Wobbly rev counter on 96 Disco

On or around Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:23:25 -0700 (PDT), Tony enlightened us thusly:

connection to the back of the alternator loose, alternator loose, belt slipping or alternator becoming faulty. And maybe alternator earth link loose.

The connector is a spade one, goes to the W terminal, IIRC.

What Austin said. On mine it was just full of mud and crap, but had also almost cut itself off. Note that it's a short wire and attempts to solder it or shorten it so it fits better will just make it work at first, but break within a week or so ... ;)

I ended up replacing the length of wire with a new spade connection and the old one cleaned up as best I could, never had a problem since.

As Austin mentioned, it could also be a pre-cursor to total alternator failure - it happened to me on the way home on a trip to Harrogate from Somerset - occasional wobbly rev counter for about 200-300 miles, then no rev counter at all, then progressive electrical systems failures - radio first, then instruments, finally speedo, (no battery light came on though). Finally let go completely just south of Strensham services on the M5.

I hope it is a straightforward connection issue, otherwise could be quite expensive!

Tim