gess
Part of things
Posts: 220 
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Jun 14, 2022 10:19:10 GMT
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Really sorry to read about your near miss. But the silver lining is that it is a near miss and not a total catastrophe. It could have been so much worse, at least your car is in a coma needing a new brain, not a total rebuild.
I hope you will be able to find the cause of this mishap so that you can avoid it in the future.
I guess that sourcing the needed parts will take some time, but I am confident you will get there in the end. Could it be an option to install a simpler engine to get you through the summer? A carburetted V6 with a normal C3 box, or are they difficult to find and expensive?
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thomfr
Part of things
Trying to assemble the Duett again..
Posts: 695
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Jun 14, 2022 11:52:34 GMT
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Call Kronenburg for ECU advice (https://kms.vankronenburg.nl/products/producten/engine-control-unit). Very friendly and knowing. And you can even stay in your own Brabants.
Thom
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73' Alfa Giulia Super
64' Volvo Duett
65' Volvo Duett
67' Volvo Amazon 123GT
09' Ford Focus 1.8
20' VW ID4
71' Benelli Motorella
65' Cyrus Speciaal
The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys
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Jun 14, 2022 12:12:33 GMT
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I'm only too aware of the prom/gala embarrassment. My mates lad wanted me to take him in my Mini. I'd had a bit of an intermittent starting issue when the car was hot but I picked him up and assumed we were going straight to the event but alas no. Everyone was meeting up outside the local so famiky/friends could have photos etc so I drove him round there and then parked up.
They were there a good hour so I'm thinking it'll all be fine. Came time for everyone to leave to go to the event and the sodding car would not start. Tried everything I could and my mate who's handy tried too but it would not go. His lad ended up getting a lift whilst we messed about. I couldn't leave the car where it was so we pushed it around the corner and I free wheeled it down to his house. I turned the corner and pulled up outside, tried the key and it fired straight up! Aaaarrrgggghhh! Felt like pouring a can of petrol in it and setting it on fire.
I did eventually find the fault which was in the 'aircraft grade' bulkhead loom connector. This was on a professionally built loom too.
Lots of similarities with your sorry tale. Glad you've got a bit of your mojo back.
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Jun 14, 2022 14:18:26 GMT
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Bad but could be worse, I know how you feel after I managed to set the wiring alight on my TR7V8 (proper flames!) The same things went through my mind about it being scrap but in the end once I had got the dash stripped out (it was only a little bit melted) it wasn't too bad a job to replace the damaged wiring. You'll feel better once you have found the extent of the damage and formulated a plan, ECU's usually go up in smoke because something somewhere else has shorted out, Tempting as it is don't plug a new on in just to try it!
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,556
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Call Kronenburg for ECU advice (https://kms.vankronenburg.nl/products/producten/engine-control-unit). Very friendly and knowing. And you can even stay in your own Brabants. Thom Hi Thom, Well aware of kronenburg, but it's just too bloody costly... It adds up quick! |
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,556
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Bad but could be worse, I know how you feel after I managed to set the wiring alight on my TR7V8 (proper flames!) The same things went through my mind about it being scrap but in the end once I had got the dash stripped out (it was only a little bit melted) it wasn't too bad a job to replace the damaged wiring. You'll feel better once you have found the extent of the damage and formulated a plan, ECU's usually go up in smoke because something somewhere else has shorted out, Tempting as it is don't plug a new on in just to try it! I'm sure finding the extent of the damage will make me feel better as it takes away the guesswork. Yes, I'm not tempted to plug in naything till I'm convinced that everything is right again. I'll even swap the engine loom just to be sure. I hope the ecu is still ok, but I'm doubtful as the first of the two plumes of smoke came directly from where it is mounted. Would make it much easier to fix the problem, as when those components work still it's just a matter of splicing wires... |
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Another option for you, these folks are very good .. link |
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You might be lucky it could be something as simple as an earth wire running through the loom which has shorted to live (I've seen this before) with this you get smoke in all sorts of places.
