As the title says, I was cruising down the highway around 90mph and had been for over an hour when I noticed a slight vibration forming. I let off the accelerator and pulled into the shoulder and found that the engine had died while on the road and I was coasting.

Now I'm getting a crank, no-start.

I have checked all visible fuses and swapped the fuel pump relay with no change.

I don't have proper testing equipment but:
I have spark as tested with screwdriver trick.

I have fuel as tested by pressing the Schrader valve on the rail and getting my hand blasted with gas multiple times.

I have power.

I have pressed the inertia switch.

I have attempted to start the engine with starter fluid to no avail.

I replaced the crankshaft position sensor last year but will replace again tomorrow. Existing threads regarding crank sensor failure are somewhat vague as to what true symptoms it may cause and I just want to rule that out. Been running great up till this.

I did head gaskets about 2 months ago so everything was unplugged not too long ago but like I said it had been running great until it suddenly was not.

I am also getting a P0102 code off the UltraGauge which would indicate MAF but I've never had a bad MAF kill a Rover while driving.

Any leads?

Thanks
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You said you verified Spark but also said it didn't hit with starting fluid, if you have spark it should fire on starting fluid. Bad CPS turns off the fuel injectors not the spark plugs they do that to prevent flooding the engine. Sometimes CPS fails and then will work again once it's cooled off, sometimes they fail and nothing will revive them

 

That's the twist here, oddly. I seem to have fuel, spark, air, power, but it will just crank till the battery drains with not a sputter to be heard and yes I used starter fluid but it didn't even try to bite. No question that I'm getting spark.

A new update, I'll include a picture. Sorry for the mess, I spliced (poorly I might add) some of these wires together as I found that during my head gasket job I forgot to secure them and they were resting on the passenger exhaust manifold and my previous splices had all melted and one wire was only 10% intact.

I'm going to properly repair this wiring this week and see if that changes anything since it needs to be done regardless. Any chance there's a decent wiring diagram for this area? It's the same cluster as alternator positive, oil pressure sensor, etc.

The only real reason I suspect the CkPS is I had some VERY brief but weird RPM stutters over the previous two days when first starting up the engine and I don't believe there's a huge list of things that will kill the engine suddenly while driving. I've had a clogged fuel filter do this in a D1 but starter fluid could turn it over.

Any suggestions are appreciated and I'll try any suggestions.

 

I dealt with the same issue on and off for a few months this past year. Drive me absolutely crazy. Replaced a ton of stuff, nothing would fix it long term.


Turned out to be the fuse box under the driver side dash. Completely intermittent, difficult to diagnose, but replacing it with another used one has totally fixed my no start/dying-while-driving issues. Thank GOD.


best of luck!!

 

That drive belt needs to be replaced too from the looks of it in that photo.

 

Agreed. Also if you're doing that I'd order a set of idler pulleys to go with. Ask me how I know lol. Even if you don't toss them on immediately (which I would) keep them in the rig along with the tools to remove fan and pulleys. Trust me - the autozone/napa/oreillys that will be around your rig when that pulley grenades will have zero of these parts to include the belt. If you do the full job toss the old belt and pulleys in back just for insurance.

Here is my rig on the LR carrier in sympathy when that happened to me:

 

Update:

Still scratching my head.

I've properly secured the wires that were melted onto the exhaust manifold and repaired them. I have installed a brand new battery, and replaced the crankshaft position sensor. It's cranking hard but still not a hint of starting up.

Suppose the fuel pump were at play, would there be any fuel pressure at all? Every time I check the schrader valve there is a good squirt of gas.

In the engine bay fuse box is a brown plug with two wires leading into it, a brown and orange wire leading to fuel injectors (so I read on another thread) and a brown wire with a red dot. What does the orange with red dot wire go to? It's a female spade type plug with the male end snapped off inside and hanging. The previous owner installed a killswitch to the starter so maybe it's just that.

I'm stumped here.

 

You say you have tried starting fluid, and you have spark. Those two cannot exist in a cylinder without getting a pop unless you do not have compression. Do a compression test - maybe the timing chain broke and the cam is not turning.

 

My thought too. OP, has it ever been replaced?

 

Timing chain has not been replaced to my knowledge.

I'll check for compression today. Would the timing chain go quietly? When it died at-speed it was so quiet I hadn't even realized anything was seriously wrong yet as it simply shut off and coasted with no concerning noises.

Leading up to this, there was a vibration that came and went about every 3-4 seconds, but this Rover has exhibited this before which had been remedied by a number of drivetrain repairs/upgrades.

The vibration suddenly felt slightly more intense and I felt a loss off power, pulled over, and here we are.