NefMoto

Great forum! Unfortunately, I found it by way of car meltdown. My allroad's cluster destroyed itself while driving. While filling the interior with smoke (I thought my passenger was going to bail out lol), it melted the blue connector to the cluster, and all the wires in it together. I managed to get it home, pull the cluster back to see what was going on, and make sure there wasn't any smoldering going on. I tried to see if I could pry the blue connector off without success. I waited until the next day for it to cool down, but I ended up cutting the connector off. I sent the cluster out to BBA-reman to see if it could be revived. They called, and said the internal circuit board was "fried" completely. OK so now I need a new cluster.

From reading on the board, it seems there are two ways to go at this point. The simplest way would seem to be to use a donor car cluster, but I have to first flash the 95040 chip to remove the immobilizer. The other way is to obtain my PIN from the ECU, and the donor cluster, and adapt them. 

The only tools I have at the moment are an authentic serial Ross-Tech cable I bought in 2006. I've down loaded Argdub's tool to read the 95040 chip to see if I can at least obtain the bin. Not exactly sure what I have to do to write the bin back after I change the two bytes in the file, but I'm still reading. Does anyone know if the GIAC tune is going to be a problem?

Also, does anyone have a pinout, by wire color, for the blue connector? After I source some ends, it looks like I'm going to have to recreate the connector. The user RexNICO from quattroworld.com sent me a salvaged blue connector with about 8" of wire, but the color and pinouts appear different.   The original console will be back in my hands on Monday if anyone thinks I can do anything with it. I'm going to try and separate the wires, and hopefully determine the pinout.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Pics here if anyone cares: https://picasaweb.google.com/SteveChic/AllroadElectricalIssue?authuser=0&feat=directlink (https://picasaweb.google.com/SteveChic/AllroadElectricalIssue?authuser=0&feat=directlink)

Here's a link to a thread with some info

http://nefariousmotorsports.com/forum/index.php?topic=3205.0

You can read/write with Argdub's tool, but writing requires bootmode. You could also physically remove the 95040 and read/write it using an external programmer (google GQ-4X). If you make a clean backup first, just try and defeat the immo (don't forget to checksum after changing those 2 bytes) and if it does not work, you have your backup. Goodluck, and welcome.

Thanks for the link, and the welcome.

I actually printed the chart for the blue connector out. I'm going to pour over the shop manual, and see if I can add the wire colors f someone doesn't have one.

I also saw the warning in the ME7sum checksum checker about using it on a tuner modified bin file. I was hoping someone had some experience with the GIAC tunes to know if I was in for any problems.

Most tuners methods of protecting their work has changed over the years. Simply saying "insert tuner name"  and what will work leaves a lot of information out. The way I suggested is reversible should it not work for some reason. Just try it. Depending how old the file/flash is there are different methods of trickery used.

Going to  try what you suggested Monday, and see.

I'm also wondering if I can drive the car with only the green and gray connectors plugged into the old cluster. Not sure how the  immobilizer works. The car was running for about 1/2 hour while I was getting it home. All the interior lights were on at the time, and the doors won't lock, but other than the cluster gauges not moving, the car ran fine. Maybe I can extract the pin from the burnt cluster.

You won't be able to modify a GIAC flash file.

But you should have no problem with modifying the EEPROM.

Thanks for the info. I still need to source the necessary cables to modify the 95040 chip. Anyone near northeast Ohio with a cable?