HowardSmall
29th January 2010, 04:23 PM
The other day my 99MY Defender Extra would not start - no action by the starter motor at all. Pulled the starter yellow relay and replaced it with the window demister one - all fixed. Couple of days later the same problem. Pulled it again and replaced it with the third yellow relay - all fixed.
Ordered two new relays which arrived a couple of days back and installed them. Cost $35 each and they were the last two in country.
Decided to have a look at the failed relays so put a multimeter across the coil expecting to find open circuit but all looked OK! Applied 12V and heard the relay pull in!! This happened on both. Then checked the resistance across the contacts and found it was high even when the relay pulled in so pulled them out of their yellow cases (easy to do without any damage).
I then manually operated the relay a couple of times and found it gave 0ohms when pulled in. Applied 12V and checked - all functioning OK. Put them back in their cases and tested again - functioning OK.
I can only conclude that the contacts had become dirty as a result of the high humidity with all the rain around Cyclone Olga and manually operating them had put extra pressure on which removed whatever gunk was there. It would be better to hit them with contact cleaner which I will do later.
So now I have a couple of spare Yellow Relays (and a bank account that is $70 lighter).
Howard
Ordered two new relays which arrived a couple of days back and installed them. Cost $35 each and they were the last two in country.
Decided to have a look at the failed relays so put a multimeter across the coil expecting to find open circuit but all looked OK! Applied 12V and heard the relay pull in!! This happened on both. Then checked the resistance across the contacts and found it was high even when the relay pulled in so pulled them out of their yellow cases (easy to do without any damage).
I then manually operated the relay a couple of times and found it gave 0ohms when pulled in. Applied 12V and checked - all functioning OK. Put them back in their cases and tested again - functioning OK.
I can only conclude that the contacts had become dirty as a result of the high humidity with all the rain around Cyclone Olga and manually operating them had put extra pressure on which removed whatever gunk was there. It would be better to hit them with contact cleaner which I will do later.
So now I have a couple of spare Yellow Relays (and a bank account that is $70 lighter).
Howard