Thread: Defender 300tdi would not fire - fuel cut off valve?

Hi all I drove a short distance (3 kms) to drop my boys at school this morning. I got back into the car to drive home and the car would not fire.

I first of all cracked the No. 1 fuel pipe union at the injector to see if any fuel was coming out when I turned the key....nothing.

Then I looked at the fuel pump and removed the wire to the shut off solenoid and put it back onto the terminal...then the car started when I turned the key! I quickly put the fuel pipe back onto No.1 injector. Amazing how the car runs on 3 cylinders.

Anyway, I know I have been driving in a lot of dust over the last two weeks so I'll clean the terminal on the cut off solenoid properly now.

But.....could there anything else sinister going on with the fuel cut off solenoid? Are these prone to failure? Car has done 270,000kms and I have never touched this solenoid.


Thanks heaps

Solenoid itself is pretty reliable
The connector can get dickey and harness can pull it loose or the connection goes bad.

Suggest you replace the spade connection and clean the terminal if problem becomes more common

I ended up extending the wiring to the solenoid about 50mm to take some slack off of the plug in my old 300 - combined with a new spade terminal fixed intermittent non starts

S