ferox

New Member
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!
 
Hello, I owned a series 2a for a year having just got rid of it. With the front hubs locked (assuming you have free wheeling hubs, or just having standard hubs) when in 4wd, when turning tight at a slow speed, you should be able to feel a slight judder/feedback from the steering wheel that you don't normally feel. If you don't, then it isn't in 4wd.
This yellow lever should not be able to return to its original position unless you put it into low box and back into high, by using the red lever.
Hope this helps.

Sorry, wiring isn't my strongest point so can't help you there, although I did have a 200TDi retrofitted into a petrol series with aftermarket cold start which appeared to work, even on very cold mornings with no issues.
 
Hi, thanks for the reply. I have now posted a new thread on the 4WD problem in the appropriate section of the forum.

I bypassed the open-circuit glowplug just to check the operation of the others and the engine started from stone cold more or less immediately instead of the 10-20 seconds it was taking with the faulty plug in circuit. New plugs should arrive today with luck!
 
Generically speaking, petrol engines won't need a cold start lamp... only a choke lever (or auto choke) :) ;)

WELCOME!

Diff.
 
Thanks for the welcome folks!
Difflock66, I thought as much, just curious because the way the lamp is wired in suggests that it, and by implication the whole instrument cluster, is original but it can't be if the original engine was petrol. Anyway it all works now.

Incidentally I replaced the faulty glowplug and it worked great, but the new one only lasted about 2 days and I have replaced it again.
I have been recommended to replace all 4 if one blows but I have also read that there is a high possibility that they may not come out complete, leaving the end still in the hole so I decided not to risk trying to remove the good 3 on the old "if it works don't mess with it" principle. Maybe I should have changed all 4 after all, any comments on this?
 

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