Hi gang, I brought home a new to me 1996 Disco over the weekend, she is an original owner car, great shape and a fully rebuilt 4.0 top to bottom. She runs well other than a tendency not to want to idle for a minute or two after hot restart. She was cranking slowly, so I pulled out the battery when I got home and found the casing was all warped and the battery was 10 years old. I replaced the battery and now she cranks like crazy, but won't start. I am certain this has something to do with the alarm system, and I found a bunch of threads about this but no concrete answers.

After hooking up the new battery, I tried to start and got nothing. I realized that if I waited for a few seconds, the starter would crank but still no start. I disconnected the battery again, waited a while, reconnected, closed the hood and all doors, and cycled the alarm several times using the remote and the key in the driver's door. Each time I get the red security LED flashing rapidly, then after a short wait it starts flashing slowly indicating the alarm is armed, per the book. If I disarm with the remote or key, the alarm LED goes out. Key to the run position, the dash lights (oil, battery, etc) come on, but if I turn to the start position, nothing. Then after a few more seconds I hear a click from beneath the passenger seat (I think) and she will crank fine but no start.

Before I get her dragged to the local Rover shop, I would sure appreciate any advice here from you all. I am a pretty solid home mechanic and I do have the manuals and RAVE, but did not see any information in the troubleshooting section besides what I outlined above. I did find one post where someone had to get the ECU reprogrammed with a different alarm "strategy", but no idea why that would only show up after a battery change.

 

Looks like a very clean old D1. Have you confirmed you have spark?

 

Check for fuel pressure at the fuel rail schrader valve just above the intake manifold on the passenger side top of the engine. Just depress the valve stem and see that it gushes some fuel. Check for spark by pulling a plug, grounding it and cranking. Then troubleshoot based on the results. If you've disarmed the security feature with the remote keyfob, then look for missing or broken fuses. If there's no fuel pressure, check the fuel pump fuse (engine fuse box near battery), fuel pump relay. If there's no spark, check the fuses related to ignition and ECU (under the steering wheel fuse box). If you don't find cause, narrow it to fuel or spark and seek more advice.

 

It's not clear whether it's cranking or not. My advice above was for crank-no-start. Beyond the fuses, there'd also be the crank position sensor to check. But if it's not cranking, then check starter relay (usually yellow relay in passenger footwell), starter solenoid or starter motor.

 

It might be alarm related...... should have a hood switch for the alarm right around the air box. When you reconnect a battery you want to hold that switch down (use a wrench or block of wood). When battery is hooked up release the switch. Normally what happens is the alarm sounds when you leave the switch up and reconnect. Did I say normally?

 

ihscouts you nailed it. I got the same advice on a Facebook forum and it worked. I had the battery disconnected from the truck last night thinking it might help clear an error memory or something that was getting in the way of resetting the alarm. Last time I hooked it up obviously the hood was up but I didn't give any thought to the hood switch. This time I held the switch down while I connected the battery, she started right up.

That Schraeder valve on the fuel rail is pretty handy for troubleshooting.

 

You'll remember now. Take care of that baby! Read all you can about it.

 

Sweet looking truck. Congrats.