Hi all,
After about a year of avidly studying classified ads I've finally bitten the bullet and bought myself a Series 3 109 diesel.
Never having driven a Landy ever, the 100 mile journey home including driving through 2 cities was a hair raising experience but amazing fun, including a stop half way to improvise a snapped throttle cable.
Now starting to get stuck into fixing the more obvious faults of which there are a fair number!
The water pump is leaking badly and I have already ordered a new one plus hoses and thermostat for good measure, should be a fairly straightforward fix (??)
Another problem is a faulty glowplug, which should be a simple enough fix on the face of it, but this has opened up a whole new can of worms.
The glowplugs are the series-wired type (Champion CH45) which apparently are fitted on older models, although I would have thought mine made in 1978 would have been considered a later model - first alarm bell.
Next, trying to figure out the wiring as the 'cold start' lamp on the dash doesn't work. I assumed this should light when the glowplug button (on the dash below the instrument panel) is pressed. But the Haynes manual wiring diagram doesn't show this button, the glowplugs are shown to be switched from the ignition keyswitch. Second alarm bell!
I traced the wires from the 'cold start' lamp. One of them, white with a blue stripe, enters the engine compartment and is cut off there, and the other, white, seems to head off in the direction of the fuses under the steering column. This lamp should be wired in parallel with the ballast resistor. Alarm bells going off all over the place.
To cut a long story just a little bit shorter for those of you still awake, I have been browsing around looking at chassis and engine numbers, and it appears that my "unmolested and original" vehicle probably started it's life with a petrol engine (chassis number 911xxxxxx), and the current diesel engine appears to have come from a presumably older IIa vehicle (block 271xxxxx).
So the push-button for the glowplugs would have to have been a retrofit, and indeed the hole in the dash where it is fitted looks like it was carved out with a blunt can opener, and the 'cold start' lamp would never have worked. I wonder if the guy I bought it from realised that his 20 seconds of holding the button in before starting wasn't actually achieving anything?
Now a question, would the original petrol engine have a lamp on the dash labelled 'cold start' and if so what would it's purpose be, or might the instrument cluster have been replaced with the engine to include the 'cold start' lamp? The way this lamp is wired in suggests to me that it is original and that the wiring has simply been cut when the engine was replaced. The lamp is 12V rather than the 6V lamp which Haynes states should be across the ballast resistor. I intend to replace the bulb with a 6V unit and wire it across the resistor, any comments about whether this is appropriate?
...and another thing. The 4wd lever(yellow knob) hasn't a spring on it and can be easily pushed down and pulled up - I'd have expected to feel something clunk in as it was pushed down and not be able to pull it up without operating the transfer lever. This leads me to suspect the linkage isn't actually doing anything but I don't know how this lever should feel, or even how to judge whether the vehicle is in 4wd mode or not. I will be tremendously grateful for any advice on this.
All this already and I've only had it 5 days, right at the bottom of a brand new learning curve and looking forward to getting stuck in!
After about a year of avidly studying classified ads I've finally bitten the bullet and bought myself a Series 3 109 diesel.
Never having driven a Landy ever, the 100 mile journey home including driving through 2 cities was a hair raising experience but amazing fun, including a stop half way to improvise a snapped throttle cable.
Now starting to get stuck into fixing the more obvious faults of which there are a fair number!
The water pump is leaking badly and I have already ordered a new one plus hoses and thermostat for good measure, should be a fairly straightforward fix (??)
Another problem is a faulty glowplug, which should be a simple enough fix on the face of it, but this has opened up a whole new can of worms.
The glowplugs are the series-wired type (Champion CH45) which apparently are fitted on older models, although I would have thought mine made in 1978 would have been considered a later model - first alarm bell.
Next, trying to figure out the wiring as the 'cold start' lamp on the dash doesn't work. I assumed this should light when the glowplug button (on the dash below the instrument panel) is pressed. But the Haynes manual wiring diagram doesn't show this button, the glowplugs are shown to be switched from the ignition keyswitch. Second alarm bell!
I traced the wires from the 'cold start' lamp. One of them, white with a blue stripe, enters the engine compartment and is cut off there, and the other, white, seems to head off in the direction of the fuses under the steering column. This lamp should be wired in parallel with the ballast resistor. Alarm bells going off all over the place.
To cut a long story just a little bit shorter for those of you still awake, I have been browsing around looking at chassis and engine numbers, and it appears that my "unmolested and original" vehicle probably started it's life with a petrol engine (chassis number 911xxxxxx), and the current diesel engine appears to have come from a presumably older IIa vehicle (block 271xxxxx).
So the push-button for the glowplugs would have to have been a retrofit, and indeed the hole in the dash where it is fitted looks like it was carved out with a blunt can opener, and the 'cold start' lamp would never have worked. I wonder if the guy I bought it from realised that his 20 seconds of holding the button in before starting wasn't actually achieving anything?
Now a question, would the original petrol engine have a lamp on the dash labelled 'cold start' and if so what would it's purpose be, or might the instrument cluster have been replaced with the engine to include the 'cold start' lamp? The way this lamp is wired in suggests to me that it is original and that the wiring has simply been cut when the engine was replaced. The lamp is 12V rather than the 6V lamp which Haynes states should be across the ballast resistor. I intend to replace the bulb with a 6V unit and wire it across the resistor, any comments about whether this is appropriate?
...and another thing. The 4wd lever(yellow knob) hasn't a spring on it and can be easily pushed down and pulled up - I'd have expected to feel something clunk in as it was pushed down and not be able to pull it up without operating the transfer lever. This leads me to suspect the linkage isn't actually doing anything but I don't know how this lever should feel, or even how to judge whether the vehicle is in 4wd mode or not. I will be tremendously grateful for any advice on this.
All this already and I've only had it 5 days, right at the bottom of a brand new learning curve and looking forward to getting stuck in!
