A word of friendly advise

[Mighty Mira]

Don't drive with the ECU out and uncovered, while you have all your spare change close by.

Last night while rummaging amongst my various crap sitting on the passenger seat, I managed to fling a 20c piece onto the ECU. I was in traffic, and suddenly noticed a loss of power. I turned on the hazards first thing, then saw the problem and tried to remove the twenty cent piece. It was difficult, I heard a spark, a slight burning smell, then I removed it. But couldn't start the car. I couldn't smell gas, so I assume that whatever was driving the injectors is now buggered.

Fortunately, I used whatever momentum I still had to guide myself onto the median strip, and called RACV.

I'm going out to get a replacement ECU now. Ouch.

[Matt Timion]

Wow... that's the first time I've heard of a small coin rendering a vehicle undriveable :P

Mira: 0
20c piece: 1

now put that 20c piece under a train or something to show it who is boss :P

[SVOboy]

Haha, I did this before but it was the needle I used for depinning plugs and it fried the TDC sensor portion on the ecu,

[Mighty Mira]

BTW, I mispelled advice in the forum title. Doh!

[SVOboy]

Edit it quickly!

[JanGeo]

I lost a washer in a hard drive once - it found something to short out against . . . no more hard drive. The worse one was a scooter controller worth about $1000.00 had power caps that were charged for months from the last time I had tested it - one sensor lead ground braid brushed against the positive power feed terminal and fried the logic board just as I was buttoning it up.

[Compaq888]

I do stupid stuff too. The fan died in my computer, the one inside where all power wires come out of. I stuck a screwdriver to help it move because I thought that it got stuck on something. Fried the box and got shot with a good amount of electricity.

Went to a computer store and bought another box and installed it.

I did do some work on my altima with the ecu. I was very careful with it. I spliced the wiring to install a narrowband a/f meter.

[Mighty Mira]

Well, damnit, I just got back from the wreckers, AUD $150 poorer.

I plugged it in, it didn't work. Identical ECU except for a diode that wasn't in the manual version (this came from an auto version).

I plugged it in, expecting it to work, then nothing. Hmmmm.

Checked the fuse box. Nope, no fuses blown there.

Realized that there was another fuse box above that one, 3* 15A and 1 * 20A. Marked EFI and POWER. Hmmm... Checked each one, on the very last one... AHAH! Blown, and replaced! Turned the ignition... BINGO!!!!

Now, ubeknownst to gassavers.org, I had looked at the old PCB and noticed one diode that had half the cylindrical bit blown off it (note, this is a completely different diode than the one talked about above). I figured that was the problem, and there was another diode of similar size/shape left over from calibrating my digital tachometer. Feeling like a big hero, I unsoldered the old one and put the new diode in. I tried it, and of course it didn't work.

So, just to see what happened, I put the old ECU with the new diode in there to try again... guess what, that works too. Booyah!

I'm debating whether to return the old ECU or not. They offered me the whole car for $500AUD, and besides some buggered panels, it was in good nick. Had an A/C system in there too that I could have used to upgrade mine. Of course, more weight, more belts, less FE. But my wife would be happy. She likes AC, and hates my EOC with a passion, figuring that it is wearing out my starter motor really quickly.

[Mighty Mira]

Originally Posted by JanGeo

I lost a washer in a hard drive once - it found something to short out against . . . no more hard drive. The worse one was a scooter controller worth about $1000.00 had power caps that were charged for months from the last time I had tested it - one sensor lead ground braid brushed against the positive power feed terminal and fried the logic board just as I was buttoning it up.

Doh!!!!