Hi all. Ive tried almost everything to fix this truck. Its a 1994 Defender 90 with about 150K miles. The guy complained that it starts hard, sometimes starts then dies.

Ive done a full tune up, fuel inj. cleaning, swapped out the coil with a known good one, REPLACED the dist. with a brand new one, Installed factory Rover cap and rotor, Set the timing to 6 degrees advance as per ALLDATA and checked fuel pressure (40 lbs ok) etc.. etc..


this thing still once in a while starts hard. sometimes it fires over after only a second of cranking, sometimes though it takes 5-10 seconds of cranking to fire.

Is there anything common with these things that will cause this? I saw an ECM flash TSB but its for cold weather starting issues

We're about to do a compression check but you would think it would run crappy if there was a compression issue. this engine runs like brand new, once it starts

 

I have seen issues with the fuel pump relays. they are two metal ones that go to the fuel pump and the fuel injectors. Seen them fail at times. You have to replace them in pairs.

But if you really need anymore advice, contact Atlantic British, Jim Randle. He is there tech guru and he's the former shop foreman at a LR shop. He can help you.

 

If it's a NAS Spec the timing should be 4 degrees BTDC +/- 1 degree.

Are you saying that sometimes it starts and runs fine, and other times it takes 5-10 seconds cranking to start then runs fine?

If so, the times it starts right away, are you leaving the key in position II for a little before cranking, or going right from pos 0 to pos III?

 

We figured it out. The air gap on the brand new rovers north dizzy was too wode

 

Wide I meant