Td5 problem

I have a 1999 Td5 Defender 90, yesterday morning the wire to the hand brake burnt and the engine cut out. The only lights on the dash was the oil warning light. I sorted out the burnt wire and started the vehicle and it ran fine, this morning the engine died as did all the lights on my dash excluding the oil and hand brake lights. After an hour or so the vehicle started up easily enough with all lights on the dash working normaly but only for about 5 minutes, after that it died again.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what the problem may be?

The landy has 265000 on the clock and goes well - when it goes

Your main earth cable (negative) from the battery to the chassis/engine has corroded. The battery current has been using your hand brake cable as a return path until eventually it burnt out probably when trying to start the engine or useing the glow plugs.
Trace the heavy negative cable from the battery and clean up each connection point along its length. There should be one or two on the chassis and also a strap from the chassis to the engine. You could also run an additional heavy cable directly from the battery negative to the engine.

Great, I'll get onto that now - thank you for the advice. Would that also explain why the hand brake cable itself burnt through?

It sure would.

Hi Shifty, again thank you for the assistance - all is well again! The relay had also gone - the one under the bum - replaced all and the landy is happy again, as am I. The roads out here are incredibly bumpy, potholes and corrugations (not a place for someone with false teeth or other removable body parts!) and as a result I have had to reweld engine mountings a few times and tighten bolts very often. The battery cable had loosened on the chassis from all the bouncing I believe but I would never have thought to look there.

No worries.
I regularly drive in and around Tanzania and Mozambique so I know what the roads can be like. Been to S Africa a few times near Sun City and Rustenberg.

Mozambique is awesome, I often go there for the fishing as it is literally just around the corner from where I work, I have jut driven 1100 kms since we chatted and the landy went very well. (I got a garbled message on Saturday that my son had been in an accident and his car was a write off but no-one could say how he was, he was fine - car is a write off but neither he or the two friends with him were hurt at all!)