Here's the final instalment
The car flew through it's MOT as previously mentioned, but showed up 2 issues during it's first tarmac trip in 10 years, cruise inop and an auto box that wouldn't change gear and was seemingly stuck in 3rd gear.
If you recall at the beginning of this thread I mentioned the car had big electrical issues, namely next to none of the circuits worked. A CCU swap sorted most of them as stated, but it doesn't operate the auto box. The gearbox has its own ECU or TCU (transmission control unit).It looks like this
It lives under the window/sunroof ECU which both live under the passenger seat, and like the engine ECU has it's own diagnostic system in the form of a viewing window and flashing L.E.D. Now given I had an auto box that wouldn't change gear you would think this ECU would be flashing like mad, but no nothing. I also had the S4 light permanently on instead of flashing. These 2 things convinced me that this wasn't an autobox issue but was confined to its control unit, in other wards it was electrical not mechanical.
No problem I thought, lets plug in one of these
Problem................................................................................
The Fastcheck plugs are different to the ECU plugs..................bugger. Whilst chatting to a fellow member, 2 part numbers became evident..................
This being the ECU on the car, ending in 021, the other version ends just 01 and the Fastcheck only fits the 01 version!!
So hunt for a spare ECU, I knew I had one but I also knew it would be the earlier version, fellow member to the rescue with a spare ECU.
Once that was plugged in, voila, one working auto transmission and the cruise control was just a sticking switch. One fully functional 827 Auto Coupe
So what had gone wrong with the gearbox ECU???? Dismantling revealed the problem..................
I apologise for the pics but the evidence of burning is obvious on the casing. Whilst there is also evidence of water damage on the casing I will never know if it caused the short that fried the ECU.
Whilst researching the 2 types of ECU's an american site also revealed something I never knew, If the ECU fails the Honda box will default to 3rd gear only as a get you home measure, learning all the time
My gratitude goes to Steve Grogan, who not only allowed me to own this piece of automotive brilliance but went above and beyond to supply any part to fix her that I didn't have, a true gent.
Finished.
Dave