Rover 200 & 400 Owners Club

With help from Craig and Richard, I followed the 12v supply to the starter motor relay in the enginebay fusebox and proved there was 12v there at crank, so the problem would therefore appear to be between there and the solenoid, if it wasn't the solenoid itself.

The earth-side pin of the starter motor relay in the fusebox was dead, so I rigged up a separate earth from there to the slam panel earth point and she cranked and fired

This means that there is an earthing problem from that pin of the fuse box. Next step is to see if it affects any other pins but as most things seem to work it could just be an individual wire or connector problem. Wires and connections do get brittle with age and the fusebox has been out for the rebuild.

Think I'll go for a drive to celebrate

My celebratory drive was very enjoyable but the 'victory' short lived...

After changing the temporary red earth wire for a more appropriate black wire, the car now cranks beautifully but shows absolutely no interest in catching

No, I didn't attempt to start it before making this purely cosmetic change.

I can't smell fuel at the tailpipe after a fair bit of cranking so I'm going down that line of enquiry first

I gave myself a day to calm down then started at the very beginning....



I'd like to know why this blew and if it's connected to the starter motor/fusebox earth problem.

I plan to take that area apart to have good look but after Richard J has had his T4 on it at MK

Did you get to the bottom of it John, are you running again,,
H

Monster Hunter wrote: ↑Wed Sep 21, 2022 5:05 pm Did you get to the bottom of it John, are you running again,,
H

Yip, firstly no earth to the starter relay and then a blown ecu fuse. Runs well, except for the hesitation and boost dumps

It seems to run best from cold too - let's see if the T4 finds anything on Sunday...

James meadows has also got a great program for diagnostics give him a shout as well…