Note - before you
consider fitting a HID kit, please
read this page from Department
for Transport as they may be illegal.
this explanation
from Steve 'SHARKYMGF' White from MG-Rover.org ;
"HID stands for High Intensity Discharge. As you know normal bulbs have
a filament suspended in a gas. The gas used (Halogen, Xenon etc) and
the wattage that the filament operate at both effect the brightness.
A HID bulb is filled with Xenon gas but it has no filament. It has an
electrode at each end and when a voltage of 20,000 volt is passed
through it an arc is struck between the electrodes. The arc heats the
enclosed metallic salts to vaporization point. Once vaporization of the
salts has occurred the HID bulb produces its full light output. This
'warm up' process take about 4 seconds.
To generate a stable voltage that high, the bulbs are connected to a
ballast unit (or inverter). The power drawn by the ballast unit is only
35 Watts, so less than a conventional bulb, but the amount of light
produced is considerably more due to the higher voltage powering the
bulbs. Bulbs are also available in different 'temperatures'. The
temperature they operate at changes the colour they produce. I am sure
you have noticed some cars with HID fitted as standard have white, blue
or even ' lights, this is down to the temperature of bulb they have
fitted.
The conversion basically involves replacing you normal bulbs with the
HID bulbs. You then plug the ballast unit into the bulb. Some kits then
simply allow you to plug the bulb connector on the car harness into the
ballast unit, whereas some of the cheaper kits don't have this ability
so there is a bit more work to be done. Conversion kits can cost
anything from £100-200 for the 'unbranded' ones to
£250-350 for the name branded ones sold by PIAA, Hella,
Phillips etc etc."
My
radio has stopped working, which fuse should I look for? Here are some
pictures showing the passenger compartment and under bonnet fuse box
layouts......
the following
pictures relate to pre VIN4D620548 VIN numbers (pre MY04)
passenger compartment fuse box (located under the steering wheel behind
a panel located by two twist screws)
the following
pictures relate to the passenger compartment fuse box for VIN numbers
from VIN4D620548 onward
all the relays in the newer fuse box are identical, all being part
number YWB000440.
Pictures and information courtesy of Steve White (sharkymgf on the
MG-Rover.org forum)
under bonnet fuse
box, located at the back right hand side, looking from the front. (this
is common, as far as I'm aware, to all model years)
My
heater is always blowing hot air, what can I do?
Stu Dickens on the
MG-Rover.org forum had this problem, this is how he fixed it -
"It normally takes about a
minute for the air to go cool, If it doesn't go cool it could be a
loose cable, but it's most likely that the valve is not shutting off
fully and it only takes a small opening to allow the air coming through
to stay fairly warm.
I lived with it for months and it takes only about 15 mins to fix once
you understand the problem.
If your heater problem is the same as mine was (it most likely is) have
a look at the attached jpg and I’ll try to explain what to do.
(The grey struts are the VHS stiffening frame, you probably won't have
these)
1)Remove the driver side access panel and you can see the heater cable
coming down and the clip (which is just a push fit).
2)Remove the clip (1) by just pressing the rear of it. It comes out
easy enough.
3)Rotate your heater control to the cold position.
4) It’s hard to see from the photo but the fixing (3) has two
hands coming from it a bit like a clock (one is smaller than the other)
The larger or hour hand is the part that slots into the frame (4)
The smaller hand is the one your interested in. When the heater is on
cold, the smaller hand should have rotated clockwise up against the
mechanical stop (2)
If it’s
not, it’s not shutting the warm feed off.
With the cable disconnected you can rotate the hands so the small hand
does hit the stop.
Once it’s in the correct position, reconnect the cable with
the clamp and hey presto its done.
You will find now the cable will not allow the mechanical part (4) to
travel to its fully on position with the heater knob on max which I
first thought would be a problem with the hot air, but it’s
not, the valve only needs to be open a little to allow plenty of hot
air through as you well know.
It sounds complicated and is a little hard to explain but in reality it
only took me 15mins at most."
How
do I remove the third or high level brake light?
this is courtesy
of Perry Gogas (PERRY-MGTF on MG-Rover.org's forum). Original thread can
be found here.
You open the
boot
On the left
hand side and inside the boot lid there is a rubber grommet where the
3rd stop light cables are coming out
Disconnect the
cables
Push them
inside the rubber grommet and in the boot lid.
You may take
the grommet out or not
Use a long
screw driver and try to locate the 3rd stop light left plug as you
cannot reach the right hand side one from that space.
Push the plug
with the screw driver so that the left side of the brake light
pops out.
Then it is
easy to pull the right side out too.
Notice that when you
unseal the stop light the led's are placed facing the opposite way!!!
so that the connectors run on the front side of the brake light.
What
does the engine ECU do?
Its the engine
management computer, controls timing, fans etc. For a brilliant
graphical explanation of the workings of the ECU, click
here and hover over the various
areas for more information. Note, this is a generic layout and may not
be F/TF specific.