Clive

OOPS! Just realised the CATS is for the Radio, not the immobiliser

More on this (now) reccuring problem. The problem recurred in December 2011 and I had the after market Cobra alarm removed, which cleared the problem. However, I've left the car for a week and returned to a flat battery! Now, after sorting the battery out, I am back to the original problem with everything working apart from the starter! And the Transmission Warning Light comes on when the ignition switch is turned to position III. The doors lock and unlock and the indicators flash as they should. I think that this light illuminates when the engine imobiliser is activated. Is there any way of unlocking this using some form of key code? I have the security information that came with the car, including the CATS number. How do I bypass the immobiliser?

Went to my local Land Rover dealer and ordered a new remote as I only have a No 2 remote! £150 It arrived within 2 days, but although the key fitted, they couldn't get it to synchronise with the car Turns out it was bleeding RF signals everywhere. So another one was ordered under warranty. The (new) new one turned up after a week, so I went in to pick it up, only to find the the key didn't fit the lock After much scratching of heads, they took the key out of the new remote and put it into the (new) new remote. This took a good half hour as they managed to break the drift they were using!!!!!! Unfortunately, after all this effort the (new) new remote didn't work anyway I shall have to try and resynchronise the remotes using some of the methods described on the Internet. Does anyone have any ideas?

I would suspect that the wiper linkage has come loose or you have excessive wear in one of the joints. It may be possible to tighten it up again, but as I have never looked at the linkages on a P38 yet I can't give you any other pointers. Good luck in sorting it. I may need to know in the future!

Thanks Escape. I'll get my multimeter out and have a poke around!

Yep, my passenger mirror turns down in reverse and won't come back up again! According to the P38 brochure I have (2000my) all Vogue models had them as standard!

Well, I went mad and bought a P38 on a whim!!! I was due to go on an offroad weekend and the other Range Rover (LSE) had failed its MOT dismally. So Thursday night I walked into a local 4x4 garage and drove out with the car It's a 2000 Vogue with 66,000 on the clock, FSH and piles of paperwork. It came with some known faults, which I managed to get a £1500 discount for. I intend to use it for expeditions, with the occasional Green Lane trip (I now need to buff out the scratches I got over the weekend ), but it needs to be kept looking as original as possible (instructions from HID ). Obviously the blend motors need replacing which will be sorted soon. And the HK amplifier is not working either. I need to investigate this further. There are several minor problems which I would like some pointers as to possible causes, and they all seem to be associated with the doors. First of all the interior light does not work with the drivers door! Anyone know where the door switch is located? The passenger door mirror does not return to the memory settings when you press the relevant button. Is this the BeCM or the Door Outstation? Neither door mirror heats up. Again is this the Door Outstation(s)? Strange as to why it is both mirrors. Neither door mirror 'dips' when the interior mirror 'dips'! Is it possible to turn this setting off in the BeCM? The reason I ask is that the vehicle is fitted with darken windows (film) and it is impossible to see much in the mirrors in the dark anyway! I also put a full set of Grabber ATs on. The local tyre place only had 255/60 R 18 on such short notice so I thought "extra ground clearance" only to find that they don't fit in the spare wheel well I've now got to sort out a vertical wheel mount, which also gives me the oppurtunity to add an additional fuel tank.

I've just checked the Arnott Industries catalogue and it recommends Bilsteins for the Gen III and even gives the part numbers for them. Front - B46-2153 Rear - B46-2152 I think I might go for them!

Thanks for the info guys. I haven't fitted them yet as I was going to fit the appropriate shocks at the same time. I didn't know about overstretching the Gen III. I'll need to watch that. I'll ask Arnott for the maximum extension their springs can take! I had also heard from someone that Bilstein can build shocks to any length, but they do not seem keen to return my calls or emails I know the poly bushes give a harsh ride and in extreme conditions can cause cracks to occur in the leading/trailing arm mountings. As they flex less they impose more deflection on the mountings, eventually leading to fatigue. I've always believed that good rubber bushes, replaced regularly, are better than the polybushes. I must admit I hadn't considered Konis and have never heard of Doetsch I'll need to do some more search on the interweb! I wonder if Terrafirmas for the P38a will be suitable for the Classic? I am slowly coming to the conclusion that this is not as Black & White as I had hoped.

