speedbump Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 On the way to work today,the wagon decided to go low rider on me by dumping all the air out of the rear shocks.NOT COOL! Got pissed off and decided to tear out the drivers seat and carpet as soon as I got to work. Well looky there,17 wires worth of corroded harness connector under the rug right by the door frame.Icut the connector out and cut in some weatherpack connectors in there place. Now Things are pretty much working again,but the car sits slightly askew,and the dash switch doesnt seem to work. Questions: 1-do I now need to dump the air manually from all four struts and let the car air them back up,maybe to let the cpu "figure out"what is actually level? 2-Maybe I busted the switch hammering on it trying to get it to work?I cant remember if its a 2 position switch or momentary? any ideas are welcome,and maybe we can pass on or save the bit about the harness connector,as there is very little about diagnosing the air sys on this board and I could see this being a VERY common failure! :headbang: :headbang: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GLCraig Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 you know, you could have saved yourself some grief by changing over to the front strut rear coilover suspension. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted March 19, 2004 Author Share Posted March 19, 2004 lotsa $$$$$$$$$ up here! The wreckers sell this stuff at a premium,and finding compatable stuff is pretty tough. forget oem I have been led to belive that there are some compatability issues as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calebz Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 No compatability issues.. straight swap But if you like your air ride, by all means, keep it.. just be sure to set aside a a chunk of your weekly paycheck for when it craps out For good air rid info, look for posts from electrycmonk ...(or is it electryc_monk ?) He has 3 air ride cars and insists on keeping them all that way.. I think he spends too much time and effort on them.. but he likes it and thats what counts..And he knows his air ride stuff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
baccaruda Posted March 19, 2004 Share Posted March 19, 2004 it's the second spelling. I think I've heard something about a way to reset the air suspension but I don't remember what it is. did you have the battery disconnected when you did the repairs? maybe there's another corrosion somewhere you missed? I think the reset was pretty basic, like disconnect the negative battery cable for a while and hook it back up.. i don't know if it's that easy though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted March 19, 2004 Author Share Posted March 19, 2004 did that , no dice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 bump:banghead: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 Strut's at yards around here are only about $15 each - that would be $60 to convert your whole car to a non-air setup.... that's not much. GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 cant find struts here,rust issues perhaps? It seems most sube owners drive their cars into the ground up here,not much left when it hits the scrappers. the car is level now but it still wont jack up.which wires at the switch can I jump to see if its poopered? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 You need to jumper the "air charge solenoid" terminal to ground at the ECU. You'll have to check the FSM to determine the wire color.... Back probe the connector - do not disconnect it. When you turn on the ignition, the system should start to raise the struts. If it doesn't then you have bad solenoids, or a bad pressure switch. You can jumper the pressure switch to bypass it - if the compressor runs, then the switch is bad. If it still doesn't run, then bypass the compressor relay. GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted March 20, 2004 Author Share Posted March 20, 2004 where may I find these blessed relays,I have no(sob) fsm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneralDisorder Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 The relay is located near the top of the lefthand strut The pressure switch is located on the air tank, which is near the compressor - in the lefthand wheel well.... GD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c150L Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 Originally posted by speedbump where may I find these blessed relays,I have no(sob) fsm. Any sort of wiring diagram would be very helpful for you. For relays, As I remember it, there is only the one behind the left front strut tower. This is the relay for the compressor only. Besides that, there's six solenoids and all have the + wire that's always hot and the - terminal is switched on and off direct from the ECU under the seat. I don't remember if the pressure switch in the air reserve tank directly triggers the compresser relay when pressure drops or if this pressure switch signals into the ECU and the ECU in turn triggers the compressor relay. There is one solenoid on each rear strut and one solenoid mounted near the front struts. One solenoid on the reserve tank and then what seems to be a somewhat troublesome solenoid in the compressor itself. That's the discharge solenoid. I had a couple of these burn out and or freeze up from moisture. Strange things happen when the system can not discharge air from any strut(s) that are higher than they are supposed to be. When you mentioned the car sitting there skewed, I thought you may have had at least one strut that was too high and the air was not discharging. That could be due to the struts solenoid, but more likely the discharge solenoid in the compressor isn't. My XT6 did this and the rears dropped. (Due to some leaking in the rear, but more due to nothing going into the rears because the fronts were too high and could not discharge. In a pinch, I have popped off one line from