Electrical Gremlins

Needs some help with Defender 200TDI Electrical Gremlins

Over the weekend, whilst off roading. Got myself stuck, went to use my Britpart superwinch, after pulling me for a few meters starting clicking and packed up. At about the same time, saw a bit of smoke coming from behind the Instrement panel. As the temp was also into the red, decided to switch the engine off until good citizin turned up with a working winch.

When I went to restart the defender, nothing, I got the normal ignition lights but no starter function.I don't remeber seeing the glow plug light come on either.
After about 15 minutes, the defender started. (put this down to a little water in the elecrics), however as the recovery took some time, i noticed the tempreture was right off the scale. decided to switch off.
However when i turned the ignition off, a stange continious beep was heard, but the engine didn't die. decided to leave it, but kept a real good eye on any steam from the engine. the tempreture bounced from off the scale, to in the red to normal, all whilst stationary.

Because of the not switching off thing, decided to cut the day short and head home (about 35 miles). got home the defender switched off and on fine and the winch was working again. At first thought this was something to do with the batteries (running a X-Eng, split charger and two batteries). Both batteries registering 15 volts each. Though that was the end of it.

Over the last few days I have noticed the glow plug light illumination when the car is ticking over. Normally a blip of the throttle turns this light off.

One last odd thing. when using the blower. the strength of the heater seems pretty pathetic, however when the handbrake is applied, the blowers are more powerful.

I had the temp issues for a while, i've relaced the rad, and thermostat, the only thing i havn't changed is the sendor unit.

I'm ok with basic electrics, but this is a bit above my skill set, has anyone come across an issue like this or can point me in the right direction.

Cheers

you gorra bad earth

Agreed - sounds like water has got into the electrics behind the dash - there is also an earth there which is likely going to be rusting away - remove dash, clean out mud etc, remove wires from earthing stud - use fine sand paper to remove rust, put back together, cover in silicone grease to prevent water geting at it again

Thanks guys, i'll check the earth behind the dash tomorrow. Thanks for the advice
cheers

If everythings earthing through the handbrake cable, id place my bets on the engine to chassis earth being damaged/fallen off.

I had the same problem last week and after this simple fix everythings been fine. I also decided to earth the body to the gearbox while i was at it for good measure, so attached an earth strap to one of the seat mounting bolts directly above the gearbox earth point.

Hope this helps

Ollie

Hey Ollie,
Sounds like itsworth doing this. I think i'll double check the engine to chassis earth strap, and as a matter of course, i'll earth the body to chassis or gearbox.

I guess tomorrow will be a busy day.

Thanks

No problem, hopefully if its just an earthing issue you'll only be about an hour - although i know time flies when your working on a landy!

If your gonna take a look at the earths, you might as well replace the lot, then if you dont fix your problem/get problems in the future you know its not an earthing fault, when i did mine 3 straps came to about £20 and they were pretty mahousive too, so its worth it for peace of mind really .

Ollie

Found a broken earth strap between the chassis and engine, replaced this as well as earthing the body. Blower issue seems to be OK now, i'll have to wait and see if the other gremlins have dissapeared but certainly seems much better.

Cheers for you help, thanks to Ollie and all that posted replies.

Thanks Ollie missed that bit in the thread about hand break - was just skimming through it. Hope all is well

No problem, glad youve sorted it now