I have some Arnott Gen III Air Springs for my Soft Dash LSE and want to know what shocks to fit to take advantage of the extra 2" of travel available with these springs. The vehicle will be used mainly for road use, but I intend to do some off road trips a couple of times a year, ie. Morroco, Pyrenees, etc. I have been informed that you can not fit ordinary coil spring shock absorbers as they are not valved correctly for air springs. I know that if you fit standard coil spring shock absorbers the ride is attrocious! Mine had them fitted when I bought it!! I have contacted Bilstein, but they don't seem to be interested. I had a chat with Devon4x4 at Billing, but they didn't have any details with them so I'll have to contact them next week. Does anyone know if anyone produces extra long shock absorbers for air sprung vehicles, especially classic LSE?

Just a tip? I replaced the brake pipes on the rear axle on my Soft Dash LSE with ABS. I managed to do it without bleeding the brakes! Before removing the pipes I cracked open the nipple on the caliper. I then removed one pipe and replaced it by connecting it at the diff end first, allowing the fluid to pass through the pipe before connecting the other end to the caliper. I then allowed the fluid to leak out the nipple before tightening it. I then repeated it on the other side and finally topped up the resevoir. When I restarted the car the brakes were fine, with no air in them at all. I can't gaurantee this will work all the time, but it worked for me. The only disadvantage was that it left a large amount of brake fluid on the floor!

I've had a genuine white one go at the seam! It was 20years old though. Replaced it with a genuine replacement and have had no problems with it since.

I think you will find that the 'Soft Dash' bulkhead is considerably different to the earlier models. I think the wiper motor is mounted in a slightly different location, the part under the scuttle panel is curved and is susceptible to corrosion. The lip for the hinges is different as well. I think the window surround is different as the 'Soft Dash' has a bonded screen! Internally it is even more different. The mounting for the steering column and the pedal box are different. The dash mounting brackets are also different. I was led to believe that you could not swap these bulkheads over, but I am not convinced that that is true, but have not tried it myself. I dream of a 2-door soft dash!!! One day..... I'm of the opinion that it is possible to use these bulkheads on earlier models, but there are a lot of bits and pieces to change. If you install a soft dash as well, you're task will be considerably easier. The bulkheads from the 300TDi Discoverys are also the same. You could even fit a Discovery dash With regard to earlier models, all models up to the 'soft dash' are almost identical except that the door pillars are different. Originally the welded body shells used the same components as the bolted bodyshells, just welded together!

Chris Hodges can supply doors, which he gets from Southern France (as well as Bodyshells), and they are almost 100% rot free! He has now moved to the Midlands somewhere, I can find out if you need to know! He also has a large stock of S/H body panels and other spares. Nationwide trim can retrim your seats, any other panels and I think they do carpets. They used to do all of the Range Rover trim finishes, (even leather!!!) but not sure what they supply now. I think that Exmoor Trim are biased more towards Land Rovers, but it can't hurt to give them a ring. With regard to the rear wipers I believe that they became available as an option after a couple of years, but were mounted on the rear D pillar, along with the washer bottle. Later ones were mounted above the tailgate. I seem to remember that there was an aftermarket version available, but I have no idea how this was fitted. Good luck with the rebuild. It will be nice to see an unaltered Range Rover classic as they are becoming extremely rare!

I think that the air-con fans are also tied into the cooling system as on several of the RRCs I've had with A/C the fans come on when the engine gets hot. Also when the engine switches off they can come on for a while to cool the rad.

