captainhair

Ah its been years and I thought this problem was sorted, but the immobiliser has reared its ugly head once again! its a 2-button fob standard immob, usually its behaviour is fine these days but I had to get a tow the other month because it refused to start. The problem is either A: drivers door switch for interior light didn't work, triggering the immobiliser. or B: I had my nephew in the car waiting while it was turned off (for about 10 minutes) so his movement inside the car could have triggered the immobiliser. So I'm looking at how I can get going without waiting hours for it to reset or having to get a tow home. Is there some special sequence I can press on the fob to make it work again? Its also worth noting that the padlock symbol on the cluster does not light up when immobilised. I simply get no crank when I turn to pos3 on ignition. Alternativley, am I in danger of damaging any parts if I rig up my own bypass from the battery? As I understand it I should be able to get starter going by running a cable from the battery to the starter signal wire, as the main power feed for starter isnt interrupted? Under normal situations I feel this would be safe to do, but just wanted to make sure the immobiliser doesn't complicate things. Cheers for any help anyone can give, feel free to PM me if needed as I realise this might be skirting a touchy subject. Tony

Glad it helped You know I honestly figured that by adding my own earth directly to starter it would cause any other problems regarding earths to disappear. I now know better and a few days in weather has gotten bitterly cold here, but the defender is still turning over fast and smooth, battery voltage and charge staying good etc. It really is amazing how much of a difference a good earth can make!

It was a decent thickness, but only half as thick as the main battery strap. I've temporarily done the middle earth (heh) connection with ring terminals now but going to re-do them as I think the cores at that point have degraded, become brittle where the original crimp was. Either way, this has definitely fixed my problem, the days have been getting colder and colder but its started first time every time. Just thought I'd post to confirm in case anyone comes upon this thread in the future.

Managed to get out today to figure out what my earthing situation was. I found 3 cables meeting in the battery box that attach to the terminal. 1st was the standard thick earth cable. Battery end was great, gearbox end looked like it hadn't been off since the defender was built and the middle joint where it earths to the body had uncrimped itself almost entirely. Took g'box end off, cleaned/greased and replaced it. Cleaned and recrimped the center one also but I'm not happy with it. Going to do as peaklander has and chop it and fit ring terminals to the ends, the standard connection seems a really poor idea. 2nd was one fitted by the previous owner, goes straight to the mounting bracket for the exhaust hanger. Decent crimp at exhaust end but because he used cable with very fine core wires it had frayed to the point of almost falling off inside the crimp of the terminal end. Removed and recrimped with some plastic sheath to stiffen the crimp a bit. 3rd is my own, goes straight to a bolt on the back of the starter motor. I knew I'd ran some new earth cable somewhere! In great condition with stiffeners and heatshrink at both ends. I'll have to fix that middle crimp on the standard earth, but aside from that they're all in good condition now. However I could certainly see either of the first 2 earth being a bit dodgy and causing problems. I hadn't started up the landy yet, so got the multimeter out and got started. Only dipped to 9.7v while cranking which is a slight improvement over yesterday however the starter motor and engine both picked up much quicker than they have been. I wouldn't say it was perfect, but the starter motor got the engine turning over at proper speed almost immediately and as a result the engine started really quickly. I'd have thought that having a good earth to the starter would have been enough, but given how both connections to the chassis were iffy at best, it might just have been the problem. Fingers crossed!

Hah well I guess I'll add new gearbox mounts to the list! As for the bell housing bolt, if that is where the earth should be it must be run elsewhere, there's certainly no loose wire dangling around under there. Aye what you said about the joint in the middle makes sense. If it's not pouring tomorrow I'll be out underneath it and figure out just what's going on under there. Thanks again for the help, much appreciated

