Vehicle & Technical > Discovery
New battery, alt, belts, still no charge.HELP!
jira:
Hi Folks,
Need some help across the pond here in Virginia. I have a '97 Discovery SE7 with 4.0V8i engine. About ten months ago I noticed on a 2 hour trip that the battery was discharging - headlights grew dim, dash lights started popping on, tach quit working, engine began to stumble. Replaced alternator with aftermarket Bosch as well as belts and battery and all was well. Several months later same thing occurred, so alternator was replaced under warranty assuming the replacement was defective. All was well for about a month when it happened again. I've got two good techs on it and they are having a hard time figuring this out as am I. They are not intimately familiar with Rovers, but they know what they are doing.
At one point it looked like the belt was still slipping, so we replaced the belt again.
Then we discovered that the belt didn't appear to be routed correctly, so we re-routed it per the shop manual.
Next we re-checked all alternator connections again.
Now we are trying bypass jumpers for each cable in turn in case there is a break in one.
Two clues that seem important are that the tachometer, after working sporadically, has quit working entirely and the low voltage warning light doesn't come on even though it should.
We are at our wits end. I've had this vehicle since new, but if we can't get this sorted out soon, it will have to go. A real shame because this Discovery was dead reliable until this recurring problem that we have been unable to solve.
Any ideas? Thanks in advance.
John
Dizzy Dave:
Hi jirs.
i had a problem like this, and after it was off the road for about 6 months, with a non starting engine, it turned out to be something as simple as bad earth points, to much off roading and no cleaning....... worth a try, clean all earth points mainly the one on the drivers inner wing near the exspantion tank...
Range Rover Blues:
Don't reley on the warning light as it's a function of the alternator. In truth what happens is the battery creates the field in the alternator when it first starts untill the engine is running and the alternator generates a higher voltage than the battery at which point the lamp is shorted out via a diode, what is know as 'self-exciting'. The fact that the battery isn't charging added to the lack of the warning lamp suggests an internal fault.
Can I assume you have tried connecting a volt meter to the battery to check for the voltage with the engine running? If so there are commonly 2 small connections and one big one. One of the small ones should be the rev counter and the other the warning lamp.
As stated already check the earth, use a jumplead if you have one.
If you think it's the alternator again look for a faulty heatsheild or similar that could account for the premature failure, alternatively use a different source of spares, it's not unknown for faulty batches to be in the marketplace. Ultimately alternators are not rocket science, if a few basic checks don't give you the right answers, it's bust.
TUFFTEE:
I will Concurr on whats been said so far!
A bad earth connection can cause all sorts of differant symptoms?
I don't really know much about the 300 series disco?
But on the 200 series there are fusable links on the inner wing between the battery and the bulkhead! It might be worth checking them if they are there?
Good Luck?
Sooty:
As all ready said earth problems can give some very funny symptoms.
Just remember the alternator is earthed to the engine and the battery is earth to the body.
Try connecting an earth between the battery post and the alternator bracket.
If this cures the problem then you have an earth problem, not advisable to leave it like that but at least it will point you in the right direction.
Just my two penath (sorry two cents).
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