Wiper stalk

[mjb]

Yeah I've had another attack at it today. Did what you suggested - opened up the ECU plug (god what a pain that rubber seal is though!) and found the elusive pin 32. Which is yellow. And still has no sodding number

By that time (I dropped a screwdriver and had to bugger my back up taking the undertray off to retrieve it) the weather looked as though it could start pissing down at any time so I did the hard work of following the wire through the rubber seal where it disappeared right into the damn middle) and tagged it with some scotch tape before shoving everything back together.

Got to admit, I've never had the ECU disconnected before so I wasn't quite prepared for just how badly the car ran for the first mile! Gave it a good hard 25 mile spanking though (I *think* that's what you're supposed to do isn't it?) and it sounds and acts a heck of a lot nicer now than before I started In fact I found myself changing gear at about 4500rpm under hard acceleration instead of the usual 4000 because it just kept on giving! Throttle response was also very much improved to the point I found myself over-revving as a result when changing down (toe and heel) in places I do it every day!


My last obstacle is still the bulkhead though. I've tried looking at what you said you did, but I can barely get a finger to touch the bulkhead in front of the steering column, let alone a drill! Dunno what model you've got, bu mine looks like this: http://www.botchitt.com/car/tripcomp/DSCF0001.JPG

I've got a couple of other ideas though. The easiest of which would be to feed the wire through where the bonnet release cable goes, another option (I admit I haven't actually looked at this at all) would be to get the wire in via the pollen filter mount.

Other than that the only rubber bits I could fit a drill near are these http://www.botchitt.com/car/tripcomp/DSCF0010.JPG by the coolant pipework.


Yeah, I'm going to do a nice little how-to writeup with pictures when I'm done since this is quite a popular subject but nobody seems to actually do it... Probably because it ain't easy finding out how to do it, hence the writeup

[jameslxdt]

bugga, the rubber blank is immpossible to get at on the turbo it seems, mines a 2.0 16v and theres a tone of room, getting to the bonnet cable will be a nightmare as it runs through the wing, if you get underneath and find where the clutch cable runs you could also feed it through there

[mjb]

Well the bonnet cable (ok, at least that's what I presume it is!) is visible for a few inches in the drainage area at the driver's side corner of the windscreen. It goes round (and has actually been slightly damaged by) the bonnet hinge. There's 2 broken rubber grommets; one where it leaves the passenger compartment and one where it enters the wing. Basically it looks like a great place for me - stick a grommeted hole into the drainage area and feed the cable through to the passenger compartment. I didn't look at it too hard, but it looks like (with luck) it'll come out near the vent so should be easy to route to my waiting connection behind the dash

I'm off to study the parts diagrams for insight ;)

Also I want to take up religion and prepare some prayers for when I hook it up and potentially nuke the ECU ;)

[mjb]

Guess who's got a working trip computer?

Pushed about 4 foot of wire through the bonnet release cable's hole and eventually managed to get a glimpse of a bit of it through the removable panel on the side of the dash. Fished it out with a tape measure(!), threaded it round to behind the dash and WEYHEY! I ended up driving to the petrol station without most of the dashboard because I couldn't wait to see it in action

The display for max distance before refuelling doesn't work, but I've only had it 5 miles since doing the job so I'm hoping it may just need more data to work it out. I'll see tomorrow...

I took the necessary photos, so I'll put together a pictorial how-to guide tomorrow evening so others can save themselves the fear, agony, and frustration I've put myself through I also changed my broken lighter socket for a brand new one and took pics, so I'll update that howto


Thanks James, I couldn't/wouldn't have done it without your help!