When it's going, it's a great machine, but you really need to be a
genius to chase failure symptoms to the actual fault (or have an
Autologic or Testbook). I have made use of a very broad selection of
swearwords and a broader amount of cash getting this littany of faults
rectified.
HDC/TC and ABS lights / The Three Amigos. I had two causes of this
about 6 months apart.
This fault was intermittant to start with. My garage kept resetting
the computer and they would stay off for a few weeks as the faults
were caused by the SLABS computer log filling up with faults relating
to power. This was traced to the alternator putting out a slightly
lower voltage than required. The alternator eventually failed
completely so I replaced it (John Deere supply an alternator which is
identical to the Landrover one but is half the price) This cured the
ABS/HDC/TC faults for about 6 months.
The lights returned and this time I needed to replace the ABS Valve
Body. There is a part replacement if you can get someone keen to take
it on, otherwise see if you can part exchange your existing one. The
price from a dealer for a new one is painful. You can still drive the
car with the three amigos lit but you have no ABS or TC. Bear that in
mind.
Failed Air Flow Meter - truly weird.
My Disco started running really crap at hgher speed, would go like to
clappers up to 50kph and then run out of puff. I checked everything
that I could think of - plugs/leads etc. Turned out that the K&N air
filter had caused the Air Flow Meter probe to malfunction. Don't
ever, EVER put an oil impregnated air filter (such as K&N) on your
Disco II or Range Rover P38. It will wreck the AFM eventually. If
you've got one, get rid of it and put a paper one in. I couldn't get
a Disco II AFM easily, but my garage managed to fit a P38 Range Rover
one as it is the same part but needs to be spliced to the wiring
harness as the connector plug is different.
Cruise Control Failed
The cruise control gave up due to the vacuum hose fracturing and
unable to hold vacuum. Easy replacement.
A real strange one
One morning my engine fired up normally and after about 5 seconds
flashed the transmission failure lights (M ans S flashing). At the
same time the engine dropped about 400 RPM below normal idle and
sounded like it was running on 4-6 pots. It wasn't misfiring or
smoking, but had very low power. I shit it off and pulled the battery
lead off for a few minutes. When I reconnected the battery the lights
were gone but the engine was still behaving weird. I needed to move
the car so I put it into low range to makew the most of what little
power I had and low and behold the engine came right. I swapped
between Low and High range a couple of times and the engine kept
running badly in high range, but ok in low. I took it for a drive in
low range and after a couple of minutes the fault must have cleared
and she went back to running normally. Out of curiosity I took it to
my service agent (not a dealership) and plugged it into the Autologic
box to read the faults - just a low voltage fault on the
transmission.) Has run fine ever since.
Precision British engineering - just love it. ;-)
Chris,
Wellington, New Zealand.
Well worth knowing, cheers.
> The lights returned and this time I needed to replace the ABS Valve
> Body. There is a part replacement if you can get someone keen to take
> it on, otherwise see if you can part exchange your existing one. The
> price from a dealer for a new one is painful. You can still drive the
> car with the three amigos lit but you have no ABS or TC. Bear that in
> mind.
>
> Failed Air Flow Meter - truly weird.
> My Disco started running really crap at hgher speed, would go like to
> clappers up to 50kph and then run out of puff. I checked everything
> that I could think of - plugs/leads etc. Turned out that the K&N air
> filter had caused the Air Flow Meter probe to malfunction. Don't
> ever, EVER put an oil impregnated air filter (such as K&N) on your
> Disco II or Range Rover P38. It will wreck the AFM eventually. If
> you've got one, get rid of it and put a paper one in. I couldn't get
> a Disco II AFM easily, but my garage managed to fit a P38 Range Rover
> one as it is the same part but needs to be spliced to the wiring
> harness as the connector plug is different.
Well known issue in the BMW world. Doesn't surprise me really as the sensing
element is the same part as that for an E39 540i BMW.
> Cruise Control Failed
> The cruise control gave up due to the vacuum hose fracturing and
> unable to hold vacuum. Easy replacement.
Very common, especially on older disco's.
