overheating or I thought so ???

[blue juice]

Hello to all.
Just recently I went and had the thermostat and viscous coupling replaced on the 130, and was told it may need to have the radiator pressure cleaned.
The radiator was showing sign of wear on the lower half and it was replaced with a 4 core ( red devil beenleigh ) top blokes .
anyway the temp gauge now sits on half and as soon as I turn on the headlights it moves to 3/4 and when the driving lights are turned on it goes into the red on the temp gauge. ??????????????
Cheers

[justinc]

A classic defender earthing issue.

I have had several call outs over the years with these exact symptoms.

To test the theory, put a jumper cable between the battery negative and any part of the seat box/ body, and try the lamps again etc.
If everything returns to normal, just run an extra earth wire from the batt neg to the base of one of the seat bolts.
I have a 130 that because of its use on beaches etc the minute bits of corrosion between body panels etc caused a similar fault. Rather than laboriously trace the faulty/ poor earth, I ran an extra earth wire to the body straight from the battery to the base of a passenger seat bolt and all is fine!

JC

[blue juice]

Thank you JC will go down stairs and try it now
Cheers mate

[mox]

Having or even suspecting the problem of inaccurate readings from an electrical temperature gauge is probably an extra excuse for replacing it with a capillary tube one. It seems others have, at least partly because they should give more accurate readings. Intend installing one I have on my 300Tdi Defender but it is presently well down in job priorities.

[gmeddy]

my Defender '93, has an aftermarket "Speco" temp guage in her,
she reads about 95c when cruising at 90, lower at idle.
when i push up to 100 or 110, or maintain speed up a slight incline, the temp quickly rises to 100c to 105c.

As this is a celcius only guage, i have no idea if this is normal temp or too hot.
What is the running temp normally and can i even rely on this guage as being accurate?

thanks.
Glen

[JDNSW]

As mentioned the problem is certain to be an earthing problem, but not necessarily body to chassis. It is just as likely to be the actual earth on the gauge itself. If it is the same as the 110, all the earth wires for the separate instruments end in a tag, and all the tags plus one for an earth to the bulkhead are gathered together under one of the gauge mounting nuts. If this nut is loose, you get these symptoms. The giveaway that it is an earth problem is that the reading changes when the lights are switched on and off, which is because the instrument lights use the same earth.

John

[gmeddy]

As mentioned, mine is getting hotter when accelerating/increasing the load, going up hill... lights on/off makes no difference.
This Speco Guage has no light in it either.
Glen

[Squatdog]

id say ur up for a new radiator or get old one cleaned

[gmeddy]

or it could be the fan, like mentioned in the thread just started today about how to replace it. sounds like a better bet than replacing the Rad!!
;)

[3.9County]

I had the same issues with the V8 County for several weeks.

The temp guage would read abnormaly high when driving lights are turned on and even more so when the thermo fans are also switched on. I suspected the earthing on the guages and so took the instrument panel off to discover that all my istruments had a common ground. The mounting on which they were all grounded to had come loose and it was just a matter of tightening up the small nut.

It wasnt long too untill I discovered the same symptoms. This time I completely replace the original radiator with a brand new one from Britpart which was a straight fit. I discovered the old one was about 50% blocked :(, the County now runs a great deal cooler although still has some grounding issues.

Will be running seperate ground wires from each intrument switch this weekend.

You cant have too many grounds.:)