a front strut solenoid (compressor side, not strut side). Once the high strut is brought below the high point, the compressor should kick in to charge more air into the low struts. A high condition takes preference in the ECU over a low condition. If all low, the rears take pref over the fronts. not sure, but I think if all high the fronts take pref over the rears. (Don't quote me on that.) I have not noticed any preference between lefts and rights. But rear solenoids open at same time if low and when it comes to fronts, both will open if low and the rears are in place already. If you are to try manually energizing the solenoids, make sure you only ground (-) the switched - wire. DO NOT hit that wire with a + jumper. Also, do not ground out the + (always hot) wire going into the solenoid. Will burn your fingers and/or blow out a fuse. Hitting a + on the _ switched wire will most likely take out a transistor in the ECU. (Did that on the discharge solenoid in my XT6 and had to replace a transistor.) For the height switch on the dash, the US model XT6s did not have this provision. To get the height select on my XT6, I tapped off the height trigger wire that terminates at the test plug by the compressor relay. To toggle the height from normal to high, I have to hit that trigger once with a + wire. (Momentary contact) If I use a maintained contact switch, the thing toggles from normal to high each time I turn the ign switch off then back on. (I'm using an ingition switched wire. Someone had told me that the the dash switches are maintained contacts. I can not deny that, but also can not explain it. Perhaps it's an always hot wire feeding it, but just removing the hot fropm my XT6 does not toggle from norm to high or vise versa. I have to toggle the hot wire again to chage states. PM me if interested, I may have a PDF file someone sent me for trouble shooting the air ride. I'll look for it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c150L Posted March 20, 2004 Share Posted March 20, 2004 Here's some wiring diagrams. I have found the PDF troubleshooting files too. Some wiring diagrams Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted March 21, 2004 Author Share Posted March 21, 2004 c150L,should I pull all the hoses and fire the solenoids and dump it all down,and let the compressor recharge the system? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
86subaru Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 this is what happaned to mine , 88 turbo full time 4wd a/t wagon , when we jacked up 1 side to rotate the tires , and did the other side , the whole car was really low , it came up after you started it ,but would go all the way down in less than 5min after you shut the car off , but after running the car and driving it was ok, all back to normal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c150L Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 You would only need to pull off one line, compresor side, then you could test fire each solenoid fron the test plug with a fused ground wire. (Carefull.) If you hold each solenoid open long enough, your car will go to the ground. Will need to think if you want that. If the compressor is working, it SHOULD come back up. In these cold months, I have had to put a jack under the left rear corner and help that one up a ways. Also, the fronts are harder/take longer to get off bottom when their totally flat. I have used a jack to assist the fronts to start their way up too. Can not go to far up with the jack or the shock will tell the ECU it's high and stop charging the strut with air. (Then either wants to open the solenoid to lower or close it to stop filling it if the height is correct.) On the XT6 US models, the wire for height does not go to the dash. Only to the test plug. That's why I tapped in there. I don't believe the models that have the dash switch have this wire in the test plug. I have a CN and US wiring diagram for XT6. Not sure what one I pointed u to online. PM me an email addy and I'll sent you the PDFs. Their actually pretty good for helping understand what this system is about. Think is states that 88 and later (except XT models) have an onboard diagnostic you can triiger from the ECU. But then your height switch would have to be working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c150L Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Does not appear to be a dash height switch in the diagram I linked to. Also do not see the test plug. I'll send my scans of the wiring diagrams along. (It's for an XT, but would expect to be quite similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archemitis Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 cant you put air fittings on the shocks where the hoses go in, and just fill the damn things up with an air compressor? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c150L Posted March 21, 2004 Share Posted March 21, 2004 Yup. Did that to get aa XT4 my boy bought.home. It didn't have a compressor in it at the time. Not a very relyable means of transportation though. If there is a slow leak, would be pulling into stations constantly to refresh a shock. If one is going to have air ride, it should work properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speedbump Posted March 22, 2004 Author Share Posted March 22, 2004 hey all,thats the ****ty thing ,all the individual compontents actually work,the only problem I have found was 1 beautifully corroded harness connector for the controller,which I have since rewired . The only thing I cant get to work is the dash switch to raise or lower the car.When i press the switch it will turn on the compresor,but not openthe soleniods or turn on the indicator in the instrument panel. The car is currently sitting level at normal(baagh!)height,and I prefer it elevated,to deal with the water bars I go through to get to the bike trails I like to ride. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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