60 series diesel engine stutter

[sahara60]

Hi all,

I have recently purchased a 60 series Sahara diesel from a mate. She's a bit rough round the edges but perfect for towing my boat, but it has one frustrating problem.

The problem is intermittent and generally on shows up if I start turning on accessories, eg A/C, heater fan, headlights etc. It makes it start cutting the engine but not completely and at random intervals of about 8 to 30 seconds for each cut.

I have seen what is cutting it but don't understand why or what's causing it. At the rear of the injection box there a long arm that goes back to a box at the rear of the engine. The arm is designed to come forward and collect a lever to cut off the diesel flow to stop the engine when the ignition is turned off. The problem is, this lever starts moving forward slowly when the engine is running all by itself, then taps the cut off lever but not enough to stall the engine and then shoots all the way back again and the process just keeps repeating itself.

It usually doesn't have an issue if I don't try and turn on the A/C, heater or headlights, but then other times it WILL let me turn these things on without any problems, but rarely. Once the problem starts it can now be hard to make it stop doing it even by turning the Accessory off again.

Clues for the Techs:

It did once have dual battery system, but the previous owner fried the secondary system by connecting the battery terminals on the wrong sides. I'm wondering if there is lingering side effects from this but then he told me it had the problem before he fried the secondry battery connections.

He also only used the car once or twice a year as a shooting buggy and used to run powerful spot lights, although they were removed before I got it.

As it was used rarely he didn't have a battery for it so he just gave me his battery out of his VK Commodore to get me by. It's a 600cca. As it's not a 4WD battery I'm starting to wonder if the problem could be as simple requiring a bigger battery because the problem starts as soon as I ask it to supply more power for accessories. The car used to sit in a shed up the bush and he used to just take a battery up to it for each shooting trip but that could have been a different battery each time for all I know The car radio is fine and doesn't cause problems but I can understand the A/C and the fan for the A/C and heater and the headlights sucking some power.

Am I on the right track with my search or am I totaly pointing in the wrong direction? What is controlling that injection pump cut off arm? When the problem isn't occuring the engine runs fine endlessly and strongly. I just went from Adelaide to Port Victoria and back towing 1.6 tonnes of boat and it gave no issues the whole trip, but I didn't drive at night nor was I game to turn the A/C on. It's just painful when it keeps hickuping if the problem is occuring while driving. It's like trying to drive and turning the ignition off and on quickly every few seconds.

Any tips from all you clever bugga's would be greatly appreciated.

[GC_AUS]

Hi Brett,

From your description I would suspect current supply as you
have highlighted. Try the battery as its the simplest thing to swap - then I
would have look at the alternator & make sure it's putting out enough
voltage consistently - you may need to take that to an auto electrician if you aren't
sure what you are doing - they will check it under load which is hard to do at
home.

If it's been fried then it's a fair bet that something is
not right in the wiring somewhere - chase out the second system &
disconnect it to test if it makes a difference. There are relays &
solenoids in that car to start & stop the engine but if it's working
without additional loads then they are quite possibly just fine & I would
come back to the alternator brushes etc.

Working your way through all that you will be able to see if
any contacts are loose etc & that might also highlight a potential problem.

You could also try http://www.lcool.org
& there are a heap of specific 4X4 forums if you do a quick search -on those
you will likely get someone who knows 60's better.

At this stage I'm guessing the alternator isn't keeping up
under load - might be quite old....?
the alternator on that model should have a vacuum pump on the back so be
careful - they can be expensive!!

Good luck - I'll be curious to see what it is

Rgds

Gary.