TSD

Doesn't engage... spins freely, or grinds on the end of the ring gear? If spinning freely, pinion gear stuck on the shaft? Solvent/WD/Diesel, then move the gear along the shaft by hand a few times, until it slides freely. Add a little lubricant to the shaft, then try it again.

The tdi was dropped in 97 for most of the world due to emissions regs, but was still available for some markets, and known as Rest-of-World spec. (Also military variants). So in most catalogues you'll want to look at 94-98 years to find tdi parts. Of course, USA never got the diesels at all officially. NAPA website lists 2.5 diesel Discovery in 96, but the parts it finds seem to be V8 ones. If you have a Bosch motor (very likely if it's the original motor), then the Bosch part number for the solenoid is 0331303165. Any Bosch agent should be able to source one for you. An MWM/International/Navistar dealer might be able to source a motor? Some South American Ford Rangers and Merc Sprinter vans had International 2.5tdi or 2.8tdi engines which are the same family as the 300tdi.

One or more of those statements is wrong. No such thing as a uk spec tdi for MY2005. Are you sure it's not a Td5?

Is it pinking on only a couple of cylinders, or all/most of them? The sound is quite different. If it's only on one or two, you might be mistaking a blowing exhaust manifold to head joint (BTDT) Detonation can be hard on plugs - don't just check them, stick a spare set in anyway. Soot from tuning will burn off with a few miles of dual carraigeway - not like coked up heads from 50k of badly tuned carbs. In my experience, overfuelling (to the point where the plugs get wet when starting) can pollute the plugs so they're never 'quite right' again. It was misbehaving only on lpg, now on petrol also... starts to sound like a creeping ignition failure. You don't mention what you have for ignition, but check all the usual suspects leads/cap/rotor etc.

It doesn't matter if it's 200tdi/300tdi, the starter is the same. Your problem I guess is that catalogues tend to be region specific, and your truck is presumably Rest-of-World (RoW) spec. Most places stopped getting tdi around 1998, so you should be looking for something like 94-98 vehicles in most markets.

If there's 0.9V being dropped down the wire, there's some current being drawn, so it sounds like the solenoid IS jammed. However I'd check the current draw in case you aren't measuring what you think you are (or just power it for 30 seconds and see if it gets noticeably warmer). Don't know of anything else that uses the same starter (never looked for solenoid alone, but it is certainly possible to replace it). ISTR Discovery 300tdi was available in Canada. South America had Ford Ranger with International 2.5 or 2.8 Diesels. The starter from those is the same (the engine is effectively a 300tdi). Not the same engine in the European or North American Rangers though. Strip the motor and see whats up with it. They come apart pretty easily.

From what I remember from the early days of MS (and for the real old-timers its' predecessor EFI332) ... Muttleyd is right, when the engine is making any real power, the injection time is much longer than the valve opening period, so it makes no real difference when individual injectors are fired. Spraying fuel on the back of the intake valve tends to aid atomisation, and also cools the intake valve. This is often said to reduce heat transfer to the intake charge, though I'm not sure if that would really add up to a measurable power increase. The real benefit from sequential firing versus the usual MS mode of bank firing (and more so over batch firing) is reducing the number of openings and closings of the injectors, and the inaccuracy in total fuel delivery it creates. The greatest error results for the maximum number of injector firings, and the shortest pulse widths - in other words, when the engine is idling and it's harder to run closed loop to correct the tune. Sequential injection, synchronised to each cylinder offers the highest accuracy of fuel delivery, but it doesn't necessarily mean it is fired when the valve is open (even at idle), it just means the conditions at each cylinder are as repeatable as possible at each firing.

If you run it backwards, you lose the cyclone effect that tends to throw heavy bits, like water droplets, onto the outer casing toward the drain rather than into the filter surface. Also Fridgefreezer just pointed out that the mesh that hold the filter material is on the inisde, so the filter body might come apart into your engine, especially if it ever got wet.

Sounds like sticking brushes to me. I've swapped the brush assembly on a Denso in the past, but only once and I don't remember the exact details. I'd strip it until I could get to the brushes, clean it out as best a possible, excercise them in and out and add WD or some other solvent/oil combo - you aren't trying to lubricate them as such, just using the fluid to carry off crud from the brush housing and brushes.

