Defender td5 starting issue

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T

Tobyrm1

Member
Posts
12
Location
Bristol
Hi all,

New to LR ownership and the forum has already helped loads! I’ve got a 2005 td5 defender 110.

90% of the time it starts perfectly but the other 10% it doesn’t want to start, I’ve noticed that when the ignition is turned on the EML and glow plug light don’t illuminate when it isn’t keen to start, if I take the key out and keep trying, the lights eventually illuminate and relevantly it starts but it needs a few seconds of light throttle to keep going or it will stall again. Any ideas welcome!

Thanks in advance
 
Try the yellow relays next to your ecu, under the drivers seat. Make sure the connections are clean and tight. Also check the earth near the ecu. You can turn on the ignition and give them a waddle then you can isolate which is faulty. Does you temp gauge go straight into the red as well?
 
wireman said:
Try the yellow relays next to your ecu, under the drivers seat. Make sure the connections are clean and tight. Also check the earth near the ecu. You can turn on the ignition and give them a waddle then you can isolate which is faulty. Does you temp gauge go straight into the red as well?
Click to expand...

Temp gauge stays normal just noticed these two lights are out. I’ll give it all a wiggle under the drivers seat tomorrow. Thanks for your help.
 
You might want to check the red ECU plug for oil contamination while you are there. The fault sounds more electrical, but worth checking the red plug regularly anyway.
 
Si Click said:
You might want to check the red ECU plug for oil contamination while you are there. The fault sounds more electrical, but worth checking the red plug regularly anyway.
Click to expand...

There was oil in the red plug so I replaced the injection loom and cleaned the plug/ connector so that’s all good now.
 
TD5 wiring looms are also vulnerable to internal faults such as insulation chafing and the copper wires breaking. Land Rover seem to have suffered from a batch of poor quality wire sometime in the early 2000s The fact that your fault is intermittent suggersts a poor connection somewhere.
 
So today I have had a good look under the seat, no amount of wiggling will cause the problem. Gave the ecu plug a good clean and looked in the ecu. Nothing appeared to be burnt on the circuit board.

I have replaced all the relays, used conductive gel on the terminals and they’re all tight. Just a waiting game to see if fails to start again!
 
Mine does this every now and again but temp gauge shoots up to red as well.

It's either the blue block connector under the drivers seat or the fused link nearby on mine. If I put it in gear and back in neutral it seems to move the main harness over the gearbox enough to sort it, if not I have to lift the seat but can't figure out which 1 being twiddled with sorts it lol. Once in a blue moon so feck it
 
wireman said:
I have had the same problem and it was a loose socket that the relay plugs into. Yours could be an intermittent faulty relay(?)
Click to expand...

The sockets on the relay did seem a bit loose and someone had been at the spades on one of the relays with emery paper. That’s why I got new, closed up the connectors so they were tighter and used conductive grease.
 
Aah bastard td5s :D has it ever cut out on you or struggled under load? Does sound like an electrical fault. Check main earths, ones on the gearbox/transfer case can't remember and one on bulkhead I think...think there's an earth in the roof somewhere as well.

As an aside, my obd port had been re-sited to wrap around the main loom where it passes over the gearbox. I put it back where (I think) it should be under passenger seat and that kicked off my intermittent fault. As @Brown said, now's the time to start looking for chafed and damaged wires. When it does it again get all your seatbox panels off and have bloody good wiggle of as much of the harness as you can see what happens.

Earth points for ref
IMG_0074.JPG
 
1988smithy said:
Aah bastard td5s :D has it ever cut out on you or struggled under load? Does sound like an electrical fault. Check main earths, ones on the gearbox/transfer case can't remember and one on bulkhead I think...think there's an earth in the roof somewhere as well.

As an aside, my obd port had been re-sited to wrap around the main loom where it passes over the gearbox. I put it back where (I think) it should be under passenger seat and that kicked off my intermittent fault. As @Brown said, now's the time to start looking for chafed and damaged wires. When it does it again get all your seatbox panels off and have bloody good wiggle of as much of the harness as you can see what happens.

Earth points for ref
View attachment 165570
Click to expand...

Thanks for putting a diagram of the Earth points. If the previous work hasn’t fitted it I will look in to it further.

It has never cut out or struggled under load, always pulls like a train. Here’s it is sorted!
 
Sorry it's late in replying but heh....I had this issue with my 1999 TD5 but more sever, wouldn't start, i have a thread on here of my fault diagnosis to resolve the issue and thankfully after the fix, it never returned. There are a few tips on what to check for, so its worth a read. I would be looking at the ECU which was my issue, fairly sure there are ECU repairers on the web who for the sake of postage (at your cost) will check your ECU, test it, report out findings then give you the option to fix or not...have a read of my post..might be of use. TS
 
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