out to be a complete rust bucket and after a few years of trying to sort it all out it got pushed to the back of the barn and laid there for many more years before being sold when I needed the cash. Sadly the bloke I sold it to decided to part it all out, including cutting all the new panels I'd fitted to the shell off it before the remains turned up on ebay. That hurt, it hurt a lot. Anyway in moving stuff back to Kent and clearing out my old workshop that had become a dumping ground I ended up going through a load of my grandparents stuff, which triggered various memories and the unfinished business that was me and the Alpine, leading to me agreeing to buy another one, same year, same colour last Friday:

So what does this have to do with the P38 and all my troubles? Well I need to tow the Alpine back to its new home, anyone got a sense of deja-vu?

Having got down to Kent with my son on Friday night, Saturday I decided to dig the EAS cables out that I'd had checked by the maker to confirm they were ok and go take another look at the P38 that was now sitting in the Orchard with its older relatives. But before doing that I thought I'd invest in a new battery just in case...

Battery swapped, the engine started and the suspension started to do its dance...only not the dance it had been doing back in January, no, one that went to the normal ride height...errrrr...pressed the button for access height, it went down to access height, pressed back up to normal ride height, it went to normal ride height...ummmm...drove it round to the yard, spent some time fiddling with duff bulbs and wiper blades, tried it again and the EAS did my bidding...now, the only height I haven't tried is the lowered crusing height, but I beleive that only engages on the move, not when parked, but could it be that my problem all along was the battery??? The old one seemed to take a charge and would show 12.7 volts, but it would discharge to the point of making starting a little sluggish if stood, in winter, for two weeks. When I return to Kent this Friday if it's still behaving I'm going to take it for an MoT and fingers crossed press it into service...for the next round of moving stuff...like all my Landie spares from the lock up, and an Alpine...DOH

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