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,556
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Well, a first update after the meltdown... I made a start on the works to diagnose the damage. Pushed the car outside with help of the wife operating the brakes, as the drive slopes so given free reign, the car would simply roll out onto the road and if momentum got great enough possibly even up the (occupied) opposite drives. Not good... Anyway with the help it was no problem at all. But it does leave me dependent on help to get the car in a position I can work on it. With the car outside and a few hours of nice weather, I set about getting to a diagnosis. First action was to remove the seats, but as these are electrical, power is needed to operate them to a position you can reacht the bolts. Now I thought I had wired the seats to an auxiliary fuse box so I thought I'd connect the battery once more, but not after removing all of the BOB related wiring. And this is where some worries arose... The aux fusbox was powered and the seats could be moved and therefore removed. But, the rest of teh car remained totally dead. And that I cannot yet comprehend. The main battery cables to the starter and the alternator are there, the earths from engine to car body are there as far as I could see. So what the hell? With the seats now removed I set about removing the centre console, as it is in the way of the bottom dash cover plate. Removing that is not very difficult, you just have to be careful with all the palstic pegs not breaking. Undoing the screws was then easy enough. Marking some wiring and disconnecting from the switches affirmed my belief that I'm going to do it differently this time. The wiring all works and is safe, yet it is built circuit by circuit and often connected using bullet connectors. I knew than that is was not optimal, but money was very tight. I'd already decided that the next reason to open up the dash would mean taking an inventory of all wiring connections and then working out how and what type of connectors to use to clean that up. Also using bus bars for ground and switched/permanent lives. It's now too much of a branching off where needed kind of thing. Also not really differentiated between live/switched live. It's the one thing I have always felt I should have done nicer in the first place. So as the dash and console area's are now being opened I'm taking this on as a "while I'm at it". It's going to be a bit of a chore, as I need to trace a lot of wiring, but it'll be worth it, making it safer. Anyway I digress. With the console now removed, I could take out the many screws holding in the bottom dash plate. A bitt fiddly around the glove box area but otherwise no problem. I now had good access to most of the BOB wring and the ecu. I disconnected the ecu so I could have a good look at the rest of teh wiring and obviously open the ecu to see how bad it would be... Turns oud the ecu looks good. Smells a little bit of the magic smoke but that might just be it being infused with the smoke from the wiring. The components on the circuit board don't show obvious signs of damage, the bottom side is the same, no obvious burn marks. Looking at the wiring, it's clear it burned all the way from or to the ecu. It's mainly one wire though, at least one that has no insulation left and even managed to burn through the copper even. Some wires in the vicinity seem charred, but this may be the result of the one wire burning. Edit: A quick lookup of the ecu pinout suggests just as kevins suspected, a burnt out ground wire. So what would cause that? The damage may be minimal in one sense, but in another, it goes all the way to the pin in the ecu connector so I'd need to replace including the pin. As you can't solder onto burnt wires and it would also make for a very rigid connection at the plug. So Some research needs to be done here. As I didn't get much further than this initial inspection, I've yet to figure out what may have been the cause. Next steps will be removing the dash fascia, cluster and surround. That exposes all wiring behind the dash. That should help me thread it all back out of the car via the engine bay for further inspection. One problem I do have is moving the car. I've explained the taking it out of the garage process, but putting it back in was even more an issue. Pushing up a slope is hard. Having a 4-5 cm threshold makes it worse. I had put boards up to ease the transition, but it took 2,5 of us to get the car inside. This is highly prohibitive. I need to devise a way of getting the car in and out on my own. I'm thinking of using a winch bolted to the back wall, but I don't know how expensive that would be. Obviously in addition to better transition pieces to cover the 4-5cm threshold. Pics to follow. |
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A winch will work. But if money is tight, you can also use one of these.  They are not made to be used horizontally, but if you help the rotating chain along on both sides ( it will make sense when you are doing it ) it works just fine. You can find them new for $50 or so. And I've used mine to move cars and even a 40Ft container... |
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A quick look on the usual site ... linkApprox GBP20 |
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Last Edit: Jun 27, 2022 8:41:17 GMT by westbay
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thomfr
Part of things
Trying to assemble the Duett again..
Posts: 695
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Jun 27, 2022 12:33:19 GMT
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Sounds not too bad until now. Hope it was a sticky/broken fan switch relay or so.
Keep fingers crossed.
