QuestionHi John
We have done everthing Dico Dave suggested including looking behind the glove box replaced the battery and checked fuses and bought new linkout plugg for the spider if only we could find it. There is NO evidence of it at all> The car is 1997 300 TDI Automatic The car is undrivable and does not even turn over...we really apreciate a help with this...thank you..
AnswerHi Nick,
(Bonjour!!)
Here's a quote from a fellow LR owner who has repaired this problem :
"The spider unit is a small black box of relays, controlled by the immobiliser & alarm,
mounted on a panel just in front of (toward the front of the vehicle) and below the
radiocassette slot - a very inconvenient position which is designed to be very inaccessible
to thieves in a hurry. This contains relays which isolate various key circuits of the
vehicle; the feed to the fuel solenoid, and the feed to the starter solenoid on a 300Tdi, and
ignition, fuel and starting circuits on a V8."
To remove:
"- Disconnect the vehicle battery
- Remove the radio (you will need radio keys for this) and its cage
- Remove the ashtray & the blank switch panel on the opposite side (they just pull out)
- Remove the clock on one side and coin tray on the other (easiest way is to get 2 flat bits
of metal about credit card thickness, slide in above and below the clock to release the
retaining tabs and it just slides out)
- Remove the twin pop out cupholders (about six screws)
- Pull off the 3 rotary heating/ventilation controls
- Unscrew and remove the plastic surround to these
- Unscrew the heater controls so you can move the unit around
You will now be pretty much at the stage of being able to take the black centre console
panel out ... so take the screws out and wriggle it out. It tends to catch on things but will
pop out with a bit of a tug."
To repair:
"Behind all this you will find a small black box screwed to a metal face which slopes
towards you at about 45 degrees. It has two screws holding it in and a 10 pin multiplug
coming out the RH side which is covered up by a metal security plate so you can't easily
disconnect it. Take the unit out. This is a "sealed for life unit" which it is not possible to
repair. Ignore that sentence.
You will see that on the end of the box where the connector is, the plate is a press-in fit.
Get a small flatblade screwdriver and lever out the end plate, working your way round
until it pops out. The whole circuit board will slide out.
Look on the back of the circuit board (the solder side). Chances are the fault will be
immediately obvious, if it is a little blackened and burned, but if not, examine all the
solder joints carefully, if the unit has failed in the normal way there will be a "dry joint"
(where the solder joint has cracked up making a bad connection) on one of the larger pins
on the board. Basically all you need to do is to get a decent fairly high powered soldering
iron with a small point on it (I use a 40 watt) and re-solder the broken connections.
Depending on how much you enjoyed taking the unit out, you might also want to do all
the other relay and connector pins while you are in there - it makes sense.
As an option of course you can replace the unit, I think it costs about £40 or so and the
part number is on the unit, usually AMR4889."
Best of luck,
JohnMc