Ah excellent thanks. It does have an alarm fitted, the standard terrible 2 button fob jobby which as a side note caused major problems the first year of owning it. Its a nightmare in summer too when all the little moths come out to play at night and set it off. But anyway back on point, I'll double check the gearbox earth but I know I did it when I did the oils a few months back. Pretty sure I did the chassis point too but can't hurt to double check. I thought there was an earth directly on the engine block but it doesn't look like it. Was going to do it today but started pouring down while I was in the middle giving the propshafts their monthly grease. While I was under there I did notice I'm worryingly missing some bolts! The first one is where the clutch bellhousing mounts to the block. I'm also missing bolts on my gearbox mounts I think. I'm pretty sure there should be a bolt going through this rubber block but I'm missing both. Anyone happen to know what size they would be so I can order replacements? First job tomorrow will be fully checking the earth strap, cheers

First off managed to get my model of battery, it's a Numax NV26MF, 100ah. As for today's multimeter results, everything was within 0.1v of yesterday's readings except for the voltage while cranking. Today it was 9.3v down from yesterday's 9.6v. I know it's only a small drop, but if it keeps going down a little each day then I can understand why it's been failing to start. I haven't cleaned up the engine earth yet as far as I know. When I did all the oils I cleaned up and greased the one on top of the transfer box and I think a chassis point. Gonna check the Haynes and find out where the engine earth is located, Internet seemed to report it would be on the starter motor in which case I'd have cleaned it up when I had it off for a service. Aye I really could do with jump leads so I can use them for test lamp, to jump the landy off the pug and also so I can check the glow plugs out of the car. On a side note, peugeot turned out to be crankshaft pulley nice easy fix so replacement for that is on the way. I'll be a bit dissapointed if it is the battery, people swore by them at the time. But who knows I mean it could have just been duff and slowly failing from the start. It was bloody brilliant the first 6 months, then it got worse at starting which was remedied when the starter motor got a service.

Cheers fellas, the noise from the brake was a tiny wee bugger of a stone! Got the wheel off and I could see it clearly Still waiting on my jump leads to arrive. Don't live in a big town, car shops here don't know what copper grease is let alone stock it. Once tried to order in an oil filter for the landy and ended up with one for a ford v8... I'll look into the multimeter checking of the other components, I've hardly ever used it and once blew up a computer psu when I thought I was following instructions correctly so I'm a bit cautious when I use it, had to triple check which setting to use before I dared run it across the battery even. Plus it's ends aren't grips, just points, so I need both hands to hold them or a solid place to jam it in. I'm going to go start it up with the multimeter across the battery terminals and log my readings to compare with yesterday then I'll pop back and post my results. Jump leads can't come soon enough. Results, keep in mind the first result is after fully charging the battery. All off: 12.9v yesterday, 12.5v today. Glow plugs engaged: 12v yesterday, 11.1v today Cranking: 10.5v yesterday, 9.5v today. Idle speed: 14.6v yesterday, 14.6v today. All off: 12.95v yesterday, 12.95v today 10 mins later: 12.7v yesterday, 12.9v today. Given how batteries can be a bit "peaky", with higher readings from a fresh charge I don't think the results count for much yet. But I'm looking forward to seeing the cranking voltage tomorrow. The more I think about how the car feels when I start it, the more it seems like it struggles on the very first turn, voltage dips, starter doesn't get enough power to spin at speed. Once I've got jump leads I'll try and get results from the other components you mentioned. Could it be that we're not driving it long enough to top the battery up? Its only about 15-20 minutes of b-roads to the stables, which is really the only place it goes. It hadn't occurred to me, but doesn't it take about 20 minutes of driving to negate the losses from cranking the engine?

