D2 coolant leak sprays engine bay, relays now shot?

[seanmcd]

Ok so my daughters 2003 D2 lost a coolant hose yesterday, sprayed the engine bay with coolant right near the resevoir tank. She shut it down immediately and called me. I come rescue her and find the temp gauge is showing cold, all the way on the bottom, but the red light is on.

So I fix the hose, fill it back up with coolant, start it up and it is knocking for about a minute or 2, then the light goes out, the temp gauge pops up to halfway, which is where it always sits, and the knocking goes away.

So I am nervous as shit, get it home, check all fluids, seems to run well now, there is no coolant in the oil and vice versa, I am thinking maybe I got lucky right?

So fast forward to today, kid goes to school no problem, drives fine all day. She comes out after school and it starts but immediately stalls. Calls me, I come rescue again, and it will not stay running for more than a minute or two. Weird, I am thinking crank shaft sensor? But it keeps starting up then stalls.

So, after getting the engine bay sprayed with coolant, I think electrical. Go through the engine bay fuse box, and the main engine relay (R9) makes a loud humming sound whenever the engine dies. Hmm, ok so I figure the relay got wet and now is fubar, so I swap that relay with all 3 of the other relays that are there, the ABS (R10), AUX (R7), and the other engine relay (R6).

Seems like one would work right? Nope, they all will click, the engine starts and runs fine, then after a minute or so each one does the same thing, it hums then the engine dies.

So AT this point I need to get this thing home in the garage, so I remove the relay and stick a few male leads into the fuse box and jump the 3 and 5 terminals and viola, it starts and runs and I drive it home about 20 minutes.

SOOOOOO, it seems simple right? Replace the relay, but I ask, what are the chances of ALL FOUR RELAYS not working at the same time? From getting wet, presumably?

Any ideas? Also, is there a equivialant relay from NAPA or Advance or whatever instead of driving an hour to the Rover dealer?

ANY HELP MUCH APPRECIATED! Thanks in advance.

 

[seanmcd]

The relay I have is a BMW part number, BMW 6136-6901-469

It also has a Tyco part number, V23136-J6-X48

Is there an equivilant relay I can get from NAPA, Advance, etc?

 

[seanmcd]

Any ideas, thoughts, advice greatly appreciated. I am at a loss here, not very good with electrical issues.

Thanks

 

[jafir]

http://discoweb.org/forums/showthread.php?t=77979&highlight=relays

 

[seanmcd]

Thanks Jafir, much appreciated.

Anybody have any ideas on why the relays don't work for long? Would coolant in the fuse box cause that?

 

[jafir]

I cannot imagine they would all go bad. Was the cover off the box? When the problem happens is the relay still getting the signal to close?

Fuse boxes (both under hood and under dash) have been known to go bad on D2. I'm not sure what the normal symptoms of a bad fuse box are though...

 

[seanmcd]

The cover was on the box, but the coolant did spray under the hood quite a bit. How much who knows, but since it is the day after I suspect electrical.

What makes me wonder is when I jumped the connections it ran fine, so either it is the relay is closing then losing contact, or perhaps the current fluctuates that closes the current?

I admit I do not know what the side posts should be doing, is one positive and one negative? Should it be dead when key is off then go neg when key turns on?

All I know is I jumped the thing and it worked to get me home, which in my mind means whatever is wrong is somewhere in that relay or the 4 wires coming into the relay?

You know, lol, or not. It is British and all.

 

[singingcamel]

Take out all the relays and spray some good electrical cleaner and let dry.I doubt if all the relays would take a dump all at once.You may want to use a little compressed air to dry..
if it was contaminated with coolant ,it may not be making good contact.

 

[jymmiejamz]

FYI when the red light is illuminated after the engine cools down, that means there is an overheat fault code stored. In other words, she cooked it.

 

[seanmcd]

FYI when the red light is illuminated after the engine cools down, that means there is an overheat fault code stored. In other words, she cooked it.

The red light is not on now, has not been since it got hot. When you say she cooked it, I don't doubt she may have, however what would be the symptoms other than the relay issue?

Right now it seems I have an electical issue, once I sort it out then I can drive it enough to see if the motor is cooked, correct? Or could the electrical issue be result of the overheating?

 

[mbrummal]

that red light means the temp sender's output is out of range, like when it is severely over heating.

 

[jymmiejamz]

The thing I would be concerned about is a cracked block or head from the overheating. Hopefully yougot lucky and won't have any issues. I've seen Rover V8's that are cracked that show no symptoms for 1,500 miles, then they overheat. Another sign I've noticed is that you can never bleed the air out of the heater core.

 

[seanmcd]

The thing I would be concerned about is a cracked block or head from the overheating. Hopefully yougot lucky and won't have any issues. I've seen Rover V8's that are cracked that show no symptoms for 1,500 miles, then they overheat. Another sign I've noticed is that you can never bleed the air out of the heater core.

Agreed, that is my main concern and all I can do is wait and see. I hope I did get some luck this time, I sure could use it.

Sooo, to wrap this up here is what I did today. I spent a few hours testing relays, contacts in the fuse box, tried jumping the relay and reading codes from the OBD, there were ALOT of codes!

So in my head I figured it must be electrical and since the fuse box was next to the coolant leak I focused on the fuse box.

At this point I tried to locate a new relay and had to order it from NAPA, I tried to locate a used fusebox but none were even close to where I am. I then said Fuk it and removed the fuse box from the car, completely disassembled it top to bottom and washed every layer with hot soapy water, it definitely had coolant inside the layers.

I used compressed air to dry it, sprayed a ton of contact cleaner all over, inside and out, then dryed it with more compressed air, repeated 2 more times, reassembled the whole thing, which is a pain in the ass to be honest, installed it back in the car and put all the relays and fuses back in.

Plugged it in and it started right up. I drove it around about an hour and half, let it idle for a long time, drove it some more and checked the gauges, fluid levels and OBD. No codes, temp gauge reads halfway which is where it always sits, oil looks good so far, and it runs fine at this point.

So that was defintely the most recent issue, there was coolant inside the fuse box causing all of those problems. So now my biggest worry is whether the block cracked or the heads warped, and all I can do for that is drive it and wait and see. Fingers crossed.

So that was the problem, I will say that the fuse box definitely can be taken apart fairly easily, just be careful how it comes apart and take your time cleaning it and putting it back together. It worked for me, this time, so far. That's about all you can hope for with a Rover.

Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it.

 

[seanmcd]

Take out all the relays and spray some good electrical cleaner and let dry.I doubt if all the relays would take a dump all at once.You may want to use a little compressed air to dry..
if it was contaminated with coolant ,it may not be making good contact.

Thanks, your post was what caused me to look at the obvious and remove and clean the fuse box. SOmetimes it takes reading what someone says to do what you have been thinking about doing, sorta legitimizes the idea.

So thanks dude