Landy Behaviour

[Lionelgee]

Hello SLOw members,

I have been charging Rowan's battery and as I don't like the idea of having battery chargers going in my wooden shed overnight I went out to check the progress of the charge. With the charger light still shining amber - not yet green for fully charged, I thought hmmm nothing on TV so I will change that front parking light assembly. I went back inside and grabbed a torch as it was about 8:30 at night and dark. I pulled the lamp assembly out - it was a new replacement non-genuine unit I only fitted a couple of weeks ago. Trouble is for some reason it would not hold the bulb in the plastic channel even when it was twisted to the lock position. The bulb would disconnect itself and therefore not do its intended job which is something simple that could cause Rowan to fail a roadworthy.

By the time I had finished the lamp replacement the battery was charged and I could disconnect everything for the night and have some peace of mind.

So is working on a Land Rover by torch light through choice and not necessity normal behaviour; or is it a special type of behaviour experienced by Land Rover addicts?

Kind Regards
Lionel

[THE BOOGER]

Its one of the symptoms of landroveritis not commonly found in the general population can be treated by years of therapy or you can just spent the money on your landy:p

[newhue]

torch is better than candle I guess, but hope the neighbours didn't see you.
It's hard to explain these actions of perfectly normal landy nutta behaviour to the wider community.
I usually have to run a lead to my shed, but if its a quick tinker the torch suffices.

[Col.Coleman]

Given the amount of practise Mr Lucas will give you, in time you will be able to perform the procedure without any form of visual assistance what-so-ever.

Sounds like you need a genuine trouble light. Problem is you normally have to fix that first:D

CC

[RR P38]

Perfectly normal behavior i would say.
I do get some strange looks from people when im working on my 38 with a head lamp on and a torch in one hand.
Children do have their curiosity aroused by these actions on a cold night much to the disgust of their parents especially when they are trying to get them to bed and you have them holding torches for you.

[isuzurover]

It is just landrover masochism and upside down thinking at work. I am sure Landrover engineers had the same logic.

I cannot understand why if you had power running to a battery charger you could not also run a work light?
Or move the battery outside if you were worried about the infinitessimal risk of h2 gas.

[numpty]

It is just landrover masochism and upside down thinking at work. I am sure Landrover engineers had the same logic.

I cannot understand why if you had power running to a battery charger you could not also run a work light?
Or move the battery outside if you were worried about the infinitessimal risk of h2 gas.

Interesting this, as there was a house fire on the Gold Coast a couple of days ago (completely destroyed) It reportedly started in the garage where the owner had a battery charger working :eek:

[isuzurover]

Interesting this, as there was a house fire on the Gold Coast a couple of days ago (completely destroyed) It reportedly started in the garage where the owner had a battery charger working :eek:

All the fires attributed to battery chargers appear to be due to faulty wiring and/or faulty chargers, rather than outgassing from the battery...

[Lionelgee]

Interesting this, as there was a house fire on the Gold Coast a couple of days ago (completely destroyed) It reportedly started in the garage where the owner had a battery charger working :eek:


Hello Numpty,
Well that is pretty freaky because the reason I put the battery charger and battery outside is because I had the charger going while I was at work. I was not comfortable leaving the charger going unattended inside my old shed which is built out of timber. The shed is also pretty close to my old Queenslander (weatherboard) house. A lot of fires have also been traced to innocuous things like DVD players and TV sets that have been left on standby mode while the owners are out of the house. So I was far from content with the idea of leaving an unattended battery charger going while I was at work.

IsuzuRover - now if I did hook up a work light I would have been tempted to do more than just one quick little job. The work light was thought of however I already had a crawl into bed at 1:00 am the previous Sunday night/Monday morning. That's right I decided to just do a quick little job then too. Once bitten twice shy, I got to bed at a slightly more respectable time the night I worked on reinstalling the front parking light.

