On The Road 9 - Extended: A solution for every problem - Defender 90 Warning Light Module AMR2043

Two days before I returned home, my “headlights-on” light on the warning light module (part AMR2043) on my Defender’s dashboard went dark. When I brought the vehicle into my mechanic and he looked at it, other lights on the module failed in a domino effect. The good news is that happened when it did and not during the trip. The bad news, he told me, was there is no replacement available for the module, and that their best hope would be to find one on a junked Defender in an auto-junk yard. But the problem there is that few of the 2,500 1993-1997 NAS (North American Series made for the USA) Defenders like mine make it to these auto junkyards, which is why they sell these days for $65,000 or more. The Defender, which started production worldwide (except for the US) in 1983 or so, did not make it to the USA until 1993 when 500 Defender 110s were shipped to the USA, and then 1994, 1996 and 1997, when 2,000 Defender 90s were shipped here. (By the way, the author was the first “civilian” to drive the first NAS Defender 90 brought off the ship for display at an auto-show in October 1993, and one of the first buyers weeks later, but that’s another story.) So, with only 2,500 NAS Defenders ever made, with their unique parts, and now all 21-25 years old, some parts are becoming hard -if not impossible- to come by, or so it would seem. Not one for wanting to abandon a problem looking for a solution to an important subject as my Defender, or abandon my Defender because of an obsolete $300 part, I went to work.

Not knowing when my mechanic would be able to get to my Defender, I searched the web for just about every Land Rover supply house in the USA and elsewhere in the world looking for part AMR2043, my warning light module (see below diagram). Of course, I knew that the overseas houses would not have the part since part AMR2043 was made specifically for the USA (NAS) Defender. As it turns out, all the US supply houses told me the part was obsolete and no longer available. Not a single one told me what options I had, despite their hyped ads that touted, “We will find the part for you if we do not have it.”

Not one to get discouraged, I contacted Rovers North in Vermont and asked them what people do when they cannot locate a replacement for their warning light module, which is sure to fail at some time. Surely, people just don’t junk their Defenders because of this $300 part, I said. The rep agreed and told me that people get one of the TDI-Defender versions (see AMR 2628 in middle of photo display, below) and do a lot of rewiring. Although compatible replacement modules are plug-ins (a three-minute job to replace), which come with one port in the rear of the module for the 13 lights, that patches into a prewired ribbon in the wiring harness, if a module in not fully compatible (see the differences in the photo below), all of the lights need to be individually wired to the ribbon in the harness, and maybe even the ribbon itself, at least a four-hour job if successful.

After talking with Rovers North, I searched the web for AMR2628 and found a number of sites that offer this version. Although they said they have it, I was suspect. So, I started searching for sites that not only supply parts, but actually rebuild Defenders, thinking they either must have some used ones they remove from Defenders they are rebuilding or have secret sources for getting new ones. As good luck would have it, my first contact produced success. My email to XXXX (name to be provided later at their request) returned me with the good news that in their own rebuilding work, they need to have a guaranteed source new warning light modules if they cannot salvage used ones, and so they just finished getting an outsourced production run of a number of AMR2043s and were just about to publish that information on NAS-ROW and Defender-Source. In fact, Joe, the parts rep, just happened to have one on his desk at the time (see bottom photo) of my call. Needless to say, I placed an order immediately for one and awarded Joe a coveted OTR patch for his good work.

The even better news about this whole exercise for me is knowing that I will be able to keep my Defender up and running indefinitely as long as shops like XXXX and my own mechanic stay in business.

“There is a solution for every problem, and don’t give up until a solution is found, if the problem is worth solving.” Me.