95 Land Rover Defender 90

[MikeSchNail]

Hello All,
Can anyone direct me to some good technical resources for diagnosing several different intermittant drivability problems on a 95 defender 90?

I'm not familiar with these at all but I service the owner's 993 and he asked me to try to sort it after dropping a large amount of money at the local dealer with less than satisfactory results...

It will randomly loose power sometimes with what feels like more than one cylinder misfiring, usually lasts about as long as it takes to pull over and get the hood open...

Sometimes it will just "shut down" (as if you killed the ignition) for less than a second, the check engine light (or possibly service engine soon, there are 2 lights, it's the lower right one close to the sterring column) will illuminate at the exact moment and goes out as soon as the engine comes to life. That problem lasts just long enough see if the tach needle fluctuates (it does not

The third problem, I've only experienced once, it will just stall and not restart, cranks over fine, just will not start for 2-10 minutes, then restart as if all is well. I was alone and had no "jumper button" under the hood at the time to test for ignition...

I have no idea which sites are the best, am not familiar with the engine management, wiring, component locations, etc. but I need to get busy on it with limited time unfortunately. Thanks in advance for any knowledge anyone is willing to share.

Mike Nail

[onewhippedpuppy]

Discoweb is Discovery focused but has good general info. Expedition Portal has a good section as well. There's some good info and forums on the Rovers North page too.

Google RAVE for Land Rover, they actually post their factory service manuals online for owner reference. Pretty cool, I wish all makers would do it.

[9dreizig]

have you tried an exorcism ?? ;-)

[HHI944]

The stock ignition systems on those, and basically every series or defender, are stupidly temperamental. Check the rovers north forums and rovers north usually has all the parts as well. I had a buddy that had similar issues because of using the wrong plug wires........

[HHI944]

If you can't find the answer on the forums, call up rovers north. They have some very experienced guys on staff.

[willtel]

Check the main power wire coming from the alternator and feeding into the wiring harness. They tend to corrode and make odd electrical things happen.

[Mrmerlin]

from the info provided,
I would check the battery connections,
the fuse box remove it and check underneath it,
and replace the crank position sensor
A fresh set of plug wires and plugs ,
and toss in a bottle of Techron to the fuel tank.
From your info it sounds like either an ignition issue
OR a fueling issue could also mean swapping in a new fuel pump and filter

[HHI944]

Seriously doubt it's a fuel issue. That is one thing rover got very right.

[MikeSchNail]

Man, thank you so much everybody!! (you too 9dreizig, lol haven't tried that but have contempleted a GM aluminum 5.3 swap, but don't really want to go there)

onewhipped puppy: That is a great tip! thank you for the rave reference.

HHI944: Thank you as well, LOL'd at "Stupidly Tempermental" you speak my language

Willtell: Will Do Bud! Thank you.

MrMerlin: Thank you for those tips! Love the Merlin, and the P-51 since I was a boy, (well, little boy...)

Sorry for the terrible MIL description, the truck's at the shop and I was at home dwelling on it last night. It's been there a while and my guy said, "take your time, I'm in no hurry" (Don't EVER tell your busy mechanic or body man that, btw) It keeps getting shoved to the back burner or worse due to straightforward workload, but I'm starting to feel like a douche about it, even though he's been very cool. Was about to start digging through the web but just didn't want to start "blindly"

Thank you so much, this is very encouraging and I'm actually excited to start working on it again...I've just got to devote the time which has been difficult.

Will definately keep you posted! Will check all of the above and do some "backprobing" with my Verus scanner/labscope. I just gotta drive it soo much as it's so intermittent...

Thanks Again!

Mike Nail

[Paul K]

Mike:

Where are you? Please add your location to your profile. Here are some resources you might find useful;

Defender - Land Rover Forums : Land Rover and Range Rover Forum

Land Rover Repair Forums - LRRForums.com - Welcome to LRRForums

Defender - Land Rover Forums - Land Rover Enthusiast Forum

Land Rover and Range Rover Forums

Good luck!

Paul.

[Nostril Cheese]

9 times out of 10 on those cars, the problem is ignition. Check that the distributor cap isnt cracked.

[MikeSchNail]

Paul: I'm in Birmingham, AL will update profile soon, always running behind!! (was previously RSRmike when active on here years ago...These days Porsche is a much smaller percentage of my work load, I usually lurk in the 911 turbo forum trying to keep my 930 fantasies under control (eddi bello is NOT helping me do that btw lol)

Thank you for that rover info!!

I made this new name in as hurry as I was locked out from my old email address I created rsrmike with inthe first place. Had a customer contact me who was referred to me from here and felt the need to quickly jump back on board. My first post as MikeSchnail should hopefully explain. I never had problems here as rsrmike that I'm aware of, (please chime in if wrong)

Thanks nostril! That was one of the parts the dealer replaced unfortunately...

The truck is back on the back burner this week as chaos has ensued with overwhelming workload, hoping to spend some quieter time with it this weekend so I can focus better...

I'll report back soon!

Thanks again.
Mike Nail

[Rich76_911s]

I don't think this resource has been mentioned yet:

The Defender Source

I had some similar, but not identical, issues with my '94. It turned out that the hose in the following photograph was cracked:

[kach22i]

Check/clean the engine block ground.

It couldn't hurt.

[Willem Fick]

I had similiar symptoms a while back, though on a different car. Initially I assumed it to be the fuel pressure regulator, which I tested and it checked out fine. I then decided to replace it regardless, got the par number wrong and replaced it with a unit rated at a much higher pressure. Problem went away. Turns out the actual problem was what I was told a "dripping injector. Essentially the injector didn't shut down between fires, but kept letting fuel past, which dimished the overall fuel pressure to the point where the car "missed" intermittently. The same injector would leak into the cylinder after shutting the car down, which would lead to the cylinder flooding with fuel, making starting the car near impossible.

[MikeSchNail]

Thanks for all the help everyone, sorry for long delay. I'm happy to report that replacing the pickup in the distributor along with a fresh set of plug wires seems to have cured the problem! Thanks again for all the help!
Mike Nail