Shudder and repeated crankshaft sensor failure

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jtq4u

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37
Hi all,
I have a strange and ongoing issue with my freelander 2 (2007 2.2 auto) which I am wondering if anyone else has encountered and solved?
It starts off as a shuddering at around 2000 to 2500 RPM a bit like going over a cattle grid. Once you are not at this sweet (or not so sweet!) spot then it goes away. However in time the crank shaft sensor totally dies. It started stalling out july 2019, with a crank shaft sensor error.. so in went a new one which died totally in August (leaving me and caravan closing the road out of Salisbury!). New sensor in again. more juddering Since April this year. replaced sensor, this time juddering didn't go away. serious juddering this week on the way to holiday with the caravan and then crank shaft sensor death again. New sensor put in again 2 days back (luckily by now I carry a spare!). Running again but with lots of juddering!

So what might kill crankshaft sensors and cause juddering I wonder.

I also wonder if it is related to the new timing/trigger wheel and crankshaft pulley we fitted a couple of years back when changing the cam belt. That was an odd one as the '07 car had a thicker trigger wheel and thinner crank pulley than later models. The only ones available now are with a really thin trigger wheel and a thicker pulley. So we had to swap both the trigger wheel and the pulley. Perhaps it is now slightly misaligned. It isn't possible it seems to source the exact ones.

My only other thought would be the wiring to the sensor. I am off out now to resistance test the wires back to the ecu. Also to volt meter the supply to the sensor (I think it is 3 wire with one sense, and 2 supply wires).
I tested it last year ago though and it was ok (but the symptom had gone then).

total nightmare!
 
Crank sensor failure is pretty common on these engines. I'll be keeping a spare in the boot, just in case.

It should last more than a couple of years though, unless it's suffered corrosion.
 
Nodge68 said:
Crank sensor failure is pretty common on these engines. I'll be keeping a spare in the boot, just in case.

It should last more than a couple of years though, unless it's suffered corrosion.
Click to expand...

replacing it this time (as of 2 days ago), hasn't fixed it this time (and I have swapped it twice this summer, once to try and fix the shudder, then on sensor death this week). I think something else is causing the sensor to fail.
 
I don't know if you can, but have you tested these sensors to check if they have actually failed?

I'd be wondering if it was a loom issue or something else masquerading as a crank sensor failure.
 
I've just come in from investigating the wiring. What a pain it is with Freelanders that you have to remove the windscreen wipers to get to the ECU!
Anyhow I checked continuity between the ECU connector and the 3 wires at the Crank shaft sensor and all 3 were good. I then checked the voltage between pin 1 and 3 of the sensor when the ignition was on, these were correct at 5v.
I am not sure where my oscilloscope is at the moment, I'd need to hunt it out to check the other pin (as the middle pin is a variable voltage encoded signal via the hall sensor).
Then I put it back together and it didn't start (which is actually a good thing). Wiggling and removing the plug and putting it back in again allowed me to toggle between working and not working. So it seems the plug is the fault for the total 'failure' I saw this week. It is quite possibly the reason for the killing of the sensor last year too (that one really was dead, although you can't easily test them i could swap between it and a new one and get working/not working).

I doubt this will have fixed the shuddering, we will see tomorrow when I can test drive it (I can't now as I am home alone with the kids who are in bed). I suspect what happened is the shuddering shakes the bad connector. and so there are two separate issues - as is so often the case!

shuddering (issue unknown) --> causes bad connector to come loose causing engine to stop.

I will update tomorrow when I see if the shuddering remains.
 
jtq4u said:
Then I put it back together and it didn't start (which is actually a good thing). Wiggling and removing the plug and putting it back in again allowed me to toggle between working and not working.
Click to expand...

Wow. That's a really good bit of luck. It could quite easily started on the button, and you'd be non the wiser. I do know the crank position sensor is a common failure, which does appear to be the sensor itself, or corrosion on the plug.
The best thing to do is source a new plug, and graft it in to the harness.
jtq4u said:
shuddering (issue unknown) -->
Click to expand...
Shudder in an auto is almost always down to the clutch in the torque converter. There is a treatment called Dr Tranny's Shudder Fix, but before going down that route, it's a good idea to change the box fluid first.
 
