By Mark Meyer (Deadelus) on Wednesday, November 21, 2001 - 12:21 am: Edit

Hello all,

I'm glad I stumbled across this site. I recently bought a third-hand '96 Disco SD w/ 90k miles on it. I feel that I got a realy good deal on it. Everything was perfect until I decided to remove the broken antenna that came with the truck, in preparation for putting in the replacement (still haven't gotten around to that part) Soon after jacking around under the dash to unplug the antenna cable and pull it through the firewall, the alarm started acting "buggy".

Of course as many of us know, when the alarm starts acting-up, the truck becomes a real bear to deal with if you are in a hurry, and you can't get the alarm to disengage and unlock the ignition.

So here are the intermittent symptoms I have been experiencing for the last month or so:

When the alarm fob will not unlock the alarm, pressing the unlock button will make a couple of relays under the dash start to click. Always the green relay under the pass-side dash (attached to the swing down rack, with two harness plugs, one green and one grey)will click on the side that the green harness plug plugs into. Sometimes it clicks quite rapidly and others it clicks a bit slower. The other day it did a new thing where it would click at the pass-side spot for 5 seconds, and then another relay at the driver-side kick panel (yellow relay w/ purple wires) would click for 5 seconds, and then it would alternate again. These clicks will go on for 20 or 30 seconds and then it will stop until one of the fob buttons is pushed again.

If the truck doesn't react properly to the alarm disengage command I have to keep pressing the buttons until it reacts with the correct light flashing sequence. Then I can get it to start. Interestingly enough when the truck will not respond to the fob commands, the central door locks will not work properly either. If I unlock either from outside or manually from the inside the other doors will not respond. Also it seems that all of the lights and whistles associated with the ignition switch do not respond until the alarm decides on its own to work.

Usually all of the clicking and button pushing will lead to the alarm going off and sounding the horn. I have to generally get the honking to stop by pressing the unlock button on the fob.

I have unplugged the harnesses from the "alarm relay" under the pass-side dash, during the clicking and the clicking stops. If I leave the harnesses unplugged I can not start the truck. I can however start the truck and then unplug the harnesses without killing the engine. Once after plugging the harnesses back into the relay the hazard lights flashed without the hazard light button being pushed in. After unplugging and plugging back in a few times that symptom dissappeared.

I have recently replaced the battery in the fob to no avail. The truck battery seems to be fine, as the truck will turn over after the alarm gets working on its own. At one point however the dome light was very weakly lit for a while, but now it all seems fine.

Could I have a bad relay under the dash? (specifically the long green one w/ the two harnesses plugged into it)

Could a bad ground be the cause of all of this?

A bad battery? or alternator? or God forbid the CPU? or some faulty routing of the serpentine belt?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

By the way, I have virtually no automotive knowledge, but I have always wanted to learn, and now that I have a Rover I am really itching to get my hands dirty under the hood. I did just fix my Cruise control today, thanks to the board. It was a cracked hose at the Cruise unit on the engine, and also a poorly adjusted vacuum switch at the brake pedal.

Once again thanks in advance for any forthcoming help and suggestions.

Regards,
Daedelus

By Mark Meyer (Deadelus) on Wednesday, November 21, 2001 - 12:44 pm: Edit

Oh, come on. Somebody's got to know of something more I can do about this problem.
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeze?????????