Thom
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73' Alfa Giulia Super
64' Volvo Duett
65' Volvo Duett
67' Volvo Amazon 123GT
09' Ford Focus 1.8
20' VW ID4
71' Benelli Motorella
65' Cyrus Speciaal
The difference between men and boys is the price of their toys
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Jun 28, 2022 11:45:23 GMT
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Burnt out ground wire is usually when something live with a heaver feed cable shorts to it, I would try to work out where the earth wire goes and follow it up the loom. Hopefully The ECU will be OK, if the short was in there the ECU supply fuse should have blown long before the earth cable melted.
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,556
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Jul 12, 2022 14:03:27 GMT
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Is your engine a BOA or BOB?
Just seen a very cheap BOA advertised locally with all ancillaries, wiring and ECU.
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Jul 12, 2022 14:10:28 GMT
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Ignore me, having read back it’s a BOB so of no use to you.
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eurogranada
Europe
To tinker or not to tinker, that is the question...
Posts: 2,556
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Last update I had made a start at taking apart the car to get to the BOB wiring. It was painfull to have to remove all of the front interior and dash to get to it. I didn’t get far enough in the time I had but I quickly realized I had a problem as taking the car out of the garage and putting it back in without the use of its own powerplant was a tough act. So let’s go from there. I bought a 900KG winch in the conviction that if I can push my car around with my feeble muscle powers, a 900KG winch surely would be able to pull this rolling vehicle. The winch was meant to be bolted to a car bumper so mounting it to the floor of my garage took a little effort. The winch had to be bolted to the base plate before one could bolt that to the vehicle or in my case floor. This meant access to the nuts on the anker bolts was limited, but I got it done. Now to hope it was secure enough… With the winch mounted in the evening, I had to wait till next day for a test.   A little apprehensive as we all know how much of a danger highly tensioned metal cables can be and also about the hold of the ankers in the floor I started a test. Putting 2x3” thick beams on the drive about 50 cm’s behind the rear wheels (and moving them on when needed). It quickly became apparent that the car would need a push from inside to keep the line taut. I had put some boards against the threshold to ease the transition from garage floor to the drive as it is a 5cm drop. That was the first exciting moment as you could hear and feel the winch now really working with a load on. But the transition went well. The car now being at more of a slope meant the line was slowly keeping more taut. Still it isn’t until the front wheels are on the threshold that the car’s weight is enough and no more push is needed. This pushing is a little inconvenient as the controls are not wireless and the wires reach their max before the car’s weight takes over fully. With the second exciting moment also over and the which still well attached to the floor tha car now nicely rolled back as far as I let it. Put it in park, released the cable tension as not to trip over it and set to work.    As the car is it’s own storage space for the removed components I had to take out the seats to get to work. I then finished taking out the dash facia, the clock binnacle, the extra indicator lights and finally the dash surround to reveal the open dash. I worked my way around all the branches from the central BOB ecu wiring loom to get them out of the dash. I had to cut two wires to do so. Another thing for the list. Create connectors for those kind of situations.   After a while I had isolated all the wiring on the inside of the cabin ready to be put through to the engine bay. But I was also wondering still why no fuses had blown at all allowing the wiring loom melt down. And yet when powered up, the entire original wiring proved dead. So this prompted me to take a side step and look at the original wiring in the dash area. Unfortunately I quickly found bad news. What looked like two (presumably earth) wires, one from the ignition switch and one from the indicator/light stalk had burnt away so fiercely that only a few copper strands were even in tact. This is bad news in a as much as this probably warrants a good look at the whole of the original engine bay to dash wiring. Although simultaneously as far as I was able to look, I did not find any evidence of other wire damage. And the two wires turned out to be one wire between the two connectors. All of the other wires on those connectors look fine. Trouble is, I’ve yet to find the smoking gun. What caused this and why did not a single fuse break. I’ve not found chafed wiring or damaged insulations or anything.      