What makes you grin? Antidote to grumpy thread

[Asimo]

I was doing a bit of troubleshooting today at work. A customer has a bus that won't crank over.

 

Anyway, if you think modern car electrics are mental, get ready for this one:

 

Instead of a switch attached to a wire going to the starter solenoid:

 

 

 

Because I could never get to the bottom of the random starter-not-working on my, my wifes, now mine again, Subaru Legacy

 

I fitted a metre of wire and a push-button. 

 

Up yours immobiliser/relays/can-bus/engine management module/body control module.

[Inspector Morose]

I was doing a bit of troubleshooting today at work. A customer has a bus that won't crank over.

 

Anyway, if you think modern car electrics are mental, get ready for this one:

 

Instead of a switch attached to a wire going to the starter solenoid:

 

 

The start button sends a physical (negative switched) pulse to an Input/Output unit (one of 5 or 6 identical ones on the bus). This encodes the signal into a data packet, which then travels over the Multibus network to the CAMU - the master on this particular network. If the CAMU is happy that the battery level isn't too low and the engine bay door is shut etc, it sends another data packet out to the dash clocks.

The dash clocks are a bridge between the Multibus "buttons and doors and lights" network to the proper J1939 network which is for the oily mechanical bits.

Anyway, this vehicle has a Mercedes engine, so instead of the engine ECU being on this network, it's got an ADM unit which is like the Mercedes "gateway" to the ECU at the front of the vehicle which picks up the signal from the throttle pedal and ignition and stuff.

So, this ADM receives a packet from the dashboard saying "start the engine". If it's happy with various things (oil level and stuff) then it'll send another data packet out on ANOTHER network - fault tolerant CAN this time. (It runs at higher voltage than normal CAN)

This data finally travels down some wires to the back of the bus and into the engine ECU where it's decoded back into a physical pulse, which then passes through for transistors in series with a current sensing resistor before finally making it's way to the starter solenoid.

 

I can't really believe this is the first time I've been asked for help with this.

The ECU does have a pin marked "Terminal 50, Starter in" but if you start it using that, the vehicle just runs at 1250RPM in limp mode and ignores the throttle pedal.

Optare product per chance?

[cobblers]

Cobblers, that is insane, I'm sure whoever came up with that convoluted load of bollocks thought to ask the poor sods who operate/maintain them if they thought it was a good idea.

 

It's all down to how the systems all were designed totally separately and were forced to work together.

 

The Merc stuff was originally on trucks and had a wire direct from the ignition to the starter terminal - the rest was "bonus comfort stuff" so it wasn't important for it to be all that robust.

The Actia/optare stuff originally was designed for Cummins engines with a +24v feed for the starter and no intercommunication between the dash and the doors/lights multibus network, so again it didn't need to be all that robust (and it really flipping isn't!)

Then they updated it because the newer euro4/5 merc engines prefer to be started just via the network.

 

 

TBH with three quarters of a brain and the diagnostics tackle, it's not that bad to deal with. But you'll need two different types of gear, both at 3-7k subscription per year. Only one of them is available knockoff on ebay for £50.

[cobblers]

Optare product per chance?

Of course! Solo.

I love Solos! They're great. They pay for my car and house.

[scaryoldcortina]

Only one of them is available knockoff on ebay for £50.

Is the other one MBstar/DAS/Xentry?

[cobblers]

I'm told the knockoff Delphi DS150 is good enough for the Merc stuff, We use a genuine one and it does what we need on the test bench.

It's the Actia multibus diagnostics for the body modules that's the real stinger because there's no cheap alternative and there's really no other way to work out whats wrong other than just throwing parts at it.

[jakebullet]

Interesting model 'boat' spotted the other day. Boat & small child do not belong to me.

 

http://youtu.be/xuR6Jb3tYw4

[xtriple]

I wish you'd been the one to sort out why my car occasionally refused to start... ecu's can go to fuck!

[STUNO]

Bloody immigrants steal all the good cars  

 

 

 

 

[STUNO]

And i love fuel disccounts too !

 

[michael1703]

Interesting model 'boat' spotted the other day. Boat & small child do not belong to me.

