Fuse/ Relay Box Problem & Ignition key out Engine Keeps Running

[130camper]

Sorry for the length of this post, just trying to describe the problem and hopefully not cause confusion.

1998 P38 GEMS purchased 2 years ago has been running with no major problems.
After purchasing I renewed all the relays, usual ones showing heat stress, fuse board not badly heat damaged, renewed all the battery cables.
Cleaned any earthing points using emery and electrical connectors I have come across sprayed with a spray suggested by my auto electrician.
Battery is only 2 years old and has a Ctek smart charger attached when I’m not using the car.

Last week I started to change coolant, drained radiator and left bank of motor.
Suggested by another owner, that I put front wheels on 100 mm blocks, to help bleeding. So did that.
I then found it a good idea to renew top hose. Had to order one. Left car on the blocks.

Next morning odd vibrating/clicking sound from Relay 15 (Key symbol), it was also warm.
Relay 19 (Engine with lightening strike symbol) was also warm.
Maxi fuse 2 blown (Car Air Suspension symbol and SM).
Turning ignition key to position 2 … no engine check light (expected as fuse 2 blown)
but SRS and ABS lights on.

Disconnected battery using the suggested method to avoid alarm horn going off and waited for hose to arrive.
Filled engine block and radiator with coolant, next day I could add small amount of coolant so at least got rid of some air.

Took the car of the blocks.

5 days later hose arrived, fitted it, filled system a bit more, ready to proceed to start engine to continue bleeding.

Replaced the Maxi fuse 2. Reconnected battery. Relay 15 started vibrating/clicking sound again.
Tried another relay but same sound.
Synchronized key to lock. Checked that buttons on key locked/unlocked the car … all okay.

Put key in ignition switch and turned it to position 2

Relay 15 STOPPED vibrating/clicking sound.
All dash lights now showing okay including Engine check light ON.

So started motor and let it idle … still NO noise from relay 15.

Proceed with bleeding …. (Not confident it is free of air but finish that later.)

Turned ignition key to off position
Dashboard running through usual messages and beeps advising windows/sunroof not set.

However …..The Motor kept running.
Panic, did the key on /off/remove (to prevent alarm horn sounding) disconnected battery, engine stopped.

So thought lets try that again.
Connected battery - Relay 15 started vibrating/clicking sound – successfully synchronized key to lock.
Turned ignition key to position 2 – all dashboard lights okay – turned key and started the motor.
Relay stopped vibrating – all seems okay – suspension is set to low to stop compressor working needlessly.

Turned key off – dash going through message sequence –
Motor keeps running for maybe a minute – then stops by itself – and Relay 15 starts vibrating again.

I go through procedure to disconnect battery and walk away to go and have cup of tea. Wife listens to me describing the problems but in spite of being pretty computer literate she has no ideas.


It appears that if the battery is left connected relays 15 and 19 get warm, and relay 15 vibrates, not sure why the Maxi fuse 2 blew.


Has anybody got any ideas why relay15 is vibrating and motor is running on after being switched off?

Any ideas would be appreciated.
Andrew

[PeterH]

I had an issue with my 2001 4.6 once where the engine kept running even with ignition off.
Turned out to be a fault with the starter motor.
Replacing that fixed the issue.
Not sure if that is your problem, just sharing my experience.
Hope that helps!

[Tins]

Out of left field guess.... any chance you replaced the engine relay with a timer one?

[prelude]

Relay 15 is the relay that powers the MAF sensor and ignition coils and perhaps some other stuff and is controlled by the ECU. The main relay turns on the ECU when you turn the ignition on. (relay 19).



Either the switch in your ignition key is borked powering up the ECU, but that would mean the rest of the car should power up accordingly as well.
The BECM has issues, it keeps the power to relay 19 up and thus the ECU active
The ECU has issues since it keeps flapping Relay 15


I would start with taking relay 19 out to begin with, this should kill the ECU and relay 15 should not even be able to flap anymore, if that still persists... gremlins! Also check relay 19 for sticking, since it gets warm it is getting power so that should not be but just to be safe. Measure on the socket if the relay is indeed getting clean power (a good 12v or whatever your battery reads) or that voltage is something like 8v. Enough to keep a relay up but more like some stray voltage from where ever.

With the battery removed, turn the key over all the positions including starting with some enthousiasm a dozen times to work the mechanism, perhaps you can hear or feel something off or if nothing else it "cleans" something, tapping the key from the back in every position to clear is permitted, just not with a sledge hammer -g-

Finally maxi fuse 2 iirc is a spare, so it might have been blown but I thought it did not power anything... Could be mistaken. 1,4,5 are power to the BECM the last one is for the ABS pump. In any case, 2 should not do anything :)

Cheers,
-P

[130camper]

Thank you for those suggestions.