Time to put the car back inside. This time winching it inside very gently. This first time was just a bit of a proof of concept thing. I did not pay too much attention to how the car was positioned, I just wanted to see if I could safely pull it in. And it worked admirably. I took a short clip of this first carefull action. Having done it a little more often, confidence has grown and I’ve also been able to position the car such that I can push it out and pull it in without needing steering corrections. To get it like that was a fun little exercise though, moving forward and backwards somewhat to gat it where I wanted it so there is some room around it. After having been out of commission with a pretty hefty bout of C19 I had to drop my work on this. I had all the time of the world, just not the bodily condition to do anything. Only this weekend after 1,5 weeks of issues I finally had some energy to continue the works. This time the focus was on actually getting the BOB ecu loom out of the car. I’d hopefully find that smoking gun. The root cause. After taking out the grille of the car I had access to the routing of the furthest wiring. Turns out I did a good job of putting it away nicely which made it a pain to get back out in the confines of the engine bay with the engine in… although I originally did it the same way as at that point I still had to see where all wiring and sensors had to go. But after some hours of finicking about I was finally able to pull the loom out. I laid it out an took pics of it all. Labelled some of the more ambiguous connectors so I’d know where they go in the future.     Took a side step here and decided to see why the original car wiring was so dead. I’d already found that one earth wire burnt, but no other damage so far so it would be weird for this to cause so much death. Turns out during my test I had all of the original wiring disconnected…. Apparently during the BOB or even an earlier conversion (it was a 2.6Liter V6 with the EFI off of a 87 scorpio 2.8i made to fit before the BOB) the factory wiring to the battery had become a bit on the short side to reach the terminal. So I lengthened it using a colour and wire gauge from the BOB loom that was left unused. Hence me now thinking this was also a BOB wire, hence me disconnecting it as well. Hence no power. Given the burnt earth wire it may have been for the better… Anyway that cleared up made me feel better. Also still not having a root cause didn’t sit well, but also not having found a single other defective wire in the looms so far gave me hope as well. I have now started to take the insulation back from the BOB loom. So far just that one damaged wire and some doubts about how affected other wires are. So still no clue as to the how and why. I only found this dodgy earth connection. It goes to the burnt out ecu post, and it connects to (well hardly as seen) tot the shielding on half of the EDIS wiring of which the other end just terminates so not sure how much use this was to begin with. Typically the other end of the ground wire going in to the loom looks fine also.   So how to continue? What to actually do? I'm in more than one mind about it all... I have noticed that the wiring is all a bit stiff. It’s not as flexible as you’d expect on the Ecu loom. And I’ve always found that the way it was made by my friend caused compromises in its fitment. So for this I’m leaning to inventorying the wiring colours and gauges and ordering new lengths. Making it a better fit at the same time. But with 104 wires this may prove costly. And that is using most of the original connectors. Buying a new ECU plug with pins and some other connectors and it’ll soon be an expensive issue. But it will be done right. Also, I’ll need to replace two connectors and one wire on the original loom. But I’m still debating taking that out as well and looking it over by fully stripping it. It’s modular in that you have an engine bay section and a dash section. And then there’s step three in the process. Changing out the engine and gearbox loom for the known good one I have. But this means removing the intake section and probably the fuel rail to get to the wiring that is going through the V of the block. Not an easily accessible job on the box end either. And worst of all, no evidence so far that the issue was caused by that part of the loom as all wires at the connectors still look fine. Yet at the same time not replacing it is a pretty big risk to take... Anyway, not yet come to grips with all this. It’s going to be loads of work. But cutting corners… what if it happens again? And I still have not found any damaged wiring going to or form an actual component other than the ground wire to the ecu and from the ignition to the indicator stalk (which is new). Ok, I’ve not had the insulation off all wiring yet, but I’d expect that damage to be seen at the connectors as well if a full wire is to burn away. And there’s just no sign of that anywhere…even on the wiring I did take the insulation off. My first focus wil be the ecu loom I guess as this needs some remedial work any how. |
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Jul 19, 2022 12:18:14 GMT
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It's probably worth fitting a kill switch in the battery feed to avoid potential future issues. I had a wire short out in one of my cars once for the (unfused) headlamp circuit - massive smoke in seconds - ripped (literally) the headlamp switch out of the dash to stop it. Wires looked exactly like yours with the same damage to wires around it. |
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Jul 19, 2022 15:26:53 GMT
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Oh no!
Reading back, it seems the damage occurred as you were cranking the engine. Have you checked the earth strap between body and engine? If loose / damaged / high resistance you'll get weird ground currents through any other available path. Usually a clutch cable or something, but still a good thing to check in your quest for the smoking gun.
Good luck.
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