Electrical Gremlins

Afternoon, All.

Last night my Defender displayed a new one on me. It had been sat parked up for an hour or so and when I went to restart it it fired up and ran fine, but the lights were dim and flickered, sometimes returning to full brightness, but not for long. Also, anything electrical was sluggish and the voltmeter went down to zero. The car is a 1993 200tdi and has recently had a new battery and alternator. I’m guessing a bad earth, but I’d love to hear from anyone who has experienced similar symptoms and can offer an explanation.

All the best,

Dom

...I’ll start, it I’ll be an earth, it’s always an earth. Defenders

Yes, I thought it might be. Thank you.

yep my money is on a earth

Earth. Or just batt connecton.

domderbyshire said:

but the lights were dim and flickered, sometimes returning to full brightness, but not for long. Also, anything electrical was sluggish and the voltmeter went down to zero. The car is a 1993 200tdi and has recently had a new battery and alternator.

Click to expand...

Check 1. battery lead connections including any direct take offs, 2. alternator wiring, 3. all earths

Thank you. I’ll get onto that today.

Right, no joy, I’m afraid. I checked and cleaned the earth points, the alternator and the battery. I then went for a short drive keeping an eye on the voltmeter. It was looking good until I turned the lights on. This caused the voltmeter to dive to zero... I’m stumped!

Put a separate voltmeter directly across the battery and compare to dashboard voltmeter. If battery voltage stays higher then you have high resistance somewhere.

The plot thickened when the indicators started playing up. I replaced both front bulb holders and cleaned all the contacts. This helped. Then, today, I daisy chained a new earth strap from the t-box to the chassis. Bingo. The electrical response has never been so healthy! Thank you to everyone for your advice. I'm hoping that's that for now. Being a Defender, I'm sure there will be a new problem soon enough...

Excellent result...Land Rovers