2006 Toyota Land Cruiser - Staying Put

[Dyslexic Viking]

If this does not work, then the only thing left is an exorcism.

[Crackers]

[Crackers]

Good luck. 🤞

[SiC]

4 hours ago, kfsgo said:

Hey, look on the bright side...at least your spares aren't £600 a corner!

 

Could be worse, my neighbours Audi R8 V8 Magneride needed all the shocks absorbers replacing as they were leaking to various degrees. 

£10k to replace them all

He replaced them with coil springs 🙃

Which actually are from the V10 model...

It's currently sat dead on his drive as one of the dry sump oil return lines has rusted a hole through it. Waiting for a new part to be shipped from Audi Germany. RRP for that pipe is £480. Part is currently on revision Q, such is the brilliant design. 

[St.Jude]

So the new bag had a tear in it, so it wasn’t inflating. That generated the error from the compressor.

Good news is, I put the two new bags on. I’ve even swapped the shocks! Lost the top rubber for one of them but I’ll use the old one.

Good news is, I turned the car on and it started inflating! Both sides. Great stuff!

Bad news is that the side that tore the new bag somehow moved off its bottom mount and twisted itself.

Ive unplugged the air line, air wooshed out. Now though the bag is fully inflated (elongated with no air in it) so I’ve to take the fucker off now and wonder why it did that, because this is the second bag it’s happened to.

[St.Jude]

Actually scratch that, the new bags torn.

Fuck sake!

[RoverFolkUs]

It's clearly trying to SPRING out of place.. 😞😂

[St.Jude]

Think I know what’s happened.

I thought I would see if the air bags were inflating before changing the old ride height sensor. It’s just dawned on me that I didn’t consider the fact that last time it was reading -12cm, compared to the new one that said -5 or -6. 

It could well be that the car is over inflating the driver side, and when the passenger side stops it kept going and then went pop.

Heres a photo of the passenger side:

And here’s the drivers side:

it’s all academic now. It’s a new bag, and a call to a mobile mechanic - only because I saw what happened with the other height sensor and I just can’t bring myself to go under that thing again and drill out holes and go through the bag bollocks again.

[St.Jude]

You join me live in the air suspension championships.

Everything is connected. New ride height sensor fitted, the third air bag on the drivers side fitted.

I have set the height to Low, and this is the result:

Passenger side above, drivers side below:

The drivers side has inflated a fair bit more than the passenger side. However, I think it may be on a slope. I haven’t set it to N (Normal) yet as I want to check the height being reported back by the sensor.

F**king windows updates! I restarted it because originally Techstream couldn’t talk to the Air Suspension module. It did this before, so thought the laptop might be wrong.

If after the restart it doesn’t work, I’m going to drive it to the end of the driveway where it’s flatter and set it to N.

Its 1-1 and there’s 4 minutes of stoppage time to go…

[St.Jude]

It managed 2 miles before I heard the unmistakable hiss of air escaping. The drivers side bag is fucked again.

So I don’t know what to do now really.

[Rust Collector]

How do the bags connect to the axle and stay registered?

Seems weird that the bags can extend further than the protective shrouds if they’re easy to puncture, are they meant to do that?

Is there meant to be something that joins that corrugated shroud to the foot of the air spring so that it extends with it and keeps the bag protected and in the correct shape?

[Zelandeth]

Do we have a diagram somewhere of how everything is supposed to look?

Disclaimer here is that the only air suspension I have ever touched has been on buses/coaches, I've never touched anything on a domestic vehicle.

The fact that the bag and it's top mount are sitting at an angle just doesn't seem right.  That's always going to place massively more strain on one side of the bag than the other.  Especially if it gets to the point that it can essentially fall over.  Air bags are incredibly strong and far more reliable than folks think within their design envelope, but fail catastrophically very quickly when used outside that.  

Is it possible that someone has been in there before you and has royally fscked something fundamental up, then thrown it back together before selling it?  Thinking like wrong components on wrong sides, something bolted on backwards etc.

