Major leccy issues - everything dying when rolling off the power

Hi all,

Post from a couple of days ago: https://www.landyzone.co.uk/land-ro...r-relay-replacements-1996-defender-90.397272/

Might likely have some relevance. 1996 300tdi

Flasher relay does work most of the time on start up, sometimes needs a blip of the throttle. Went to the shop yesterday evening (pitch black) and lights etc. all seemed fine besides the wipers being a bit slow (could be important as not linked to lights I believe? Although unsure of how the wiring runs through the stalks). Got 2 mins down the road and when braking into a corner all the electrics died - lights out, radio off, you name it. Luckily was just coming to a side road and turned off. When getting back on the power, the lights came back on albeit dim. EDIT: when they came back on, even the glow plug light on the dash came on which almost seems like ALL the electrics fully died.

Managed to limp back around this side road (loops back to my house) and realised nearly every time I'm off the power or braking decent hard the electrics want to die, but kick back in when accelerating.

Really hoping it's just something to do with the flasher relay (new one should be here by Sat), but the wipers going slow is making me check. Please read my previous post for full context but TL;DR - left dome light on, batt died, fully charged it, 12.5V when off, 14.5V when ignition on (alternator should be fine then), when reinstalling the batt my ratchet slipped and shorted between positive terminal and seatbox for a second. Flasher relay funny since then but does "work", occasionally buzzes loudly and obvs flashers / hazards don't work then.

I've checked all the fuses and all fine. Does anyone have any ideas if there's a deeper issue here?

Cheers all in advance.

sounfds like a classic earth fault, check your earth straps! remove bolts clean n replace.
alternative could be main feed or connector block to fuses, but my money is on earths

flasher relay needs replacing but is red herringfor other stuff

Thanks mate. Having had them be

KISSMYAURA said:

sounfds like a classic earth fault, check your earth straps! remove bolts clean n replace.
alternative could be main feed or connector block to fuses, but my money is on earths

flasher relay needs replacing but is red herringfor other stuff

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Cheers mate. Have had earth issues before, and would tend to agree with you, there's just the timing of the other stuff. They were all sorted out (I know they can go bad again this time of year) about a year ago, and it was serviced and MOT'd in Jan with a really good crawl over/under from my usual mechanic so I'd be surprised if he didn't check them.

I'll definitely check the earths as a precaution, seems too much of a coincidence that everything was electrically perfect until the battery drained issue, and perhaps what you just said about the connector block to fuses / main feed, the daft slip that shorted the positive to the seatbox. Full on sparks. Reckon that could be something? How would I check the main feed or connector block?

Thanks again, just need it to stop chucking down so I can get out to it

doubt yer hillbillie welding (lol) caused much it just shorted via the spanner to body, worse case scenario battery interna plates would have got hot and you have a nice light show n a hot spanner

KISSMYAURA said:

doubt yer hillbillie welding (lol) caused much it just shorted via the spanner to body, worse case scenario battery interna plates would have got hot and you have a nice light show n a hot spanner

Click to expand...

Hahaha let's hope not. Just went to try check main earth strap and really didn't fancy crawling through a puddle to poke my head under. Why doesn't this **** ever happen in summer?!