It Runs!!!

Its been over a week not that my beloved Land Rover has been broken down in my garage. I've been messing with this and that and everything under the sun to figure out why it hasn't been running. A few weeks ago on my way to work it randomly died while going down the road and I had to tow it home. What I knew was that the fuel pump wouldn't run, if I manually powered up the fuel pump it would start and run. So after testing, testing, and testing some more I came to the conclusion that the ECU wasn't sending a signal to the fuel pump relay to turn it on. I assumed a bad ECU so I ordered a different one off car-part.com when it got here I swapped it out and guess what..... still wouldn't run. By this point I'm at my wits end with this thing, but after a bunch of reading on the internet I find out that the ECU has to also match the computer that controls the alarm. I finally broke down and asked for help on the Land Rover Trading Wall on facebook. Seeing the answers to my post was just about as frustrating as the fact that my truck was broke down. I asked the group if there was a do it yourself way to reprogram my computer so that I didn't have to pay a Land Rover dealership more than my truck was worth just to fix it. Most of the answers I got were "you bought a Land Rover, get ready to pay" or "I'll sell you both computers for $$$"

And then..... A Miracle!

I got a message today from a guy saying he could help me fix my Land Rover. He told me as long as I didn't mind losing my alarm he knew how to bypass the second computer that was keeping my truck from starting. HELL YES! He sent me his number and told me to call him when I get home and he would step me through it. So I call him and he tells me "Usually I don't offer to help people, but us Land Rover guys have to stick together, besides I didn't want to see you part one out just for something stupid like this"  Sure enough within 5 minutes he had me cut and splice 2 wires, turn the key with the new computer and....... still wont start. He said, why don't you try the old computer just in case, I plugged it in and sure enough it took right off. Apparently it was my alarm computer that went bad. He told me what it does is cut the fuel pump signal to the main ECU to disable the truck from running.  All I know is I'm happy as can be!

The story here isn't all that interesting, but what I find interesting is meeting someone that feels the same way as I do about my Land Rover. We talked on the phone like we had known each other forever because we had this one thing in common. Its not so much a Land Rover thing, as it is a British car thing, Its something that most people will never understand because you really have to have a few screws loose to enjoy it. When you get in a British car, a piece of it gets into you. They may not be the best, the fastest, and sure as hell aren't the most reliable, but what each and every one of them has is its own personality, a character that forms a bond with its owner. That's why I couldn't let the Disco die, and that's exactly why he felt the moral obligation to help me to save it.