My gut feeling is that the top of the bag under all normal operating conditions should be parallel to the base...quite prepared to be proven wrong, but the way it's sitting just jumps out at me as a big red flag that needs investigating.  A proper diagram or good photo of everything as it should be would be the starting point there.

[horriblemercedes]

7 minutes ago, Zelandeth said:

Do we have a diagram somewhere of how everything is supposed to look?

Disclaimer here is that the only air suspension I have ever touched has been on buses/coaches, I've never touched anything on a domestic vehicle.

The fact that the bag and it's top mount are sitting at an angle just doesn't seem right.  That's always going to place massively more strain on one side of the bag than the other.  Especially if it gets to the point that it can essentially fall over.  Air bags are incredibly strong and far more reliable than folks think within their design envelope, but fail catastrophically very quickly when used outside that.  

Is it possible that someone has been in there before you and has royally fscked something fundamental up, then thrown it back together before selling it?  Thinking like wrong components on wrong sides, something bolted on backwards etc.

My gut feeling is that the top of the bag under all normal operating conditions should be parallel to the base...quite prepared to be proven wrong, but the way it's sitting just jumps out at me as a big red flag that needs investigating.  A proper diagram or good photo of everything as it should be would be the starting point there.

I'm inclined to agree. I don't know about the suspension design on this car, but this is how it appears to me. I can't quite work out why though

[St.Jude]

I have the workshop manual on an old hard drive which I'm struggling to access because of encryption. So at the moment no I've no diagram. But it's really quite simple.

At the top of the air bag there are two posts (for want of a better term). One post is where the air line attaches to it, and the other is more like a nipple that a U spring clip fits on to it. So the bag at this point hangs down from the car. At the bottom of the bag is a stud. That is supposed to sit on to a plate on top of the axle. When you first put it on the bag doesn't reach it, so you lift the axle so it's practically on the bump stops and that attaches to the bottom of the bag.

That's really all it does. Looking at the photo of the fucked one though I wonder if the plate is buckled a bit towards the back.

I've a number to a specialist in Ledbury who I'm going to call when they open and throw it to them. More money, more heartache. I think that should be the tag line of the Land Cruiser - if Toyota are reading!

[SiC]

22 hours ago, St.Jude said:

So I don’t know what to do now really.

I know the idea of air suspension is nice and makes the ride compliant but fuggin' put springs on with and make it usable then be done with it. Seriously!

Unless you are having fun diagnosing a system that likes to keep shitting expensive air struts. 

[Back_For_More]

Are all of those bags already damaged or is there something causing the tears? 

Tears as in rips..... The other tears are understandable after all this palaver. 

 

[St.Jude]

1 hour ago, SiC said:

I know the idea of air suspension is nice and makes the ride compliant but fuggin' put springs on with and make it usable then be done with it. Seriously!

Unless you are having fun diagnosing a system that likes to keep shitting expensive air struts. 

The thing is it’s meant to have air suspension. You can do a conversion but that’s not for this spec of car and it’s a modification etc. I know insurers can be funny about Range Rovers with the conversion and I’d rather not have that administrative ball ache. Plus as well saying that the suspension has been sorted is a plus point for selling it. 

35 minutes ago, Back_For_More said:

Are all of those bags already damaged or is there something causing the tears? 

Tears as in rips..... The other tears are understandable after all this palaver. 

 

they’re not torn or damaged when going on the vehicle. I think when it collapses it gets pinched by the axle and body which then puts a hole in the bag. The new ones I put on you can see it takes a chunk of the rubber and reinforcement. The tear is only 1cm long as well.

[colino]

I don't know this set-up at all, but is there any chance the car has been fabri-cobbled before and the post where the air line goes has been inadvertently switched with the locating post?  It would all fit, then go out of geometry when it actually operates.

[SiC]

1 hour ago, St.Jude said:

The thing is it’s meant to have air suspension. You can do a conversion but that’s not for this spec of car and it’s a modification etc. I know insurers can be funny about Range Rovers with the conversion and I’d rather not have that administrative ball ache. Plus as well saying that the suspension has been sorted is a plus point for selling it. 

