Have spent last hour or so trawling the R/R Forum for guidance but don't seem to be asking the right search questions as not having much luck, so trying new thread instead.
Vehicle is '98 P38 with 4.6 Gems motor c/w LPG and when engine running, it seems to be actively discharging the battery at an alarming rate so that after a couple of minutes tick-over the motor dies from lack of spark power.
Recent events leading up to this point (which may or may not be relevant) are as follows:
Mid-week on 2 occasions the starter motor failed to immediately spin (with good battery power) but after a lot of key twisting (whilst waiting for RAC to answer) it finally burst into life and I got going again. Thinking it would probably be the starter solenoid I started the removal saga and noticed some bared section of the smaller (energizer?) wire to the solenoid and when I removed the f/o/s inner wing splashguard to access the top starter motor bolt I found the Lucar connector of the same wire had come off its terminal - I assumed this had been previously only just resting on the terminal causing the intermittent starting problem so I spliced in a new length with new connectors, reconnected and tried several startings - all were first timers with no misses! Result, or so I thought. Went for a short run (during which EAS failed to come up - poss due to having been jacked up?) , tried a restart but now battery appeared flat so put on trickle charge overnight.
Next morning started first time but after several minutes running, would not start a second time so checked around starter motor to see if all wires clear. By this time battery had recovered just enough to start engine but a check showed only appx 10v across battery terminals at tick-over and no increase when revved. Swapped alternator from another (donor) 4.6 but no improvement and engine wouldn't start without a jump start and again, would only run on tick-over for a few minutes before dying.
Without the motor running, the car's battery recovers to appx 12v so the discharge only seems to be related to when engine is running. I tried removing fuses and relays from the EAS then Starter Motor circuits whilst engine was running to see if the discharge stopped, but no change - Any ideas folks?
Vehicle is '98 P38 with 4.6 Gems motor c/w LPG and when engine running, it seems to be actively discharging the battery at an alarming rate so that after a couple of minutes tick-over the motor dies from lack of spark power.
Recent events leading up to this point (which may or may not be relevant) are as follows:
Mid-week on 2 occasions the starter motor failed to immediately spin (with good battery power) but after a lot of key twisting (whilst waiting for RAC to answer) it finally burst into life and I got going again. Thinking it would probably be the starter solenoid I started the removal saga and noticed some bared section of the smaller (energizer?) wire to the solenoid and when I removed the f/o/s inner wing splashguard to access the top starter motor bolt I found the Lucar connector of the same wire had come off its terminal - I assumed this had been previously only just resting on the terminal causing the intermittent starting problem so I spliced in a new length with new connectors, reconnected and tried several startings - all were first timers with no misses! Result, or so I thought. Went for a short run (during which EAS failed to come up - poss due to having been jacked up?) , tried a restart but now battery appeared flat so put on trickle charge overnight.
Next morning started first time but after several minutes running, would not start a second time so checked around starter motor to see if all wires clear. By this time battery had recovered just enough to start engine but a check showed only appx 10v across battery terminals at tick-over and no increase when revved. Swapped alternator from another (donor) 4.6 but no improvement and engine wouldn't start without a jump start and again, would only run on tick-over for a few minutes before dying.
Without the motor running, the car's battery recovers to appx 12v so the discharge only seems to be related to when engine is running. I tried removing fuses and relays from the EAS then Starter Motor circuits whilst engine was running to see if the discharge stopped, but no change - Any ideas folks?
