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Sunday, 20 August 2017

Height sensor replacement

For a few days the rear air suspension has been troublesome. It would slowly drop down on its haunches instead of rising up when starting the car.


A few restarts and tinkering with the calibration using a Nanocom would sort it out but it was a bit inconvenient.

I was hoping it would last until the weekend but by Thursday it was obvious that was not to be, so I took the day off on Friday to fix it.



I was reasonable confident that it just needed new height sensors. I'd had a couple in stock for years from a previous problem that only needed calibration to fix.






I took the opportunity to replace the broken connector housing on one side and to seal the unused cable holes in the connectors, just to be sure.



I think the main cause of the problem was not so much a faulty sensor but a corroded aluminium bush that was fused solid on to a steel bolt on the drivers side.



It was supposed to freely rotate as the suspension arm moved but that was not happening. I had to grind it and bash it with a chisel to get the bush off!



A few cups of tea later and its all back together.



Just needed to be calibrated using the Nanocom. I set the height at 47cm from the apex of the wheel arch to the centre of the wheel.

After a test drive and a couple of journeys, including a trip to have an 'all day breakfast', it is still riding as expected.

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