Rover Won't Start. Cold Weather Tips?

cao said:

You said that it started with one push.
Could there be a problem with the ballast resistor circuitry or does it need one fitting perhaps?

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Its a carb problem, not a starter problem. I'm usually suspicious of spark, not fuel, but this time I was wrong.

A petrol landrover should not have any problems starting at very low tems eg -20c You should not need to warm it in a garage.
I take it you have a low viscosity multigrade oil in ?
have you ensured no water in fuel system prior to winter temps
Choke operating fully ?

First check the voltage at the + side of the coil and see what voltage you got when cranking the engine over.A lot of series 2 ,2A and 3s seem to suffer from this problem,when you wind the engine over there is no or little power at the coil.Have even had a few with new batterys on, and flattened them completly on the starter, put the starting handle in the front and half a turn and its going. FUEL it will be probably very cold considering where you are. petrol as a rule only freezes up in the venturie of the carb when it has been going for a few minutes after you have started the engine, thats why they take heat of the exhaust manifold in the winter setting. STARTER, If you have a pre ingaged ie a big lump on top of the starter you need a bit of wire with a spade terminal on one end and bared the other, there will be a small wire from the ignition switch which you can pull off , put your link lead on that and put the other to the battery connection which is about half an inch away and the starter will go.. If you have a bendix starter which is more likely follow the bib wire back to the solonoid switch. Dont know whether yours is the push button inside or the more modern turn the key and start, same applies if its got a secondary relay ,small wire and put on the main battery lead, if its a push button, short the two big wires across with a screwdriver or somthing steel.You seem to have covered most other things like new points,condenser coil rotor arm ign leads etc. Voltage, check the fuse box, fuses etc for bad connections to the supply to thr ignition switch. Sorry its going to be a pain in your weather to find the fault, Sadly electronic ignition is the best as it does not need the voltage to trigger or power the coil, can you not go back to electronic ignition. Yours is an expensive unit ( have looked at them) can you get LUMINETION IGNITION over there. all the best philip.

Thanks for all the help guys, but you should really read some of the previous posts. I got the problem fixed already and it isn't anything you guys have been saying. I'm sure your information will come in handy at some point in my rovering career though.

tacr2man said:

A petrol landrover should not have any problems starting at very low tems eg -20c You should not need to warm it in a garage.
I take it you have a low viscosity multigrade oil in ?
have you ensured no water in fuel system prior to winter temps
Choke operating fully ?

Click to expand...

Water in the fuel could be a problem. The choke is not working as well as I would like... I'm not sure whats up with it. I've got 10w40 oil in there right now, not quite as low as the 5w30 I run in the toyota or honda, but it should be fine for the winter.

I changed the points in my Range Rover then she failed to start turned out to be the rotor arm that was the fault.

Andy.