Every couple or few months, old Landie won't start. No click, crank or turn over. Nothing. Suddenly, a little while later (random amounts of time, from a few minutes to several hours) it'll start. One time attempting to jumpstart it did nothing. Today, jumping it worked. But it has a brand new, 880 CCA battery, and a new alternator. And it did this same thing before both were installed.

1. Could it be a ground wire from the negative lead being loose? A friend of mine had that happen.
2. Could it be the crank position sensor? Wouldn't there be other symptoms, however?
3. Is it maybe the battery terminals? They're not the tighest, but in the past, messing with them hasn't done anything to helping start the car, even when they seemed tight enough. Could they just need cleaned up?

I hate that this keeps happening, it's stranded my wife and I a couple times and I want to get to the bottom of it. Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'm about to do a significant overall, including timing chain and oil pump, so if there's something else I need to do in there, I might just do it.

 

If it was more common than every couple of months of say starter jamming. Solonoid if you have no clicks.

But being that rare it points towards bad connections.

If the battery connections feel bad, they are much worse in electrical connection terms.

I'd go to town on them. Pull them out. Scrub them with whatever. Grease. Refit with better bolts, whatever. Trace the fat wires from the battery, to wherever they go and repeat at the other end.

Second on my list would be to discount a key barrel turning connection thing. If you literally have nothing on the key every now and again, it could be that simple.

Good luck.

 

So I've cleaned them up good. Still don't know if it will help much, they weren't as bad as I remembered. But one thing is for certain—the negative cable doesn't tighten down very well. The nut will be tightened all the way and, while it won't wiggle on its own, it will come off without unscrewing it. How can I fix that, other than some battery post shims? Or should I just do that?

 

Just do that. Folk have talked of post shims doing just fine, for a long time.

You definitely don't want to be able to wiggle off the terminals.

Edit

1 you've followed the fat wires to the opposite ends and checked those connections?

2 you don't have one of those 'helpful' battery cable, quick disconnects? I have one of those. Took me a while to work out it was causing me a load of grief.

 

Ok, will try it and see if my problem goes away.

1. Yeah, I cleaned them up and they look good.

2. No, I never did install one... So I'll take note to avoid, thanks!

Thanks for the help cappedup!

 

Today I was driving a short distance and bumped a curb. I'm kind of bad about that with the Rover. Anyway, it was enough to get traction control to ding at me for a second, but I was just going about five miles an hour. But when I parked the car a minute later, turned it off and then came back to turn it on, same thing: No lights, no click, nothing. Popped the hood and sure enough, the negative terminal, while not off completely, had slid up the battery post, leaving just about 2/5 of the connection intact. I popped it back down with a wrench and voila! Started right up.

I've now installed a battery post shim on the negative side (I had installed one on the positive side previously for having a really loose connection), and it's tight as a button.

Hopefully case closed...

 

Thumbs up.

 

Have/had this problem for a long time. One forum advised that I find the "ignition lock out board" and replace or repair which entailed taking my Rover apart. Then it stopped working all together. I was working on pulling the starter when I noticed that SOMEONE had been in here before me. The starter heat shield was a pain and I could not find a bolt to remove it. It looked like it might have been riveted. Anyway, after I looked at the shop manual I took off the right front tire and found that the ground wire was attached to the frame with a horizontal bolt as shown in the attached picture. I removed the boldt(7/16" wrenches) and wire brushed every mating surface, slapped on some anti-oxidation/dielectric grease and put it back together and LO and BEHOLD she fired up immediately!!! I could hear my sainted Daddy shouting down from Heaven, "I TOLD YOU TO KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!!!" Ah, now for a cold beer or 18... PS My beer is cold because Lucas did NOT make my refrigerator!!!