ADVICE NEEDED, PLEASE HELP !!

[Mr MoJo]

Yesterday morning I was supposed to be taking Mrs MoJo and horses somewhere in the Rangie.
Car started first time (as it usually does) hitched up the trailer, switched off engine to load horses, then when I went to start it up again it turned over, spluttered and stopped. Tried again, same thing happened.

This went on for about ten minutes, by which time we decided to borrow a mates Fourtrack.

When we got home in the evening I tried again. This time the car didn't even splutter into life and die, it just turned the engine over with no hint of ignition.

First thing I thought was dodgy petrol guage (showing just under 1/4 of a tank) so I put another 10 litres of fuel in. Made no difference

The car is a 1991 3.9 V8. It does, on rare occassions, cut out when stopping at a junction but always fires up straight away again. Only once has it refused to start first time before and again, on retrying it fires up without any argument on second go.

Any advice would be greatly received as I'm desperatley going to need to use the car over the Xmas break.

Cheers

Simon.

[steve_d]

You have to start with the basics.
Does it have fuel flow and pressure.
Does it have sparks.

From my 3.5 I can point at fuel pump and ignition module as being items that have failed me twice each.

Steve

[touching cloth]

I remember this from my Chimaera days, sounds like the old Tvr (rover v8 versions) problem of flooding if stalling or stopping engine only shortly after having started (they run richer when cold). From my limited understanding flooding shouldn't really happen on fuel injected systems, but in reality it can and does. A quick search throws up this thread (although there are loads on the subject in the Chim and probably Griff forums).

www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=284409&f=8&h=0&hw=flooded+engine

I only had it twice in my Chim ownership, each time it cleared within a day just by left standing but I know it does not always clear itself and others have had to whip out the plugs and give them a clean up etc. I am no expert but the mention of a brief start and switch off reminded me of these syptoms.

[Mr MoJo]

Cheers Steve, being a total non-technical person I have a guy coming to have a look at it either tonight or tomorrow, are either of these faults big jobs /expensive jobs or are they quite straight forward repairs/replacements ?

TC, that was my thought at first (flooding) but as you said, Ithought it was almost impossible with a fuel injection system. I left the car for about 4 hours and it still didn't go so I ruled this out. Will try again tonight though. Hopefully she will be alive again !!

Thanks for the responses.

Simon.

Edited by Mr MoJo on Wednesday 20th December 09:58

[GKP]

Try cranking the engine with the throttle pedal fully depressed for a few seconds. This process stops any fuel from entering the engine and allows what's in there to be pumped out.
Then give it a go at starting normally.
As posted above, they don't like being stop/started when cold and can over fuel (flood). Leave it idling next time!

[JUST PANTS]

Has it got an oil preasure switch fault ?
On this engine if the sender thinks the engine has very low oil preasure it cuts the fuel off.

[Mr MoJo]

Tried to get it going again last night but failed

The Gearbox oil warning light came on too, manual says that it's something to do with oil temp in the auto box ??

Have got a guy who used to be a LR mechanic coming to sort it tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for the responses.