LRNAD90
Well-known member
So it was a nice afternoon yesterday, so I pulled the Defender out to go pick my daughter up from school. I didn't make it far though (maybe a mile from the house) when the engine died while driving. I was able to drift into a condo complex parking lot, and use the started to 'walk' her into a parking place.
A while back I had a similar thing happen twice, but both times it happened just as I came to a stop at a light, not while in motion. Both times it was the distributor rotor going bad (grounding out to the shaft). Replaced with the 'Red Rotor' and it seems to have been fine for over a year, but it was my first suspect for roadside troubleshooting.
Rotor tested fine with my multimeter however, but I changed it out for the known good spare anyway, but no dice. I pulled the coil wire and got spark to ground when cranking, but didn't seem to with an individual plug wire. Pulled the cap and rotor back apart, and noticed the spring loaded center transfer pin appeared essentially gone. Thinking for sure this was the issue, threw on the spare cap I keep under the seat, careful to take photos of plug wire orientation and reconnection.
Still no dice, and then I noticed in my frenzy I didn't 'clip' the cap back into place, and it was ajar. There was some minor damage to the pick-up points on the cap and the end of the rotor thanks to my stupidity. Put it all back together securely and tried again, but still nothing. Called my wife and asked her to pick-up our daughter so I would stop hurrying and hopefully stop making stupid mistakes..
Swapped the silver relays under the seat, (not clear if the blue or black plug is the fuel pump, but know they are the same relay). This time the truck started, idled roughly for about a second, then died. Swapped the silver relays back, and seemed to get the same thing brief start) Though it was intermittent between cranking and nothing, and the brief start during subsequent tries.
Between the damn dash dinging when you turn on the ignition (which seems obnoxiously loud), and ambient sounds, I couldn't hear if the fuel pump was coming on or not..
Seems extremely odd that I would have both a spark and a fuel issue occur simultaneously, no?
With less than an hour of light left, I made the call to AAA to get it towed back to my house (maybe a mile). This turned into a three tow truck, nine hour ordeal, and finally had it back in the driveway at 4:30 am after breaking down around 5pm the previous evening.
So anyway, open to any suggestions on next steps for troubleshooting. I'm really hoping it is not the fuel pump...
For those of you interested in the towing ordeal story:
First Tow truck finally showed up after 3 hours, and broke a hydraulic line in a spectacular fashion, with a geyser of fluid sprayed all over the tow truck, it soperator and adjacent parked cars (lucky not on the D90). Multiple calls to AAA, and 5.5 hours later tow truck 2 showed up, but he was 'a mechanic in the navy for 40 years' and wanted to take a crack at fixing it, convinced it was the battery (even though he didn't know where it was). He became obnoxious when I refused to let him work on it and asked him to just tow it as I had asked. He responded that he didn't feel like getting on the ground to tow it when he could probably fix it, and drove off (it is now 2:30 in the morning and I'm beyond livid).
After heated calls with AAA supervisor another truck showed up, towed the vehicle to my home and was gone within an hours time. You know, how it should have worked in the first place 8 hours previous.
A while back I had a similar thing happen twice, but both times it happened just as I came to a stop at a light, not while in motion. Both times it was the distributor rotor going bad (grounding out to the shaft). Replaced with the 'Red Rotor' and it seems to have been fine for over a year, but it was my first suspect for roadside troubleshooting.
Rotor tested fine with my multimeter however, but I changed it out for the known good spare anyway, but no dice. I pulled the coil wire and got spark to ground when cranking, but didn't seem to with an individual plug wire. Pulled the cap and rotor back apart, and noticed the spring loaded center transfer pin appeared essentially gone. Thinking for sure this was the issue, threw on the spare cap I keep under the seat, careful to take photos of plug wire orientation and reconnection.
Still no dice, and then I noticed in my frenzy I didn't 'clip' the cap back into place, and it was ajar. There was some minor damage to the pick-up points on the cap and the end of the rotor thanks to my stupidity. Put it all back together securely and tried again, but still nothing. Called my wife and asked her to pick-up our daughter so I would stop hurrying and hopefully stop making stupid mistakes..
Swapped the silver relays under the seat, (not clear if the blue or black plug is the fuel pump, but know they are the same relay). This time the truck started, idled roughly for about a second, then died. Swapped the silver relays back, and seemed to get the same thing brief start) Though it was intermittent between cranking and nothing, and the brief start during subsequent tries.
Between the damn dash dinging when you turn on the ignition (which seems obnoxiously loud), and ambient sounds, I couldn't hear if the fuel pump was coming on or not..
Seems extremely odd that I would have both a spark and a fuel issue occur simultaneously, no?
With less than an hour of light left, I made the call to AAA to get it towed back to my house (maybe a mile). This turned into a three tow truck, nine hour ordeal, and finally had it back in the driveway at 4:30 am after breaking down around 5pm the previous evening.
So anyway, open to any suggestions on next steps for troubleshooting. I'm really hoping it is not the fuel pump...
For those of you interested in the towing ordeal story:
First Tow truck finally showed up after 3 hours, and broke a hydraulic line in a spectacular fashion, with a geyser of fluid sprayed all over the tow truck, it soperator and adjacent parked cars (lucky not on the D90). Multiple calls to AAA, and 5.5 hours later tow truck 2 showed up, but he was 'a mechanic in the navy for 40 years' and wanted to take a crack at fixing it, convinced it was the battery (even though he didn't know where it was). He became obnoxious when I refused to let him work on it and asked him to just tow it as I had asked. He responded that he didn't feel like getting on the ground to tow it when he could probably fix it, and drove off (it is now 2:30 in the morning and I'm beyond livid).
After heated calls with AAA supervisor another truck showed up, towed the vehicle to my home and was gone within an hours time. You know, how it should have worked in the first place 8 hours previous.
