Classic Range Rover Power Loss

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scudie

New Member
Posts
5
Hi

I have had an occassional persistent problem with my Range Rover (1978, V8, standard and unmodified engine) over the last couple of years.

For I can be driving along and without warning I loose power and the car dies. Usually I can restart the car after an hour or so but recently I had to call out the AA after work, having had to abandon the car by the roadside earlier in the day. They got the car started (saying that the contacts in my distributor cap had been coroded) but the car died again (after a loud backfire) after a journey of 3 miles in front of my house and will not restart.

I have done the following to try to cure the problem :

Put on another pair of carbs (secondhand)
Put on a new inlet manifold gasket
Put on a new fuel pump and petrol tank
Cleaned the fuel filter out

The engine is a sound unit but high mileage. I have always suspected fuel vaporisation problems as the situation usually occurs when the engine is hot. HOwever some days it can cope with crawling in heavy traffic for 30 mins yet other days it will die repeatedly and then not start for an hour if I only travel the 8 mile journey to work. I am not sure why the car has been reluctant to start after several hours over the last couple of days - maybe this is an unconnected problem.

Can anyone offer any advice as I am tearing what little hair I have out ?

Many thanks

Peter
 
I am only familiar with the later 3.9 injection engine but I would hazard a guess the problem is in your ignition system not fuel.

Check plugs, leads, dizzy cap and rotor arm. If replacing cap and roor arm make sure you get genuine parts. Pattern ones are notoriously unreliable. I one put a pattern rotor arm on mine and the Range Rover chewed it up (literally) in 10 minutes. Put an old Lucas one in and it has run sweetly ever since.

I don't know what distributor you have. On injected engines there is an ignition amplifier that can cause all manner of odd behaviour, I know yours is not injected but just a thought.

It might also be worth taking a look at the coil and ballast resistor. Sounds like one of those problems that is going to drive you nuts for a while. Good luck.
 
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