Cotswold Pete

Colin, at a guess it looks like same product for all the backlighting. I assumed it was a probably a no-no mucking about with taking the thing apart, to try and put new CFLs in.

Has anyone ever taken apart a Mk4 Sat Nav to see how the light tubes are fixed inside the unit. I assume the CFL tubes were a standard product from that era and possibly still made up until a few years ago, and so wonder if possible to refresh a Sat Nav. Mine if very faded first thing on a cold morning, which is sign of CFL being totally naff in next few years.

Maybe I will get my two mates who own LS's and go for a spin along the M4 one day and try this technique. I (do though) expect slightly different results as none of us has a black car!!!

If I were a betting man (which I am not, cure of that habit when I was 14 on the penny arcades at Westward Ho!, back in the 70's), I would expect this to go for £3.5K at least. Looks a ruddy site tidier than my Mk4, and same year as my first LS. My only reservation would be the ECU, as my N reg was a real pain once it warmed up on a 15 mile run (or longer) and then would stall at every opportunity. Was fine on my commute to work, but that was only 10 miles.

Used to knock up cheap valve amps as a teenager, gave myself a 600volt shock once, that hurt, but as I was using the trick of only use left hand to fiddle inside high voltage systems, heart was not touched. Also fiddled with a flash gun once, did not appreciate how ruddy painful the discharge on them is. Now I just stick to fiddling with 240volts, much safer!!!

Totally agree with Kieran about a darned good clear out and making sure shims and copper grease sorted. If calipers are not 100% moving as needed, then chances are the pads are sitting on the disk when they should not be, they then start bonding small amounts of material to the disc, and over time the disk surface is out of true. I would say lumpy surface not a warped surface. Once this process begins then the only way is to clean the disc as well as the pads, and work out what is causing pad to disc contact when there should be none. I assume if runout not correct then that causes problems from the word go. Also seen some people say a dirty interface between wheel and hub can cause odd problems, but usually when there is really significant build up of filth on the hub. Being in Dublin its a shame you could not take the care to Japex in Hemel Hampstead, they might have some ideas. Maybe they might know of a company your side of the water that could help.

Looking at that, cannot see why the bridge rectifier failed just because you were using a dimmer, but dimmable LED systems usually have slightly more sophisticated circuitry to allow external dimmers to work with them. IMHO not so sure I would any form of dimmer with the new one that has arrived. To think that when I was doing A-level electronics in 1976 that LEDs were rare and expensive, and we used to build LED matrices, and something like the picture, the LEDs alone would have cost about £15 (average weekly wage about £100 back then), and we used to use the valve technology for numbers as it was cheaper. How much we have progressed in over 40 years, thank heavens. For dimming we probably just put a piece of cloth over our eyes!!!

Just seen this post, having been off-line for a couple of weeks. LEDS that can be dimmed require a trailing edge dimmer technology, which is a little more expensive that the dimmers used for non-LED (which is leading edge dimming). LEDS that are not suitable for any form of dimming certainly go AWOL as you get really odd current surges across the Diode junction which means they get too hot even though you are trying to dim them by reducing voltage. Your lamp sounds a bit odd, as I would have expected at least one resistor as well as some capacitors.

I always scream when I hear 'a mechanic says the brakes are warped'. Discs only warp if run red hot glowing and then you hit them with a ruddy great hammer, and as they cool down they are now warped. Either that or the discs are made of such cr*p metal they warp because they are just good at bending themselves, but you still would need to lump the disk with some force that no brake pad is ever going to exert. I had problems with my LS until I went back to OEM disks and OEM Pads new shims and a darned good clean up of all that is to do with braking, and also making sure after any period of braking to take foot of the brake pedal and apply handbrake or park. Any inferior junk in any brake pad is more likely to stick itself to the disk when both are heated and stationary (so no air moving over the interface). The pads may be sticking more than usual due to other problems with the braking system, which comes from the other parts bringing pad and disk together are possibly sticky/sticking or slightly out of true. As you have (from the sounds of it) already had new OEM discs and pads, gotta be something else, and making sure foot off brake pedal is the order of day as soon as you come to a stop (eve for a few seconds). I feel for you having been on the same journey over 2 years with various mechanics who wanted to un-warp my discs.

Pacific

Muff

Flea

Elf

Frog

Crook

Frost

Satire

Magpie

Bone

Scalp

Tribe

Brazil

Nude

Eton

That sound seems like somewhere in the AMP section a feedback control circuit has gone a little AWOL. Usually feedback paths are simple resistors that when they go open (as opposed to shorting) the amplifier oscillates just like that noise on the video. A specialist might be able to pin-point which component(s) has gone faulty, but sometimes not easy to repair depending on how it is soldered to the amp boards. What I meant by Grounds, was that what the electronics in a car prefers is a common ground, so the lights might all go to a common ground point, and the ECUs (might) go to a common ground point, and the audio systems go to a common ground point. Audio systems without common grounds tend to have noise or instability as small currents move around the grounds points and the amps just amplify the noise. If you are able to plug in a speaker to the sub amp that is not touching and other metal parts and you still get the noise, that to me indicates the sub amp is the problem.