Nodge68 said:
Wow. That's a really good bit of luck. It could quite easily started on the button, and you'd be non the wiser. I do know the crank position sensor is a common failure, which does appear to be the sensor itself, or corrosion on the plug.
Click to expand...
The best thing to do is source a new plug, and graft it in to the harness.

I spent hours last night on the internet looking for a source of a new plug (if anyone knows of where I might source one that would be very cool). So I have just ordered a used entire engine loom for the freelander 2, hopefully with a plug in better condition than mine. I will graft that on when it arrives on Monday. It is so frustrating as we are meant to be going on Holiday the weekend after in the caravan :-(


Nodge68 said:
Shudder in an auto is almost always down to the clutch in the torque converter. There is a treatment called Dr Tranny's Shudder Fix, but before going down that route, it's a good idea to change the box fluid first.
Click to expand...

This is indeed one of my fears. I read online somewhere that to see if it is the clutch in the torque converter you can reproduce the symptom, keep the foot steady on the accelerator and lightly press the break to see if it stops. This was non-landrover generic advice stating that most cars release the torque converter at signal that brakes have been applied. Worth a go. It is frustrating that it is much harder to reproduce for extended periods of time without the caravan on the back!!
 
The freelander seems to be fixed!

I carefully unpicked the used wiring loom and extracted the 3 wires from the Crankshaft sensor all the way back to the ecu, and cut them a couple of inches from the ecu.

I then also removed all the insulating tape from the used loom and salvaged as many thin conduit parts as possible.

Next I plugged my plug with the long 3 wires (recovered from the used loom) into my car's crank shaft sensor, and then covered the 3 wires with bits of salvaged condiuit and new insulating tape to make a new loom part.
this i then routed more sensibly than the original one so it doesn't get so hot and also isn't susceptible to getting covered in oil that may leak from the rigid-to-turbo air pipe (it gets oil in it from the crank ventilation).
My route is up the side of the engine, clipping behind the radiator hose mount.. and then just below the windscreen wiper flat cover. I drilled some holes in this part of the firewall and cable tied it along the top of the firewall there. Then one larger hole in the firewall, slightly right of center, where the conduit enters the firewall. my 3 wires are then patched into the loom at the ecu central plug.

How did I know which wires? welll there are loads of them, but I found two of the colours as a twisted pair (lucky as the colors are not unique) and then the single other wire. Each of these I resistance tested against the old plug to check I had the right ones, before removing the ecu plug, choc-bloking them to the new loom, replacing the ecu plug and seeing if the car started. It did, so I removed the plug again and soldered them in place, with heat shrink over them.

I have now done a 60 mile varied driving style test solo and 40 miles with the caravan and the issue appears to have gone. Lets hope it is indeed gone as I have 5 hours of driving with the caravan to complete on saturday!
 
GrumpyGel said:
That's a comprehensive fix!

Definitely deserves to be a permanent fix given the effort.
Click to expand...
Lets hope so. The weekend trip to north Devon will certainly test it. Lets hope I get 19 MPG towing and not infinity MPG (on the back of a recovery truck!)

I have just ressurrected an old thread on here regarding the seepage of oil from the joint in the induction pipe after the PCV, which I am potentially blaming for the issue existing.
I am hoping someone might advise as to whether there is always some seepage from the PCV (and so I just need to seal the joint), or if the PCV it self needs addressing. You have to be super careful what you fix that joint with as it is post air-filter and so anything that flakes off will go straight into the turbo's turbine blades.

I have even half jokingly pondered putting a pipe down to the engine tray with a non return valve on it so the seepage just drips there! But perhaps the turbo enjoys its little lubrication, providing there is nothing gritty spat out of the pcv which would cause chips in the poor turbo - and mine already had some chips when I inspected it last year.
 
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