2001 Defender 110 CSW - Random No Start, help with diagnosis

Evening all,

Was out doing a little light offroading (forestry track), tried to perform a 3-point turn, and stalled the car. Tried to restart and nothing... I Sat for around 25 mins trying the key a few times and then it randomly burst into life.

This has happened on two other occasions, the first being after some medium offroading with the Land Rover club at DefenderJam 2022 at Drumlanrig (so nothing crazy) and once again after a few miles on forestry road about a month ago. So once during summer, twice during winter.

Seems to be the same thing,
- Turn key, usual red and amber lights come on
- Hear fuel pump priming, wait for it to go off
- Wait for glow plug light to go off
- Turn key and nothing. I cant hear a starter relay and the Landy makes not noise and does even attempt to turn over.

Checked the battery voltage and its sitting at 13.1 V after a drive and drops down to around 12.7V after multiple starts. Watching the voltage it looks like it drops to around 10.5V just before the engine starts but hard to tell as very quick.

I have also had a few instances where I have been accelerating relatively hard (mostly in the fouth) and the land rover hesitates (almost feels like a stall) for not more than 1 second. Not sure if the two issues are related.

I initially thought the battery was on its way out, the earthing point on the transfer box looks a bit rusty but not overly dramatic. Wondering if it could be the crank position sensor as a few people have mentioned this is a common fault.

Could any of you wizards help me diagnose what is going on here?

Cheers.

Sounds like your starter motor is getting worn out, it wouldn’t hurt to unplug the crank sensor and remove it and clean it, it’s not a hard job to do this on a defender

I'll whip it out at the weekend (and also the crank shaft sensor ) and give it a clean. I had hoped it wasn't the starter motor as they are starting to get rather pricey!

Clean your earths.
And run another earth from battery to one of the starter mounting bolts

I have heard this fault befor and the car was taken to the main dealers and put on diagnostic and was told there were no faults and paid the fee and went to pick up the car and it would not start .went back and told them but as it was near closing time they did not want to know and had to get the car shipped to an idie . I think the falt was the crank sensor which had somehow worked loose. when it was pused back in there was no trouble since. and the dealers did not refund any of their bill

Howdy all,

Thought I would come back and update this. It turned out to be the starter motor. I have since replaced it and cleaned the body and engine grounds and I have not had an issue since.

People are not joking when the say the top nut on the starter is an absolute pain to get to, think I had the starter off and in place in around 30 mins then spent 3 hours trying to get the top nut started!