Outer Limits 4x4 Board

Hi all,
While driving today the 4by did a strange surging thing, basically you could hear a click coming from under the dash, the truck is an early HJ60, it would click about every 2 sec, and if I was accelerating it would die like when you run out of juice and try to accelerate, it did this while idling but not stop the engine long enough to stall, if you have your foot off the accelerator, you can hear the clicking but it has no effect on the car.
Felt the relays to find which one was clicking and one of them was too hot to touch. None of the relays are labeled, it's the one closest to the driver in the row of three, next to the wiper controller.
The relay that was too hot to touch is a M4 12V 22A if thats any help, I was thinking possibly ignition relay.
Does this relay normally heat up like this?
Could the relay be shot, or could this be the result of another prob?
I have attached a photo of the relay.
I'm not sure if this post should be in Auto elec, if so could a mod move it please.
Thanks for any help.
Cheers

ok, checked it out today, it is the ignition relay, but thats not the prob.
replaced it and same thing happened, it slowly gets hotter, then starts tripping.
Any ideas what could cause this???
cheers

Does it happen worse when you have a whole heap of accesories on? Like for example, air con on at fan speed 4? Headlights etc??

When you feel this cut out and then surge in power, does it leave a puff of black smoke out the back when under acceleration?

If you leave the car idling, will the problem occur long enough for you to look under the bonnet?

I have my suspicions that your edic motor is creeping very slowly. When it reaches a point close to fuel shut off, it will reset the edic. You will hear a click or 2 underneath the dash, loose power like the car is turning off, then you will get a surge in power as the edic goes into overinjection, then return back to normal running position. The cycle then repeats itself!

It is normal for the ignition relay to get quite warm, as it is always on when the car is running. Any coil gets hot under these conditions.

I had wipers, lights and a/c on, switched them all off but it still cotinued the same.
Couldn't notice any smoke coming out either.
Also the relay gets too hot to touch.
What is an edic?
cheers

EDIC= electronic diesel injection controller.

It is a little servo motor that is bolted on the engine next to/ rear of the fuel pump. There is a lever that attaches the EDIC motor to the fuel pump. This little motor is what controls fuel input into the motor.

The relay that controls the EDIC motor is located behind the drivers side kick panel under the dash. It is a little box marked 12V fuel control relay (from memory or something like that).

The problem I had with mine was to do with a poor earth between my battery and the body of the car. There was something like a 0.6 Volt potential difference between the body of the car and the battery negative terminal. This same voltage difference occured between the body and the chassis also. The lead connection to the body was corroded. What I found was happening, when I turned a lot of accesories on, the voltage difference between the grounded engine and the body was getting up in the range of 0.6 Volt, which was enough for the EDIC motor to start creeping slowly. I would be driving along with the air con on, or headlights and all of a sudden, the car would seem to cut out for a second, and then surge back to life. I worked out that the EDIC motor was cycling. You can see the lever move on the fuel pump when it starts cycling.

I fixed the dodgy ground connection between the body and the battery, and the problem went away.

carter has it right I have fixed alot of hj60's with this exact problem seems to
be a very common thing

yep, seems that was the prob, there was a earth cable already running from the block to the body when i bought the truck, checked the connection on the body and it was pretty dirty and corroded, cleaned it up and seems to be fine now.
Thanks alot.
cheers