LLAMS goes full Viagra

[zelatore]

...if it stays up for over an hour seek professional assistance....


I've been off the forum for about a month now. First I was on a week long trip in the Rover then a week long trip by boat in BC. I'm just now getting back to reading the forum to see what's been going on in my absence. And JWestPro, have I got a story for you

I had the truck all packed up for a week on the trail. First thing in the morning I roll out and head toward the meeting point and only a couple miles from the house I notice the truck is riding oddly and the steering wheel is off like I have a bad alignment. Then a yellow EAS warning pops up. Not sure what's going on, I pull over and find the suspension has gone to full lift - it's basically topped out against the upper stops. ???? OK, I pull out the Gap tool and clear the fault and reset the height and things seem OK so I continue on only to have it happen again in mile or two. This is a problem. I try tweeking the LLAMS knob but nothing happens. Hmmmm.....

Back to the house and I reset things again and it seems OK for a bit, then just sitting there it starts lifting again, cranking away on the compressor in some sort of attempt to keep going up even when it's maxed out. At this point I yank the LLAMS unit and plug in the by-pass (null) plug that comes with it and everything seems good. Since I was heading out on a trip I didn't mess with it and I haven't gotten back into it since but all's well. I don't know what happened, but somehow the LLAMS freaked out and is sending incorrect data to the EAS.

I don't really need the LLAMS; I generally only use it to drop the truck a bit on the highway to gain a touch more aero efficiency. It is a little annoying to have a $500 (AU) device fail in only a few months though. I may try to sort it out, but there's not really anything much I can do with it other than check the connections. And given that the null plug seems to have it working OK, I don't think there are any connection issues.

As for the thread title, when I described the problem to a friend on the trail he said 'oh, so your truck's on Viagra now?'. Maybe I should buy a giant bath tub to park it in? (wait, I think that was a different pill but you get the joke).

 

[DiscoNels]

This certainly is disappointing to hear about. I use the LLAMS as my lift for off-roading and to lower going into the garage. I keep my Johnson rods in the glove box as emergency back up. I'll be heading to Moab in 2 weeks for the rally and hope to not have any issues with any points of my EAS. Perhaps once you investigate a little further you'll find out what caused this.

Subscribed to get the details.

 

[ColoDisco]

I am planning on getting either a gap or llams, will be keeping a eye on the solution. Thanks for letting us know!

 

[perkj]

Have you tried recalibrating the LLAMS? Sounds to me like the calibration is off.

 

[zelatore]

I am planning on getting either a gap or llams, will be keeping a eye on the solution. Thanks for letting us know!

The two aren't really and 'either or' situation. The GAP tool will give you some lift options yes, but it's really a diagnostic tool first and foremost and highly recommended. The LLAMS is an on-the-fly height solution. If you can only have one, I'd pick the GAP every time just because it can do so much. The LLAMS is a one trick pony, though it's a pretty good trick.

Have you tried recalibrating the LLAMS? Sounds to me like the calibration is off.

Actually no; I didn't do any calibration to it when it arrived as it came pre-calibrated for the LR3 per the documentation and it performed fine for quite a while. In retrospect, I think it may have been acting a bit weird on a trip earlier this year when I seemed to have a list that later went away by the time I got home. I had been suspecting a height sensor but it may have been an early sign from the LLAMS unit. I'm not in any rush to fix it; I've had the truck on trail for about 8 days since it failed (including all day today) and with it by-passed there's been no issue. I actually have a lot of other things to look at that are higher priority, like what that noise in the front end is....

I'm not trying to say the LLAMS is junk based on this one experience. I'm just putting a data point out there.

 

[ColoDisco]

I thought llams did diag as well, thanks for clearing that up.

Still curious what caused this.

 

[perkj]

When my LLAMS arrived it also stated no need to calibration per the instructions if installing on an lr3, but like you're experiencing now my suspension was all over the place as soon as I plugged it in and started the LR3. I decided to recalibrate and all was good after that. It takes about 1-2 mins to recal and is very simple. I assume the height sensors degrade over time from new and ended up sending signals outside the tolerance the LLAMS could handle. It's worth a try and I have a strong feeling it'll resolve your issue especially given that you never calibrated it to your LR3 and it's height sensor settings. I'd also assume using the gap tool to adjust the height senors would throw them out of range of the precalibration and thus require a recal

 

[zelatore]

When my LLAMS arrived it also stated no need to calibration per the instructions if installing on an lr3, but like you're experiencing now my suspension was all over the place as soon as I plugged it in and started the LR3. I decided to recalibrate and all was good after that. It takes about 1-2 mins to recal and is very simple. I assume the height sensors degrade over time from new and ended up sending signals outside the tolerance the LLAMS could handle. It's worth a try and I have a strong feeling it'll resolve your issue especially given that you never calibrated it to your LR3 and it's height sensor settings. I'd also assume using the gap tool to adjust the height senors would throw them out of range of the precalibration and thus require a recal

Thanks for the head's up. I had actually sort of forgotten about it since I don't use it much anyway and it's not effecting the usability of the truck, plus I went and did my boat thing for a while which sort of got my head out of the Rover world. Certainly won't hurt to do try the calibration - just have to pull the knee panel so I can re-connect the system.

FWIW I don't use my GAP to adjust height; it's set stock. However I am running Johnson Rods. *in theory* that shouldn't matter since the sensors are still working in their normal range with rods, but of course there's always the chance my theories aren't the best.

 

[umbertob]

A bit late to the party, but when I moved the LLAMS module from my old Sport to the LR4, I recalibrated it and everything was OK for several weeks. I then started getting random EAS faults (although my height never arbitrarily changed like yours.) Eventually, I traced the problem to one of the connectors of the LLAMS wiring loom being ever-so-slightly - I am talking maybe 1 mm, if that - detached from its counterpart from the EAS module. Not sure if the connector had somehow weakened when I had removed it from my first car, but the bottom line is that if those male and female connectors aren't fully and securely mated, you can get faults and odd EAS behaviors just for driving over a speed bump, for example. My solution was to tightly zip tie the connectors together, to make sure they would not accidentally loosen again. This was 4 years ago, the LLAMS has been flawless since - and I use it all the time off-road because, unlike you, I don't have rods.

Even though the null plug seems to have successfully fixed your erectile dysfunction, I'd still check the connectors very carefully if I were you, perhaps even use some compressed air or electrical cleaner to make sure all those pins are spotless and the connections tight, then try reintroducing the LLAMS module in the system and see what happens. If everything fails, Graeme has always offered outstanding customer service to me in that past. I am pretty sure he would rush you a replacement module and/or harness FOC if you can't sort yours out.

 

[Jwestpro]

And JWestPro, have I got a story for you

Well, too bad you didn't "@" me! I just found this, 3 years late LOL merely because I googled "llams lr3" to see what I could find about why mine is goofing up recently after battery disconnect and suspension fiddling around. Looks like a re-calibrate is in order to see if that fixes it.

 

[Blaise]

Question: Why are we lowering the truck at speed? I understand that the truck will do this at very high speeds for stability, but won't alignment changes offset efficiency gained from aero? Have you tried logging your fuel usage (onboard or tracked) to see if it works? Sorry for not being of any help!