greetings folks,
My 96 Disco SD's Check Engine light came on couple months back. Would fire up instantly in the morning, then refused to start if I stopped for even just 10minutes. It would crank fine but not start. Would start after sitting for more than 5 hours.
The mystery for this newbie is that as of last week, when weather got cooler, the problem seems to have gone away.
Stopped at Autozone and the codes read P0118, P0125, P0116, P0181 - coolant and fuel temp sensors apparently, but no mention of crankshaft sensor??
I'm still a week away from going into a shop - am I risking any long-term damage by driving the car? Thanks! - still learning my way...

PS: I'm in North Jersey - any recommends for good mechanics in NJ/NY?

 

unfortunately....the wizzards that designed the GEMS fuel management didnt see fit to assign a "check engine" code to a faulty crank sensor....usually it fails when hot and works again when it cools off..with no CEL...and..a lot of the time the problem is the wiring to the sensor, it gets hot, brittle, and the insulation falls off , and a short / poor signal can occur.
it's worth taking a look at the wiring first, and a new sensor is fairly cheap if need be.

and...that may not be the issue anyway, you need to find out what you have for fuel pressure( check it at the valve on the fuel rail), and if the coolant temp, and or fuel temp sensors are out of spec....they can cause over fueling on a warm restart, you can try stepping on the gas pedal on a warm restart , that would give the engine a little more air to compensate for the additional fuel present if that's the problem.
let us know how it goes

 

Hi XCELLER8,
So my very LR-knowledgeable shop was so sure it was just the crank sensor,
they said come back in an hour. A day and a half later, after replacement, they're saying it's behaving like it's out of gas, with uneven idling...
Just wondering why, since it was running and idling perfectly beforehand, once it got going...
will update when I get the car on Monday...