In my experience, they will improve with a decent intelligent charger, but they wont be anywhere near good-as-new. The last two I had that were 'tired' - they still started a tdi with no trouble, but discharged very quickly into light loads. I measured the capacity of both of them at around 16Ah, a good bit less than the 55Ah they should be when new! Careful charging and discharging (copying the profile of one of the intelligent chargers on the market) got them back to around 35Ah, but no amount of fiddling would improve them past that. (I have a computerised test rig that can charge/discharge batteries almost any way I want, and test them) I put them in my 'spare' truck and they do fine there. I bought new optimas because they fit my custom battery box, but I probably wouldn't have bothered otherwise - I don't think they are anywhere near as robust as they were 10 years ago. BTW are you switching a yellow top onto a red top with a split charge relay? I suspect (but have never proved) that the red top won't have a long and happy life used this way.

I've had fully synthetic Castrol (SMX-S ?) in my R380 for the past 50k or so. I recently changed it to MTF94 from Smith and Allen and the gearchange is massively improved.

Because the original LR sensor has a high resistance when switched on, you need a relay that has a high resistance coil and/or switches reliably at voltages much lower than 12V. A quick look around didn't show anything that I'm certain would work without testing - sorry. When I originally did mine, I used a relay with an electronic input similar to the second circuit dailysleaze posted above. It was left over from a bunch I made to solve a similar problem at work. If I ever get any spare time I might make a small batch (discussed it with fridgefreezer a while back) but don't hold your breath!

Don't use the one on EP90 - I didn't realise it was still publicly visible I will fix that in a minute. The circuit is correct but the relay isn't suitable. The relay acts like a tiny ignition coil... when the switch goes off, it generates a high voltage pulse which could damage the transistor. The pulse is reverse polarity to the power supplied, so the diode conducts and dumps the energy safely.

Having made one, I wouldn't want to do the job without it again. I didn't have the drawing to hand when I made mine, so bolted a bit of angle across two bolts of the large plate on the side, then built downwards from there. The only difficulty was knowing where the balance point would be, so I could make it pivot on the toe of my trolley jack.

Right hand small terminal will be W, the rev counter feed. Middle terminal D+, pre-excitation circuit (in other words, the warning lamp feed) Big terminal is B+, main feed to the battery (and if you didn't figure that one out Nige, you really should get a grown up to help!) EDIT : And you didn't search very hard, the second link on Google after searching for the part number you listed contains :-

Third option, use the forum search? http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=18670 http://forums.lr4x4.com/index.php?showtopic=32248

What I meant was if you knew someone locally who understood electronics and faultfinding, it wouldn't take long to work out what the fault is. Apart from the time it takes to do it, you could replace every component in there for about £5. Nothing needs programming, and there's only one adjustment, which sets the trip voltage. IIRC the same switch is used in RRC to prevent the rear screen demist from draining the battery, so there's lots of s/hand ones out there.

The circuit is very cheap and simple, and all the parts are easily available. Can't you find someone to fix your duff one?

Umm, the high beam filament in the o/s headlamp has failed?

It's not a gyrocopter, it's a towed sonar target body mounted on a quadbike (check his 'other items')

Now you know who drew it, you should know better than to trust it too. Get it checked by an adult is my advice

Oi, Western. If you're going to nick stuff off my website, at least give me the credit I spent literally minutes reverse engineering that!

Land Rover 'signature' font is Futura Bold BT, according to the Land Rover Brand Insight & Strategy Department... now doesn't that sound an exciting place to work?

Gen Parts Bosch starter motor has better sealing of the solenoid than the Bosch OEM part, and some other small differences I can't remember. Total failure with no warning signs is unusual though. Most likely the solenoid feed wire is loose, or broken etc. If you don't have a voltmeter or similar, put a crimp terminal on a wire onto the flag terminal on the solenoid, then touch it on the battery positive terminal. If the engine turns over, the problem isn't in the motor or solenoid.

I remember the look on your face when the dizzy cap blew off on the 109 Talking of flying guesses... On most cars the vacuum bulb on the dizzy vents straight to atmosphere (on the other side of the diaphragm from manifold vacuum). If you get a leak in the diaphragm, you just get a false air leak into the manifold. On a LR, the vac bulb usually vents inside the dizzy (to keep the mud out). Is there enough draw via the sump breather to pull fuel off the throttle plate when the engines idling? IIRC the tapping is just above the throttle plate so dizzy vacuum feed is zero when the throttle is closed.