It did this about 10 times over a few weeks some years ago then stopped doing it after I thought I fixed it

Driving along, the engine completely dies, as do all electrics tied to the ignition circuit. Will crank, wont start. Usually comes good after an hour or two, one time I left it overnight and it was good the following morning. Completely intermittent and random, when cold, warm or hot.

I've already replaced the ignition relay (the brown one) under the coolant reseviour a few years ago thinking that was the cause but it appears it wasn't. It's dead on petrol and LPG. All ignition circuits are dead, no dashboard, no indicators, climate control, fuel pump etc.

All fuses in the engine bay next to the coolant reseviour and next to the drivers knee are fine.
Had it towed home since it didn't come good on its own after an hour like it used to. Seems like the barrel has died, is it common for it to s**t itself?

What else could cause this?

Cheers

Ignition barrel has come apart, remove the shroud, locate the rear of the ignition barrel and refit the contacts on the back.

these are 'steaked' in, small punch or chisel will refit it nicely.

Time to get yourself a new distributor. - 99.99% sure.

Could also be ignition module on the dizzy or coil.

Hey buddy, all the wires look OK and the round connector assembly appears to be firmly attached to the rear of the barrel.

Does anyone have a reference of what wire colors do what? It might be the switch within the barrel that's dead and I'm unsure of what wire should have what voltage at the various contact points.




joolz and MADXF - it isn't the dizzy, ignitor or coil. All the electrics start when dizzy, ignitor or coil are faulty. I've got *nothing* when the key is turned to from ACC to IGN, no ignition electrics at all. All Accessory electrics work fine though. In the first post I wrote the indicators dont work and there's no power to the dashboard or climate control either - all of them work when the dizzy, ignitor or coil packs it up and you turn the key to the IGN position. I also dont get the fuel pump prime nor LPG soleniods opening when the key is turned to IGN.

Cheers

Ahh I see, I missed that bit in the first post. When you said ignition circuit I automatically assumed you meant the ignition system (dizzy, coil, etc).

That does sound like a weird problem. Is the relay you replaced the one that supplies power to the ECU or fuel pump?

I had a problem with my XF cutting out randomly. It turned out to be a connector on the steering column to the IGN barrel had come a bit loose and arced the crap out of the pins. This could be worth a check.

I hate this car!

I was tracing the wires from the barrel and found it goes to a stupid looking brown connector at the base of the steering column. I had the key in the IGN position and as I was moving wires around to get access to the connector, the car springs to life.

Piece of s**t, I still dont know what was wrong with it. I hope it was just that connector being a turd so I pulled it apart, inspected it and noticed no discolouration from high resistance causing heat, I squeezed each female pin and plugged it back together. Lets hope that was the fault! The electrics have never been raped by a jock at a car audio/security place so I'm not sure why these connectors would start being intermittent.

Lets cross fingers that it's the same fault that you had, cheers!

Yeah I hope so for you, I cant stand intermittent faults.
That brown connector is the one that was the problem for me.

The dash electrics pretty much give it away. Ignition system issues won't stop the dash operating.
Certainly looks like the connector or the ignition switch. Possibly the ignition wire from the connector to the switch might have an intermittent break in it too.
Battery feed is yellow, ignition is red/green - these colours change on the ignition switch side of that brown connector IIRC. The battery, accessory and start lines should be okay from the sounds of things.
Wiggle the ignition wire all the way from the connector to the ign switch with ign on, make sure the terminal connection is not loose.
If you reproduce the fault, jumper with a wire the battery/ignition terminals on the back of the ign switch. If the system comes to life, then the switch internals are suspect, if not, try on the switch side of the brown connector in the back of the plug - if joy, then the wire is suspect, if not, the connector might be fubar. Then jumper the back of the plug on the dash side, and so on . . . . .