Air-Ride Suspension Problems

aaronearles

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I posted this in the continental section, but there's not a lot of people in there, and since the mark has stock air suspension as well, I hope someone here can help/


I purchased a 98 Continental last week and it was sitting on the ground with little to no air in the bags, so I get it home and jacked up, test the compressor with direct 12v, it's good. Test the solenoids with direct 12v, both good. Manually fill the bags by opening the solenoids with 12v and running the compressor with 12v, bags fill and hold air for days.

I start the car, and get "Check Ride Control" immediately. The guy I bought it from tells me the car was up and had no error message when he parked it, but it's been sitting for a year, and eventually leaked all the air out of the system. So the compressor is not seized, the lines, solenoids, and bags are all good. I have no way to test ride height sensors, and I have no power coming out of the compressor relay at any time, but I think that's because the system detects an error, and never tries to turn the relay on.

So I'm down to the following possibilities:

Bad Compressor Relay
Bad Ride Height Sensor/s
Bad Vehicle Dynamics Control Module

Right? It doesn't seem like any of these would go bad from sitting, but I don't know...
I did take the covers off the height sensors, and the circuit board underneath looks good on both, no burns or anything obvious. I also opened the Control Module, and there is no visible damage to it either, although when I start the car with it unplugged, I get no error message, it's like the car doesnt even have the air ride system. Plug it back in, and I get the message, so I'm thinking that the VDCM is what checks the systems components and displays the error message, so it must/should be good?

I've read that the relay only goes bad from excessive running of the compressor, like with a leak, so it doesnt make a lot of sense for that to be bad.

What do you guys think? If I can't figure it out, I'm going to disconnect the control module so no error msg is displayed, and run a switch in the trunk to manually feed the solenoids and compressor 12v so that I can manually fill the bags once in a while as they slowly leak. Any idea how long the system holds air with no major leaks, I'm thinking I could fill it everytime I fill the gas tank if I'm lucky, or of course less often would be nice.

Thanks guys!
 
I put my money on the relay or the relay harness connector. You could try cleaning that first really well. On a mark it can get fouled up and not make proper connection. From there, replace relay. Chicken may know of compatible relays that can be swapped in to test. I would think, like the Mark, the ABS relay can be used.
 
The one on the conti is mounted at the top center of the radiator, and it has a big heatsink fin assembly attached, with a wide 4 pin connector on the bottom. I didn't see any similar relays under the hood, the rest are the normal ones in the fuse box.


Do you think that a bad relay would cause the system to fail it's startup test? I'm assuming it runs some sort of system check considering the error message comes up immediately.

Someone else mentioned that I should reset the system to clear any codes and start fresh, is this like any normal car where I can just disconnect the battery for a while, or does it have some fancy lincoln trick like they do for everything else.
 
Well assuming you check fuses, then relay is next. Yes the system does a test on start-up.

Probably a bad relay since it happens right away, unless the height sensor came completely off the mount.
 
I suggest you convert to coil springs if the problem gets worse....and it will over time. Check out: www.strutmasters.com

The Conti only has rear bags, as such the parts work half as less than a Mark. Really the air-ride system in a Conti is much longer.

Converting to coil would be premature when the compressor and everything else seems to work fine, just not getting the signal.
 
tc's only have rear bags, conti's are all 4
not sure on the abs relay being the same on a conti.....it is a 98 so i should be able to pull something up, let me go digging for a minute....
 
huh, i thought they all were, whatever. anyways i couldnt find the abs relay in any conti abs diagrams. but i DID save these, so at least you can know what your lookin at

98 conti air susp diag 1.gif


98 conti air susp diag 2.gif


98 conti air susp diag 3.gif


98 conti air susp diag 4.gif


98 conti air susp diag 5.gif
 
Alright, thanks. I tested the ride height sensors, with a multimeter, and I believe both are bad.

I've connected 12v to the red and black leads, and tested the output on the white lead. According to this article, the output should vary between .5v uncompressed, and 4.5 fully compressed. I get .5v out of the white lead all the time, and compressing the sensor makes no difference on the output.

So I'm pretty confident they are bad, not to mention the car sat bottomed out in a drive way in Michigan weather for a year with the ride sensors as close to the ground as possible. While the relay was protected under the hood up off the ground. Makes sense I guess, but I wish there was a way I could test the relay. Anyone got any ideas?

Also, does anyone know who sells the ride height sensors?
 

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