By you can't half tell it's first frost. Went from 2 working cars to 2 broken cars overnight! The defender is a 1997 csw 300tdi with 200k miles. Gets driven around 2 days each week however it did have a 2 month spell sitting earlier in the year, only being started up once a week. Last year I gave it a 5 year service covering everything in the Haynes except the brakes. I also replaced the front propshaft with a new item with 3 grease nipples which I've done every 1-2 months since. Also replaced the pas pump, clutch master and slave, full coolant, radiator and intercooler flush. All filters changed all fluids renewed, new battery and had the starter motor rebuilt with the brushes being replaced. Has the egr removed/blanked, ever so slight white smoke occasionally on startup but generally very clean and clear. I think it's also lacking a fuel sedimeter to drain, because of the specific model. First problem developed about 5 minutes ago. A terrible screech coming from the front left wheel, matches road wheel speed, only happens while moving forwards. Sounds very much like metal on metal. At slow speeds it's a constant slow grinding noise, at road speed it was chirping like a little birdie on and off. My initial culprits are: Brakes, due to me not having serviced them though pad thickness was ok when I did the big service. I think some people have mentioned a pin going rusty and getting jammed in the way? Stone lodged in brake guard perhaps? Wheel bearing, was no wobble when I checked it about 6 months ago but I don't want to rule it out blindly. Any other suggestions or thoughts to help diagnose it? Since it only happens when moving forwards I'm hoping that'll help figure out what's causing it. My plan for tomorrow is to jack up the offending wheel and turn it by hand, try to see if I can spot anything. The second problem is with starting it up for the first run of the day. The starter motor turns over rather slowly and can take 10 seconds of cranking to get it going, if it doesn't start within that time the battery soon runs out of puff and I have to use the peugeots battery in it for the day. Even when the land rover is used daily it'll at some point within 2 weeks fail to start, usually after a very cold night. The battery is a big numax marine battery and only about a year old, I can't remember the exact model right now but everyone was recommending them to me at the time. So I setup my multimeter on the battery with it fully charged and got 13v across with ignition off, dropped to 12v while glow plugs were on. Does the voltage drop mean my glow plugs are good, or can they be in poor condition but still take the regular amount of voltage? I also can a resistance test on them and each read .6ohm Iirc. Might be worth pulling them just to check? Need to get some jump leads to check them out the engine. While running I get a nominal 14.5v across the terminals which I'm pretty sure is conclusive that the alternator is charging the battery correctly? Is there any reliable way using a multimeter to measure how much charge the battery has? That way I could monitor it's charge daily to figure out if it's faulty and not charging or if it's the starter motor struggling and running the battery down. That said, I hear about people turning the engine over for minutes at a time before draining the battery, so I would have hoped my battery fully charged would do more than say 3 attempts before going flat. I've also run a brand new earth from starter motor to battery terminal It started just as slowley on the battery borrowed from the peugeot, which is a 2.0 turbo diesel. However it is a much smaller battery so didn't expect much from it. Obsiously the noise is the most important problem to solve, but I'm happy for any help with either of these problems. Cheers

I haven't experienced this myself so couldn't say, but if you've actually got power to the solenoid on p2 does that not mean the starter motor would be engaged the entire time even with the engine running? If thats possible I'd consider a temporary test-bulb hooked up so you can monitor if its remaining lit while engine running. I know it would spin freely but I can't imagine it being good for the starter motor. Anyway, apologies thats probably just my starter motor paranoia That aside, does sound like someones been in that at that spider box if the rivets are gone. The black mastic glue you described is standard, mine had it, in addition to rivets. Take a second to thank the previous owner of doing at least one job of saving you removing the rivets! Though tbh I riveted mine shut again once I was done inside, though i doubt how much that would even effect thieves. Its possible if they've been in the spider box that they've either re-soldered the dry joints or that that've soldered on bypass wires to the spider unit itself. I'd fit the bypass but inspect the spider, you might be able to repair it and refit it if there is a visible problem. Then just keep the bypass plug handy for testing Could it be a sticking starter relay? Not really sure at this point. Maybe after you've traced the wires to find how its all connected you'll find something. As a side note, our landy sounds loads better and quicker when starting after having the starter motor serviced, but can't say if its made and difference to reliability as I only got it fitted yesterday.