I will keep the starter motor in mind, mine looks clean with new black paint so maybe has been renewed. for the moment it seems to work okay.

The relays were all replaced with exact replacement parts so should be good.

When the battery is connected and the key NOT in ignition switch.

NOW a new symptom to add to the ones below. Immediately the ABS pump does one cycle to pressure up.

RL15 starts vibrating.
At RL19 the socket for pin 30 has battery voltage of 12.5 v.
With RL19 removed RL15 is still vibrating.
All relays were renewed 2 years ago.
Changing RL19 and RL15 for same type relays results are the same conditions.

Went through the suggested moving of the ignition key and tapped the unit with soft head hammer and put a “puff” of graphite powder in key slot first. No change .


My car is a 1998, just before change to Thor motor.
So has fuse/relay box AMR6476, now NO longer available, that was used for VIN WA376580 to WA410481. my car VIN WA403048.
This box uses Maxi fuse 2 30 amp and has symbols, car with arrows above/below and SM in a circle indicating air suspension and starter motor.

When ignition switch in position 2, the SRS light is NOT on now, but ABS is still on with the message “ABS FAULT”.
The car has been in access height so I was not expecting it to rise. When looking at the problem yesterday I started the car and realized the EAS compressor was not making any noise at all. The socket at the compressor has just under the battery voltage at it.

Lights in centre of dash are, access height solid and standard height flashing, doors closed, no compressor.

Took the car for a drive down my private road with car on the bump stops, brakes worked well and the ABS pump was heard to cycle on/off.
All lights and indicators etc work.

When switching off key and it removed, the motor same as before, it idles on for 30 seconds before stopping. All the above faults with battery connected remain.


Started motor for a second check of the situation and an interesting thing happened when switched off and key removed, the engine idled for the 30 seconds then nearly stalled as if stopping, but regained its idle and didn’t seem to want to stop, so I disconnected the battery. It stopped.
And so did I. Shut the shed up for the day and went a cuppa.

I will have to put some more thought into the problem later.

Thank you
andrew

[prelude]

Mate ;)

Sipping on a cuppa myself as I read this, this is quite the puzzle. All I can come up with is your fusebox might be foobar. Power to relay 15, according to my electrical schematic, should not be possible without the ECU being powered. So, unless there is some other short somewhere I don't see how that relay could be powered.

The ABS pump should do a cycle, most need one after a prolonged period of no use. ABS fault is an interesting one. Could have many reasons but if we assume due to the rest of the car acting up that it is related to the fusebox or at least a power supply problem you might want to check that as well. The entire thing is of course powered by the BeCM (under the seat) so it could be that that unit is giving off the wrong signals. You can test that as well. Check the voltage over the 3 large brown cables to see if the voltage is at least ok to begin with and move on from there.

You mentioned 12.5v which is a tad bit low for a proper range rover, they really want to be as close to alternator voltage as possible. If you are measuring battery voltage, that is ok.

Cheers,
-P

[130camper]

I finally found the time to look at the problem at the weekend, 16th September.

The car is one of 4 I own so I could walk away and do other work.

My big mistake was leaving the front wheels up on wooden blocks over night.
For possibly 16 hours the EAS was trying to self level the car.

Relays 15,19 and 20, were warm in the morning so they might have been very hot at some stage during the night. I later found RL15 had small piece of melted plastic and burnt contacts.

The EAS compressor had been running so hot it had blistered the paint on the motor end before it burnt out and blew Maxi Fuse 2.

Renewing the relays, compressor, fuse and other various ideas were tried but nothing fixed the problems.

I figured that with so much heat in several spots, it might have burnt out parts of the circuit board inside the main fuse/relay box.

Just after I purchased the car, 2 years ago, I had the opportunity to purchase a brand new old stock fuse/relay box still in its Land Rover box.
The box in my car is a model variant that had a short production run, it has not been available new for some time, so I paid a massive $660.

The new box and the 3 new relays were fitted. Two of the connector blocks underneath the box had greenish corrosion on the contacts, so all were given dousing of contact cleaner.

This resulted in lovely silence when the battery was reconnected.
The ignition switch was back to normal, everything, apart from the window/sunroof settings, was working and the ABS light on the dash went out as I drove down my service road.
After several days of use still no problems.

Andrew
1998 P38, 1998 Defender 130, 1974 Citroen Dyane 6, 1954 Citroen Big 15

[prelude]

Nice one mate :) Glad you were able to fix it.

-P

[PeterH]

Thanks for the update, good to know!