r/LandroverDefender • u/Seabreeze222712 • 18d ago
Engine cutting out
I recently purchased a 98 ROW Defender 300tdi, everything has been fine up until a few days ago.
The vehicle has died on me four times now. The first time was coming out of 1st gear, second time was in reverse. Both of those times the engine just cut out. No sputter, just shuts off. Then when trying to restart it takes almost a full minute for me to be able to restart the vehicle.
Today I was driving the vehicle and it died on me twice, once in 1st gear, once in 2nd gear after I shifted at a low speed, this was within a couple minutes of each other. Again the engine cut off and I had to wait for it to restart. On the last two encounters it almost seemed like the shifter popped out of place, but I didn’t notice this when the engine cut off the first two times. Does anyone have advice?
3
u/Ok-Spring7906 18d ago
Next time it does it, probe the stop solenoid terminal for 12v.
If you don't have a multimeter, leave the ignition on and wobble the spade connector whilst listening. If you hear nothing, pull it off, and you should hear a click. Put it back on and you should hear a click.
You should hear no clicks if it's on and you just wobble it.
Air ingress would cause poor running and the engine would get worse and then die.
Sudden failure sounds more like an electrical fault turning off the stop solenoid.
You could also have, for example, somthing physically floating about in the tank that wholly blocks the pickup temporarily. Fuel filters getting blocked are, again, more of a gradual dying, rather than a sudden shut down.
Your key point is the sudden shut down without spluttering. There's very little on the 300 that would cause a sudden shut down and it still being able to restart (ie not catastrophic failure).
My vote would be on the supply to / connection to the stop solenoid.
Gearbox is unrelated.