For just a few bucks you can get a digital battery tester. Well worth it. Any time you have an electrical related malfunction, and most behavior problems on these vehicles are electrical related, you must guarantee that the duo of alternator and battery are establishing a solid electrical supply baseline.

You can't just run the pump without opening valves. This may damage the pump and certainly will not tell you whether the system is operational.

When you look at the actuation voltage across the relay, you must look at the voltage across the actuation terminals, not either terminal relative to ground.

 

OK, I will test the battery again to see what I get. I had done repair and slow charge on it and it said 100% at 12v when I put back in.

Would hate to shell out $$ for note battery and still have issue. Anything I can test on relay, valve block or pump wires to make sure that is really the case?

 

It just goes to show when electrical weirdery ensues the first thing you should hook your peepers onto is your battery.

 

I bet the "100%" is just level of charge, rather than capacity. Spend the $10bux to get a proper battery tester, or pull it and take it to a parts store that can test the battery for you. They test the battery's internal resistance, which tells you it amp capacity.

I am not clear on where you are testing the trigger / activation voltage on the relay.

 

Hope you are correct! Got a battery tester with all the bells and whistles on its way. Stay tuned!

As for trigger/switch on the relay, I think it was the 85 and 86 that were putting out the 4.32V each. If I jump the relay from 87 to 30, the pump will turn on. However, as mentioned it will not lift the vehicle and both a newer Chinesium block and the original MB block have been tested with no luck. Hope that helps.

Not holding my breath for a battery test or a new battery to solve this, but also really hope it is that simple (albeit not cheap, but better then having to remove bags and buy spring kit and install, until something else happens).

Any other suggestions on testing these wires are appreciated. I guess since they both have at least some voltage at 4.32V, they are operating? Where does the message come to increase this voltage enough to throw the switch and send the 12v through to the 40amp fuse and on down to the pump?

Also open to suggestion on how to test air valve block and anything else if the battery solution does resolve this now nightmare.

 

Eric_in_SD, can you explain more about looking at voltage across terminals? Is that as simple as taking a reading from one hole to the other with multimeter? If so I can do that and thought I had. Any further instruction appreciated and I will get back to you with details.

 

In your picture of the relay, put one probe on #1 (86) and the other on #2 (85). When the instructions are sent to actuate the relay, you should see 12VDC across those two terminals. Do not measure voltage relative to ground, that is with one probe on ground (chassis).

It is possible the 4.8V you measured is some sort of standby which would fall to zero when the relay coil is put across them - meaning it is a spurious voltage. You can try installing jumpers made from spade and lug crimp connectors, so you can test the voltages with the relay in place.

You also need to ensure the relay is being activated. If you had a bidirectional scan tool, you could manually activate the relay.

Virtually every hardware component, except the things giving information to the computers, runs on 12V. It is the computers and signal components that run on 5V. Conceivably the relay is triggered by 5V but I highly doubt it.

 

New Battery and New Bosch Alternator did not fix airmatic issues, oh and new pump which has been tested as well as airblock which was tested.

Any other ideas?

Believing it is a wiring issue from Airmatic computer board/controller and to relay to turn on pump and tell block to work.

Any ideas!!???!!

About to loose it and just bought a 2004 German Made Range Rover for 4K to keep the family happy, but don't want to give up the 320 and am being told it is 2 months out and "if they can figure it out" from the dealer I would have to tow to 160 miles away.

Really over it!! About to order the spring conversion and set the airmatic parts on fire...unless someone can solve this riddle.

I guess I am wondering at this point if there is a way to test the control/switch wires turning on the relay and the compressor. ANY IDEAS here?

Then keeping in mind I can jump the compressor relay and have the pump turn on, but not raise the vehicle. Hence a communication issue between the airmatic controller , the pump and the valve block.

NOW WHO CAN SOLVE THIS???

Keep in mind I have also swapped (swap tested with a working airmatic controller circuit board).

That is why I need to know a way to control (Not power) wiring to the airmatic relay and the valve block I guess too.

THANKS AND GOOD LUCK!!

 

DId with new Bosch alternator and no luck. Airmatic still not working. Luckily was able to put the old battery in a new to me 2004 Range Rover to keep the family happy with the GL320 being stuck in the barn the last 2-3 months at this point. Any other ideas appreciated!

 

I will say to walk away from this 320… Once you get the aromatic fixed, all the diesel problems will present themselves to you. But I understand I am virulently biased against the diesel X164; except for one with an alphabet delete.

 

DONE. New battery, old, new OEM alternator (old one had failed and been replaced by Chinese one that recently was failing and providing codes), new serpentine belt, all new seals around the intake and intercooler hoses related to serpentine belt replacement.

Tested battery and alternator with new battery tester, everything OK.

Ran MBII icarsoft scanner, only code that came up was:

5400 Check component F58kG (air suspension compressor)
DTC Status:
Current and stored

Cleared code.

Restarted, then got Airmatic Malfunction on center dash display.

STILL NO FN LUCK!

NOTE: Pump is brand new Arnott compressor which turns on when relay is bridged and also works when bench tested. Also circuit board for fuse panel was inspected for any burns or corrosion and everyting was OK. Airmatic controller was also swapped and test with no changes and or corrosion. Airblock was swapped out and tested as well.

Here are the readings on the relay plugs of the circuit board tested to ground while running:
#30- 14.25V
#85- 14.25V
#86- 4.37V
#87- 0V

Tested with jump wire from #30-#87 and pump turns on but car does not raise.

Tested #85 to #86 and 0 reading.

Other readings to note:
The ignition switch on, engine off.
MBII DATA STREAM: Terminal 30 12.10V Terminal 87 ON
LF vehicle level -123mm
RF -127
RR -122
RL -125
B22/8(left front level sensor) 4.49V
B22/9(right front level sensor) 0.47V
B22/7(left rear level sensor) 0.71V
B22/10(right rear level sensor) 4.55V
Y36b1 (AIRmatic pressure sensor) 0.82 bar
Compressor operating time 1868675 s

OK. ANY IDEAS WHAT IS KEEPING MY SYSTEM FROM WORKING AT THIS POINT??

 

If pump is running and car isn’t raising something is preventing your valve block from distributing pressurized air from the reservoir to the four corners.

pressure in the central reservoir should be closer to 16 bar. The 0.82 bar reading is from where in your system?

also, zero out your runtime when replacing compressor. That’ll give you a pointer on how often the compressor has to replenish the central reservoir, depending on how many leaks are in your system.

 

The pressure sensor is in the valve block. For it to read anything meaningful, one of the valves has to be opened. Otherwise, it is reading the pump's head pressure, which ought to be 16 bar when running or somewhere closer to zero when not. With STAR you can test the pressure at the reservoir and at each of the air springs; when you do this you can hear the valves click open.

(it is probably bad for the pump to run without actuating a valve, as the pump will just be pushing against the volume of air in the output tube.)

 

Do not run the pump for any extended period with manual bridging of the relay. The pump will then be pushing air into the small volume of the output hose. Only do this to verify operability of the pump, which you have already done.

How did you test the valve block?

The fact the pump is not being activated by the relay does not tell you all you need to know. Airmatic only activates the pump when it is demanded by raise-to-offroad-height or the central reservoir pressure is low and the vehicle is moving (so the engine noise drowns out the pump noise).

And you are getting the Airmatic dash error because the system is trying to refill the reservoir and nothing is happening. When it goes into that error mode, I believe it shuts down all activity.

If you clear the error with your MBII, does the pump run at all when you restart? Or does Airmatic immediately go into the error mode?