Problem solved!!! It turns out that the problem was the original immobiliser! The car has an aftermarket Cobra alarm fitted. A couple of weeks before the starting problem, the central locking system started to play up, the car would continuously lock and unlock. The only way to stop this was to take the C/L fuse out, but this meant that I had to lock the car with the key. This worked fine for a couple of weeks until the day of the 'problem'. It wasn't until I was locking the car the other day after attempting to rectify the problem when I noticed an LED flash on the dashboard. It suddenly dawned on me that this was for the original alarm system, which must still be active. So to try to stop the C/L from locking and unlocking again, I WD40'd the internal lock buttons and then replaced the fuse. I locked the vehicle with the Cobra remote and then unlocked it and 'Hey Presto' it started!!!!! The only thing I haven't checked is whether the Auto Transmission Warning light comes on. I'll check tomorrow. Thanks to one and all for their tips. Clive

Thanks for that Bowie69. I'll try that. I'm off to Ikea today as HID needs some new bedroom furniture so shall spend tomorrow sorting the car out.

Unfortunately I can't start the engine and wanted to know if there was a way to check if there is enough transmission fluid in the gearbox. I'm not sure if there is some form of level switch which may turn the warning light on, and engage the inhibitor, when the level drops below a certain level. I do remember some garage proprieter telling me that they filled them up to the level of a filler plug on the side of the gearbox casing, but I didn't think they had one! I think I'll just put half a litre in anyway to see if that makes any difference! I'll also check the battery, but everything else is working fine and nothing dims when you turn the key to 'Start'. I've checked the battery and it is fully operational and all other circuits are fine. I am sure that the transmission fluid level is fine, but I can not check it at the moment and was hoping that someone had an alternative method! I'll continue to post comments as I try to diagnose the problem.

Good point! How do I check the transmission fluid level without running the engine?

I wonder if anyone can help, I currently have a problem starting my RRC LSE! On a particularily cold morning I went out, started the car and let it run for 10 or 15 minutes. I then turned it off. HID wasn't ready! On returning to the car about 30 minutes later I tried to start the car, but everytime I turned the key to the 'start' position, the Automatic Transmission Warning light came on and the vehicle will not start. There is no clicking of relays and the starter motor does not turn. The response is similar to what occurs when the selector is in D and you try to start the vehicle. I have tried this several times over the past 2 weeks with the same result. I have even tried it with the gear selector in N P R D 3 2 1 and there is no difference. When the key is turned to 'IGN' the normal dashboard lights come on, but when the key is turned to 'start', the Auto transmission light comes on (as well) and the vehicle does not start. The light goes out when you return the key to the 'IGN' position. Does anyone have any ideas as to the cause of this? Now the snow has gone, I'm going out to have a look tomorrow so would appreciate a few pointers whilst I'm under the bonnet!

I use my 1991 VW Golf 2 Country when my RRC won't start! I haven't had a single problem in the foot or so of snow we have had a couple of times over the last year or two! And I use the same tyres all year round (Vredestein Quatrac). Even works on Green Lanes. Ultra reliable, 30mpg (50+ with a TDi engine) and cheap Golf 2 parts. Only problem is that good ones are not cheap (£4000plus if you can find one)

This sounds like a good idea but aren't the glass lenses different for LHD & RHD. If you rotate the bulb for LHD doesn't the lense still give the light pattern for RHD?

Overfinch and Carmichael (6x4 Fire Engines) also added grilles in the side of the bonnet or scuttle panel. However, Carmichael used them to cool the underbonnet when the vehicle was stationary whilst the engine was running the generators or fire pump! Even the fan on my lowly Golf Country runs on after the vehicle has been switched off, so the problem is not limited to Range Rovers! I would suggest poping over to your nearest neighbour and whipping the electric fan out of his motor and connecting it up as Bo suggests.

I believe that some of the police Range Rovers in the late 70s used a twin turbo set up, which I believe were installed by Janspeed. These gave a better response as they were smaller turbos. There are still one or two of these vehicles around!

I found one at APB Trading and bought it! They are no longer available from the factory and are no longer available from a dealer! When I get it, I'll measure it and see if I can find some rubber tube to match!