Air bag replacement

[Rotax100uk]

Going to replace air bags on front of 2000 P38 range rover,been looking all over net and found some really good how to guides. What im struggling with is once new air springs are on and you lower the P38 and close doors then start up to allow the eas to fill the new bag wont this send into fault or an i wrong? Plz help.

[geoffbeaumont]

No, not as long as you've got everything back together properly - the car will just sort itself out. Don't, however, do what I managed to do years ago (on a classic) - I managed to turn one of the height sensor arms inside out. This doesn't damage them (they're reversible on a classic - as far as I know on a P38 too), but it was out of range when I switched the EAS on and caused a fault. This was before the days of free or cheap diagnostic software for the EAS, so it meant an expensive trip to a garage

On a classic I'd advise disconnecting the EAS controller while you're working (it then can't go into fault mode before you're ready to connect it again) - but I'm not certain whether the BECM will log any faults due to the absence of signal from the EAS controller on a P38 - try to find out first! I don't think it will - my memory from my P38 is that it shows a fault and speed restriction warning while it can't connect to the EAS controller (which doesn't actually limit your speed - just tells you drive slowly), but this disappears as soon as you reconnect the EAS.

Unless you already have another diagnostic system which provides full access to the EAS, download a copy of EASUnlock (the free version) and buy or make up a wire to connect your computer to the diagnostic port. This will then mean that even if you do manage put the EAS into fault mode you can clear it. It'll also give you full access to see what the EAS is doing, to recalibrate it and to operate it from the computer should you wish to.

Finally - it's worth noting, as it's rather handy when working on it as well as if you have problem while out and about, that the EAS controller operates everything simply by switching 12V lines. You can operate everything using just a small spider made of short lengths of wire and a pin out for the controller connector. If you're replacing just the air bag bladders rather than the whole unit (including the plungers) then this is very useful as you can use the systems own air supply to pop everything back into place.

[elbekko]

Just keep a door open while you're working on it. And/or unplug the relay under the seat.

But there should be no error because of this.