Clicked on this post thinking it was my own topic! (http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=97201) Welcome to the intermittent non-starting club! I've got similar symptoms as you, so I'll run you though what I've discovered so far. Starter Motor - Its pretty easy to remove, only about half an hours job. Might be worth doing just to inspect and clean it out. Starter motors are a sealed unit and as the carbon brushes wear out you end up with carbon dust buildup that settles on the bottom of the starter motor. Now, just to rule it out as a problem on my landy I removed the starter motor and found that the bushes were only beyond half worm BUT they had worn at a funny angle and also there was about 2 tablespoons of carbon dust built up on the bottom, the inside of the entire starter motor was caked in carbon dust. I had the brushes replaced however as I said, it might be worth just giving it a clean out so you can rule it out as a problem. I've only fitted mine back on this evening and haven't had time to test it yet but I'll let you know if its made any difference. I also took the opportunity to wire up an earth straight from the starter motor to the battery, just to rule out bad earthing too. Spider - Oh yes this £$%*& I've had mine out an re-soldered the cracked joints and it did make a huge difference - for a time. I'm still confused as to what exactly the spider does as I've found many different sources have different opinions on the matter. I've even heard that with the bypass plug fitted it can still cause the vehicle to not run. Bit of a mystery that one. For the moment I've bypassed it in the hopes that I can rule it out as the cause. Battery - Replaced ours with a new unit which has been tested and known as good, so couldn't comment I'm afraid. As far as the "clunk" goes I've been told that it can be either the glow plugs (which as others have said continue to run a few seconds after the light goes out. I think I know the noise you mean. Someone once told me it was fuel pump related too but I didn't think that was the case. There is a series of relays I on the inside of the engine bay on the bulkhead however, or at least on mine. Pretty sure either way the clunk is normal. On ours I'm 99% sure that I could hear the starter motor engage when turning the key, then disengaging when the key was released. Which to me says "starter is engaged but not spinning" which is why I decided to check the starter motor and associated cabling. When you turn the key to "start engine" can you hear the firm clunk of the starter motor engaging? And another firm clunk of it disengaging as soon as you release the key? If you can hear that then I'd blame the starter or wiring. If you can't hear the starter engaging then I'd point to immobilizer/spider as the problem. This isn't to be confused with the quiet clunk noise I mentioned earlier which is totally different noise from the starter solenoid. Also assuming you're using the standard 2-button fob, I'd also advise that you check all door-open switches that make the interior light turn on and the bonnet switch too. If any of those are poorly wired, have a broken/damaged switch or a poor earth then they can cause the immobilizer to activate as it detects a presence in the vehicle without a door being open, as if breaking in through a window I guess. The door switches earth via the chassis they screw onto, which rust terribly and can cause a poor earth. This is why for about a year every time someone got in the passenger side of our landy the engine would fail to start. Anyway I'll stop here before I ramble on, good luck

Alright chaps, I've run my brain dry trying to fathom out my landy woes so thought I'd see if anyone can give me some advice. 300tdi Defender 110 1996 BUT with the added twist of apparently having the dealership fit the standard alarm rather than it being a factory jobby. Typical 2-button fob. At some point the central locking must have failed as its entirely disconnected, so only the alarm/immobilizer. I don't think this is relevant but thought I'd mention it. Problem began with occasionally refusing to start, no cranking. Turned out to be a dodgy passenger side door switch so anytime someone opened that door the immobilizer would lock the engine down. So fixed that however a few months down the line it started up again. The alarm would also randomly go off at 4pm Sunday morning. The alarm is also rigged up to the horns so its quite a shock when it goes! Neighbors must love me. So after reading the Definitive Spider Guide thread (amazing thread, helped me so much!) I temporarily soldered on the bypass wires to the spider and everything was dandy again! Then a few months pass, occasionally he refuses to start but soon gets going again with the whole "click disarm five-times-fast then start" trick. It slowly gets more frequent until last night he just outright refused to go. After a good 20 minutes trying to get him going I disconnected and reconnected the battery and he started first time! So, what do we think is the cause? My gut tells me its the immobilizer because its always been a pain in my backside and also because it started first time after disconnecting the battery suggests and alarm/ecu reboot? However the spider bypass is SUPPOSED to neuter all connection between the immob and the starter motor so maybe it isn't to blame, this time. I'd consider blaming the starter motor or its related wiring/relays however disconnecting the battery wouldn't fix that, would it? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated