The other day I went driving my 98 Disco around a local park and the parking lot is a huge dirt pit more or less. It had been raining the few days prior, so I being childish gunned it for one of the puddles and just all around having mud fun like I do with all of my trucks. Well unlike all of my trucks, after the first puddle hit at roughly 20mph, the truck shuddered and slowed down, then at the 2nd puddle, she turned off and was hard starting. Not only was she hard starting, but would not go back to normal for another 10 minutes or so. My immediate thought was perhaps water in the dizzy, but it looks as if the distributor on this thing is unlike one i have come across before and straight rather than round? And wedged way in the back haha. Could there be merit to what i'm saying and perhaps have a cracked dizzy? Or could it be something else? It only happens when I hit water, and being a land rover, water is something I want it to be able to go through, especially since this is going to be my Beach fishing truck this summer. Thanks for the help guys!

 

1. That straight dizzy is a coil pack. If you had a dizzy it would be in the front. You have fuel injection plus electronic spark control run by the ECU. It is in a black box at the back end of the passenger sidewall of your engine compartment. If not weather proofed with silicone sealant, water ingress will impact starting and running.

New silicone plug wires (8mm) help also, old oem gray ones develope tiny cracks that allow moisture to ground them out.

2. The factory shop manual is called the RAVE, free download below.

3. You'll want to look over our tech area. Lots of things to do to the trucks.

4. It helps if you add to your signature year and version of truck, plus general location (Oxford, GA and Oxford, UK will have different trucks).

5. If you want to go wading, Rover has provided vent lines for the differential and transmissions, and you may find that your front swivels (CV joints) and differentials and transfer case need to be drained and refilled.

 

which thread in the tech section shows how to water proof the ecu? i guess i need to do this

 

Did you check your airbox and MAF?

 

You cant drive fast though water like they do in tv commercials, water slashes everywhere and gets into everything.
Obviously something got wet that shouldn't have.

 

The plugs and wires appear to be original and cracked which I'm assuming lead to the truck grounding on the block. I'll be doing a full tune up when I can. And with the amount of driving through lakes that I see people doing with these things, I doubt quick puddles would render a sorted out land rover useless. Seeing as I did it ALL the time much faster and much deeper with my old Suburban and Izusu Trooper haha. Thanks guys!

 

Hey Adam, I'm still looking for the same problem I had with mine doing the same thing. 2 foot puddles should NOT be killing these trucks..

One of the ign. coil nipples (??) is cracked and missing a big chunk, but plug wire boot fits over it quite snug.. I thought this might have been the cause of my truck stalling. However, after splashing and mucking around, and then pulling off boot, coil was still dry as a bone.

So I just took out my ECU yesterday to seal the 3 connectors. I am using a dielectric grease to do this. It is a PITA to get the last, smaller connector off, but can be done with a big flat-head screwdriver.