Okay, my 93 LWB has been in storage since November in a closed garage, today I got it going from a totally dead battery condition, sorted with charge and got the engine running. However the AIR SUSPENSION is down and not even attempting to raise the car up. I haven't had problems with it in the past 2 years I've owned the car BUT the prior owner had bookmarked the section in the manual. This auto has only 60,000 miles and has spent MOST of it's life in storage -- the suspension is usually down and comes back up when it is started. I did completely LOWER the rover before storage... DEAD batteries tend to mess with rover computers and fuses... I need help from more those of you who are more experienced with air suspensions and this common error condition...

What happens? the switch lights flash for 15 seconds and then both TOP and BOTTOM lights (raise and lower) both stay ON. The manual says it's a mysterious "internal fault" or a 15 amp fuse...

1) Is anyone familiar with that problem and/or know how to resolve it? Things to check...

2) Where is the 15 amp fuse (haven't checked that yet) located?

Again, no problems with the air suspension over the last 2 years. I don't even hear the compressor kicking on. I've had the rover in and out of storage several times BUT never long enough to KILL the battery. I tried to start the ROVER twice with dead battery and then with a severely undercharged battery. Everything else seems to work Okay BUT the air suspension.

Thanks in advance. Please help me out with a reply as, I'm in a rural mountain location with this rover and kinda "stuck". Fortunately today the internet is working at this house.

Thanks,
Tony

 

is this the HARD ERROR FAULT or initial one?

 

I have not had alot of experience with the older air suspensions but feel safe in saying that you will probably need to have the system scanned and the codes cleared so the ECU will reactivate the suspension.
You should also consider switching to a better , deep cycle battery, so you won't loose youe voltage needed to maintain the ECU. When your truck goes dead, you are prone to getting low battery faults.
Wish I could be of moore help.
Mike

 

Tony

My '93 Rangie has been converted to coils so I don't know much about air but I asked a friend who lives a 400klms away who had a problem a couple of years ago that sounds similar to what you describe, he knows little about mechanicsand had it repaired at a dealerbut he told me it was pretty expensive, his son said he thought it was called a valve block, it was the part that destributes the air to the air bag on each wheel, he thinks it was seized up.

Good luck hope this helps.

 

Tony,
Have it checked before you start throwing parts at it.
Mike

 

Okay -- so last week I finally got bad to this rover that is 1000 miles from home.

1. followed instructions from ROVER RENNOVATIONS about jumping pins of the pigtail going to the ECU.
2. on a California/US LHD model of the LWB 1993 (9/1992) RRC the ECU box is the TOP unit on the passenger (RIGHT) side of the rover.
3. instead of doing a 4 way wire to jump, I found a roll of uncoated bailing wire and cut about eight 3" pieces of wire. stuck the wire into the "pin" location to jumper it -- easier to do this than use a frayed copper wire!
4. compressor fired right up. ran it for 2 minutes. set watch on the floorboard to time seconds.
5. jumpered according to instructions, timing seconds to get some type of common pressure. Used a yardstick to measure body height at all 4 corners trying to get it even.

6. plugged in the unit and the rover dispelled all the air and went back to the ground. just leave it unplugged I guess.
7. repeated steps 4&5 making the rover a bit higher. test drive worked
8. let rover set overnight and it was the same height in the morning. test drive was fine.
9. left it pumped up in storage.

questions: doing the #6 action -- does this purge water from the airtank? What problem will I have in the long term if we just ocassionally use the compressor and so forth. I seem to remember the system constantly purging water/etc doing the TSSSSSSSSH TSSSSHHH at powerdown.

A. the logic in the ECU is pretty good stuff -- given all the solenoids and measurement data it is a world ahead of the old days of air shocks that boosted weak leaf springs. I can see why it was such an expensive option.
B. some day at barrett jackson the LWB's with intact air systems will bring big bucks. maybe that is 50 years from now, but some day it will because an option that exceeded the price of a decent used car is often a collector's item. I know -- you want some of what I'm smokin.
C. this system is more complicated than most engine management systems of the day.

 

You have done alot on your own, which I could shed some light on your issue.
Mike