If my thinking were well ordered maybe I would not have decided to buy a vehicle built in 1976, and an English vehicle at that. :)

Kind Regards
Lionel

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

Well Landy Behaviour from a different perspective. I just found out why the other lamp unit would no longer hold the bulb. I put the correct bulb in the new replacement unit and hooked it up to the newly charged battery. I turned the ignition on and flicked the parking light switch on. I walked around to the front of the Land Rover and I checked how many parking lights were on. Only one ... and the new unit was the one that was not working. As it was on dusk something in the engine bay area caught my eye. The newly installed lamp wires were glowing bright red and smoking away. Before I could turn the ignition off and disconnect the battery the wires had melted through their insulation and the black plastic sleeve and then progressed to cut themselves off at the connectors. It was a very pretty red glow too :twisted:

So from that behaviour I figure the previous lamp unit had stronger thicker wire which could carry the heat back to the plastic mount where the bulb was locked in. The heat from the current must have melted the plastic. With the plastic melted it could no longer hold the bulb.

So a simple disconnect and reconnect has turned out to be something a wee bit more complex - seems like Land Rover behaviour somehow.

The same parking light - driver's side - was not working when I first bought Rowan - I guess I know why now. Just have to work out the how and make this bit right. But not tonight as it is now dark

Kind Regards
Lionel

[Lionelgee]

Hello All,

Yes there was insulation all the way to inside the connectors. Note: the past tense application of the word "was".


The other parking light and headlights - blinkers front and rear all work fine.


The driver's side front parking light circuit has an unhealthy appetite for melted wires and lamp holding connection points - for an as yet undiscovered reason.


So as things stand now - the tally since I purchased the Land Rover ...

Rowan - front parking light lamp units 3 Versus Lionel - 0. This tally includes the lamp unit that did not work when I bought Rowan.


Kind Regards
Lionel

[Lionelgee]

Hello,

I went to my spare parts section and found an old genuine Lucas lamp unit - steel body and Bakelite (?) terminal connection plate. It had a broken lens so I took it off Rowan, I put in a new globe out of the same pack as the other bulb into the old lamp base and then hooked it up to the same wires in the loom. The light worked fine. No trace of heat in the wires, no trace of heat anywhere in the steel base and the bulb shone sweetly. I went back into the shed and found a new lamp unit which came with a broken base plate when it arrived so it was replaced by the seller. I hooked this unit up to the same wires and using the same bulb. No trace of heat anywhere in the unit and no trace of smoke.

The only difference between these successful attempts 1) they did not cost me any money and I had nothing to lose, 2 they were not bolted to the mudguard by the three securing bolts - one of which goes through an earth strip which uses the screw connected to the body to create an earth. I am not sure if this is a significant thing or not yet?

Rowan = 3 lamp units versus Lionel using lamp units not fitted to the body but working ok = 2

Kind Regards
Lionel

[Seriestwo]

I had a similar issue, but it wasn't on a land rover. I had rewired a tail light on one of my other cars (not mentioning the brand as I just might get heckled) and as I turned on the lights it kept blowing the fuse, the problem wasn't my wiring but the light fitting itself. So now i always check that the pos terminal on the light fitting is not earthed as that would be the cause of your light problem.

So it seems us both have learnt a valuable lesson.

Chris

[Lionelgee]

I had a similar issue, but it wasn't on a land rover. I had rewired a tail light on one of my other cars (not mentioning the brand as I just might get heckled) and as I turned on the lights it kept blowing the fuse, the problem wasn't my wiring but the light fitting itself. So now i always check that the pos terminal on the light fitting is not earthed as that would be the cause of your light problem.

So it seems us both have learnt a valuable lesson.

Chris

G'day Chris and other SLOw Members,

I had a bit of a sticky beak at why the wires glowed in the dark the other night. The new lot of lamp units I bought did not come with the light bulbs fitted and this may have caused the terminal and wire to travel up out of the top of the lamp unit. When I pushed the terminal and the red wire down the spring lodged itself under the side clip on earth terminal> This caused the spring to ground. So I when I turned the switch on it made for a nice red glow and some hot wires.

As from this afternoon I now have all the lights on Rowan working - even the driver's side parking light. Also the reverse lamps work via the gear shift selecting reverse. When I got Rowan it had a switch mounted on the centre firewall which could be turned on and off independent of the gear selectors. How they used to be wired up would have failed a roadworthy inspection.

With everything now sorted out I can tick off "all lights working" on my to do list as they are all Land Rover lights and fully functional

Kind Regards
Lionel