 

http://youtu.be/xuR6Jb3tYw4

Are you sure it's not a "hoovercraft"?

[bramz7]

Went to a local Morrisons earlier to see if there was any old stuff parked up. Found a nice F reg 5 series.

I then went to leave, and came across a ratty 1991 Escort.

I then went to leave again, and came across a mint 405 GTX saloon.

I then went to leave again, and a nice Xantia parked up nearby. 

 

!!!

[Coprolalia]

Recently moved 150 miles across the Severn for work. Now living somewhere with no car storage, where I know no-one interested in cars, and away from my friendly independents. This is not a grin.

The grin is I think I've found an amazing new garage to use. Father, son, wife does accounting, been there 40 years, father races mk1 Lotus Cortina's, the building smells of warm oil, dog and tea. The daily driver parked outside is a ratty e30 M325i. Being worked on - an early Mini Cooper and a mechanically straight but dowdy Humber Sceptre. Asking about getting some work done, their response- "Whenever is good for you, it's just the long termers in at the moment". The long termers being a mint-looking Lotus Espirit, a 40s Austin in pieces and something very low to the ground under a tarp.

 

I thought places like this didn't exist anymore!

[vulgalour]

This is my friend's racing car.

 

 

 

This is a replica of my friend's racing car.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/mgf-x-power-replica-car-mg-mgf-convertible-/152223947455

 

 

He's pretty chuffed about it as it's a sort of recognition to put on the massive pile of class win and sometimes race win trophies he's amassed from being a really very good driver.  He's a not a professional racer (he'd like to be), he's a professional mechanic who races in his spare time, sometimes for the garage he works for if they need a driver for their car.

[vulgalour]

Car insurance renewal sorted out today.  Time to switch, like it is every year.  I could have stayed with Admiral had a £36 a year saving, or I could jump ship and go with Tesco who were going to save me a whopping £170 a year.  That's a bit of a no-brainer.  I even keep the drive-other-cars option for just £305 a year on the Rover.  The Rover is nearly as cheap to insure on a regular policy now as the Princess is on a classic policy, it just keeps winning.

[overrun]

This is my friend's racing car.

 

Does he live in Scarborough, by any chance?

[vulgalour]

No, he lives in Lincolnshire.

[bramz7]

Not sure if it's a grin or not but I saw a 'proper' rusty car today. I at first thought the door was just dodgy but the rear arch had completely disappeared by the rear bumper too. I thought these Civics were meant to be fairly resilient, but there we go.

[overrun]

No, he lives in Lincolnshire.

 

Fair enough.

Just I was in Scarbados collecting some trailer ramps and the seller had amongst other things, an MGF track car that looked a lot like this one.

Although I can't recall the specifics.

 

Given that the owner also owns a Formula Ford, and seems handy behind the wheel, I thought I'd ask!

[Sheefag]

There's a discussion about comedy going on in 'The Grumpy Old Men' thread.

[fordperv]

how ironic 😀

[UmBongo]

Narcos on Netflix is pretty good and there are loads of clean looking 80's shitboxes to be seen.

[Sheefag]

That's the kind of talk that got Keith Vaz into bother.

[Ghosty]

Not sure if it's a grin or not but I saw a 'proper' rusty car today. I at first thought the door was just dodgy but the rear arch had completely disappeared by the rear bumper too. I thought these Civics were meant to be fairly resilient, but there we go.

 

 

They really aren't, they do like to rot. Rear arches in particular. 

One of our old ones had the sills bodged with a dremel for a grinder and some fibreglass by Old Man not long before he sold it.

[purplebargeken]

On the way home from work in St. Albans this afternoon and saw a bloody minty mint 2CV buzzing along in the opposite direction. Bright yellow and looked gorgeous.

[purplebargeken]

Fuck it. Just lobbed a bid on something silver, French and fairly local to me. 

 

Bollocks to it

[Tayne]

This:

 

 

 

 

Turning into this:

 

 

 

[Jazoli]

 

 

Great shopping list on the doors

 

[Jazoli]

 

Didn't realise the church had become quite so liberal

[beko1987]

Been taken to the pub because birthday, and a surprise game of cat piss tarp challenge appeared!