Oh I understand that. I'm probably the first on here to moan about any car that is modified and say it's better as the factory intended. Except it appears the factory have buggered up on this. I also hate having to declare any mods and then have the faff of finding an insurer that will take them.

But as it stands, it's given you much more hassle trying to get the damn bugger working than the headache of sorting the insurance. The money spent on replacing those airbags already is probably far more than you'd loose selling it with springs as a modification. Plus you can use it as a vehicle without it being so much of a driveway ornament.

I just think you've given this a bloody good effort in fixing it and it's still kicking you in the 'nads. It wouldn't be so bad if it just stopped working but the fact it costs you money in new airbags everytime it decides to kill them, it could continue to be an expensive journey.

My neighbour went through similar on his Audi R8. That has Magneride suspension and all four needed replacing - £2.5k a corner. Anyway needless to say that wasn't happening so he replaced it with regular shocks and modules to keep the suspension ECU happy. I saw him last weekend with his brother replacing a rusty oil return pipe (£450 for a crimped pipe!) as it decided to crap itself by spewing oil all over his drive. Incidentally he has a Landcruiser too but I think he said that his had springs+shocks out of the factory?

 

[goosey]

You ain’t got a bent radius arm or a knacked radius arm bushes on that side  causing the axle to sit slightly askew putting the bag at a funny angle 

[goosey]

Also if your jacking the axle up to the airbag with the passenger side airbag still with air in it wouldn’t the driver side bag inflate at an unnatural angle

[St.Jude]

17 hours ago, SiC said:

Oh I understand that. I'm probably the first on here to moan about any car that is modified and say it's better as the factory intended. Except it appears the factory have buggered up on this. I also hate having to declare any mods and then have the faff of finding an insurer that will take them.

But as it stands, it's given you much more hassle trying to get the damn bugger working than the headache of sorting the insurance. The money spent on replacing those airbags already is probably far more than you'd loose selling it with springs as a modification. Plus you can use it as a vehicle without it being so much of a driveway ornament.

I just think you've given this a bloody good effort in fixing it and it's still kicking you in the 'nads. It wouldn't be so bad if it just stopped working but the fact it costs you money in new airbags everytime it decides to kill them, it could continue to be an expensive journey.

My neighbour went through similar on his Audi R8. That has Magneride suspension and all four needed replacing - £2.5k a corner. Anyway needless to say that wasn't happening so he replaced it with regular shocks and modules to keep the suspension ECU happy. I saw him last weekend with his brother replacing a rusty oil return pipe (£450 for a crimped pipe!) as it decided to crap itself by spewing oil all over his drive. Incidentally he has a Landcruiser too but I think he said that his had springs+shocks out of the factory?

 

I know where you're coming from. It's a lesson in when choosing a car to do better research in how much these things cost to fix when they break. Fuck spending £2,500 a corner!

So my Land Cruiser is an LC5, which is top spec. It's the only one of them that has air suspension, the rest are on coils. But in the later 150 and 200 models, they have some weird KMSS (something like that) which apparently is an utter pig of a system to deal with - and expensive. Mine doesn't have that, so there are small blessings.

Currently though I'm trying to sort out a trip to Overland Cruisers in Ledbury who are specialists in Land Cruisers. They're going to do a health check on it, and sort the suspension, and air con. Well I've asked them to do it, whether they can or not I don't know. It's a fucking horrible position to be in as, realistically, I've spent too much on this thing in under 2 years of ownership. I should move it on. But then I've spent a lot of money on it that I won't get back, so I should really use it. The health check, I suppose, will either consign me to further depression with it or at least give a bit of piece of mind that the worst of it's problems are sorted. We'll see.

16 hours ago, goosey said:

Also if your jacking the axle up to the airbag with the passenger side airbag still with air in it wouldn’t the driver side bag inflate at an unnatural angle

No idea if the arms are bent, I'd be surprised if they were. With the air bags, if you disconnect one line of the whole thing loses pressure. The ride height sensors balance it out, and in fairness when I had it at N both sides measured 92cm (from the bottom of the tyre to the top of the arch). So maybe something is broken on the drivers side allowing it to expand further.