> A real strange one
> One morning my engine fired up normally and after about 5 seconds
> flashed the transmission failure lights (M ans S flashing). At the
> same time the engine dropped about 400 RPM below normal idle and
> sounded like it was running on 4-6 pots. It wasn't misfiring or
> smoking, but had very low power. I shit it off and pulled the battery
> lead off for a few minutes. When I reconnected the battery the lights
> were gone but the engine was still behaving weird. I needed to move
> the car so I put it into low range to makew the most of what little
> power I had and low and behold the engine came right. I swapped
> between Low and High range a couple of times and the engine kept
> running badly in high range, but ok in low. I took it for a drive in
> low range and after a couple of minutes the fault must have cleared
> and she went back to running normally. Out of curiosity I took it to
> my service agent (not a dealership) and plugged it into the Autologic
> box to read the faults - just a low voltage fault on the
> transmission.) Has run fine ever since.
>
> Precision British engineering - just love it. ;-)
Ah, that'll be the Lord Lucas playing silly beggers again.....
Badger.
Lord Bosch on the Td5, surely?
Richard
--
www.beamends-lrspares.co.uk sa...@beamends-lrspares.co.uk
I have become... comfortably numb
Not on the Td5 - I was at Lucas Diesels (now Delphi Diesels)
at the time - the injectors are Lucas, but the ECU Bosch. The
technology share deal expired before this (the old CAV systems).
Bosch are terrible for not allowing access inside ECU's to
find faults/problems except for what they want people to see,
and they *never* make mistakes (I found a rouge CAN message while
at Rolls - would they admit it??), whereas Lucas allow full
access to memory etc (to those who know how) for debugging/fault
location.
The Lucas ECU is (or was, a few years ago anyway), far more
advanced that anyone elses, being configurable for 4 to 16
Cylinders and just about every other parameter is changable
(on the fly, which is fun if you take the limiters of everything
and do a cruise resume to 100mph on a 12L CAT engine).
Lucas ECU's are fitted to a lot engines that are considered
superior, but are more often than not re-badged to imply they
are in-house designs.
Sorry to bang on, but Lucas get a lot of stick for problems that
are nothing to do with them, and very rarely get acknowleged
for their successes. I remember some years back reading an
American wittering on about Lucas, yet the box had "Made With
Pride in The USA" on it.....
All this might have changed under Delhpi though.
Sorry if I picked it up wrong, I assumed petrol as we were talking about
AQFM's and K&N's.
> Bosch are terrible for not allowing access inside ECU's to
> find faults/problems except for what they want people to see,
> and they *never* make mistakes (I found a rouge CAN message while
> at Rolls - would they admit it??), whereas Lucas allow full
> access to memory etc (to those who know how) for debugging/fault
> location.
>
> The Lucas ECU is (or was, a few years ago anyway), far more
> advanced that anyone elses, being configurable for 4 to 16
> Cylinders and just about every other parameter is changable
> (on the fly, which is fun if you take the limiters of everything
> and do a cruise resume to 100mph on a 12L CAT engine).
> Lucas ECU's are fitted to a lot engines that are considered
> superior, but are more often than not re-badged to imply they
> are in-house designs.
>
> Sorry to bang on, but Lucas get a lot of stick for problems that
> are nothing to do with them, and very rarely get acknowleged
> for their successes. I remember some years back reading an
> American wittering on about Lucas, yet the box had "Made With
> Pride in The USA" on it.....
Talking of ECU's, Lucas make the Main Engine Control Unit (MECU) and Digital
version (DECU) that controls the engines and reheat on RB199 engines as
fitted to Tornado aircraft. The MECU is fairly reliable, but does have the
odd glitch every now and again, the DECU is slightly superior and easier to
"talk to". The problems, electrically at least, are most of the various
pieces of electrical test equipment made by the same firm that are needed to
talk to the ecu's. To say they tend to be unreliable is almost an
understatement!
Lucas, in all honesty, has been tarred (sometimes unfairly, I admit) by the
brush of "Prince of darkness" for a long, long time now - based on previous
performance, yet I doubt that many of their competitors were really much
better at the same period. Names like Magnetti Minarelli spring to
mind..........
Badger.