[goosey]

So if you disconnect the driverside airbag does the whole system loose all pressure? 

does the same thing happen if you disconnect the passenger airbag? 
 

I would have thought there would be some kind of ballast tank somewhere and a height control valve block would it be possible the driverside airbag solenoid has failed open and as the compressor is filling the ballast tank the failed solenoid is causing the pressure to go to the drivers airbag instead 

probably haven’t explained that very well 

[St.Jude]

On 6/6/2023 at 11:32 AM, goosey said:

So if you disconnect the driverside airbag does the whole system loose all pressure? 

does the same thing happen if you disconnect the passenger airbag? 
 

I would have thought there would be some kind of ballast tank somewhere and a height control valve block would it be possible the driverside airbag solenoid has failed open and as the compressor is filling the ballast tank the failed solenoid is causing the pressure to go to the drivers airbag instead 

probably haven’t explained that very well 

I’m not sure if I’m honest, but 100% there is no air in the system when I unplugged the drivers side.

Both sides go in to like a drum/brake booster kind of thing, and the compressor feeds in to that. So I get what you mean. I wouldn’t think it’d keep air if one side went down because then the whole thing would be on the wonk though.

Ceri bless him is taking the Land Cruiser to Ledbury for me on Wednesday, where they will fix the suspension and (hopefully) air con - as well as a “health check”.

[St.Jude]

On Friday the specialists had it on the ramp for a health check.

What is the cause of the air suspension problems?

A bent upper link arm, and the bracket that the ride height sensor attaches to is also bent. So this was telling the car that it was lower than it actually was. So it over extends and causes these problems.

There are other things too, like timing belt and a piston on the front brake caliper sticking (me thinking it was pulling because of tracking), diff breathers are blocked and the diff oil is all cooked, but here it is from the horses mouth:

Now I have to find a way of paying for it.

[Datsuncog]

3 minutes ago, St.Jude said:

A bent upper link arm, and the bracket that the ride height sensor attaches to is also bent. So this was telling the car that it was lower than it actually was. So it over extends and causes these problems.

Good to hear it's apparently a mechanical issue causing all this heartache - hopefully fixing the link arm and sensor bracket can finally resolve the suspension issues.

I'm sure it's been a rather more expensive process than hoped, but that's good news that the specialist reckons it's otherwise a good 'un.

Onwards and upwards.

[SiC]

Have to wonder what it hit (and how hard) to bend the upper link arm.

[St.Jude]

3 hours ago, SiC said:

Have to wonder what it hit (and how hard) to bend the upper link arm.

Well yeah. I don’t off road in it at all, maybe the country lane I go down is a bit rough but I’ve been doing it in my 107 with no problems.

[Dobloseven]

11 hours ago, St.Jude said:

On Friday the specialists had it on the ramp for a health check.

What is the cause of the air suspension problems?

A bent upper link arm, and the bracket that the ride height sensor attaches to is also bent. So this was telling the car that it was lower than it actually was. So it over extends and causes these problems.

There are other things too, like timing belt and a piston on the front brake caliper sticking (me thinking it was pulling because of tracking), diff breathers are blocked and the diff oil is all cooked, but here it is from the horses mouth:

Now I have to find a way of paying for it.

Are your kidneys in good condition? Could you sell one? 

[St.Jude]

Doubt I'd get anything for them with what I've done to it.

So I got the quote back and it's alright. Well it isn't, it's more money but at least it will be done.

Things they found out:

• Inner OS CV boot split
• Tensioner is corroded
• The diff breathers are blocked
• Rear brake discs could do with being replaced
• Gearbox/diff oil is all burnt old and horrible
• Suggested underseal too

Got them to do everything except for the rear brakes and underseal. The underseal I'll get done later in the year, the brakes I can actually do myself. He says.

I'm full of confidence, especially as the chap I spoke to has not had great success with the 3rd party height sensors sold by Milners Off Road. So that's something to expect in the future. Only thing I'm bothered about is that I hope the guy doesn't think I fit the sensor with the broken nuts, as I managed to remove the sensor I changed without breaking anything.