Thread: Cooked ECU

get a second opinion.

If you have the car, disconnect the red wiring harness plug from the ecu and see if it is full of oil.

If so clean it out with some contact cleaner and test it again.

It is unlikely to be the ECU.

What fault codes were listed when he rear them.

Originally Posted by md90

Well after 3 weeks of land rover ownership, my '04 td5 defender has had a major breakdown.

Driving along with everything running fine, the engine shut off. After stopping initially it would turn over but not start, but after a few minutes it would start but run extremely rough, and blow heaps of black smoke, and stall after about 10 seconds.

While trying a few things, a bloke stopped who had done a decent amount of work on land rovers, and had just moved into a new garage only about 300 meters up the road. He kindly towed me there to look at it the next day. Initially he thought it was the air flow sensor, but after looking at it today and putting the diagnostic computer on it, he has said it's the ECU.

He's quoted $1430 for the ECU + programming so around $2000 all up.

They seem to be available second hand for around $350, is it viable to drop It in myself and find someone to program it? Is this similar to the performance remap? From what I have read, as it needs to be flashed anyway, I can use a td5 discovery ECU, is this right?

Thanks for the guidance.

Matt

You can use either a NNN000120 or NNN500020 ECU. There will be factory map that suits your setup that can be uploaded with a Nanocom or similar.
Beyond that you'll need to program the injector codes and throttle config to suit your vehicle.

You could but yourself a Nanocom and secondhand ECU for under a grand.

$550 to change and reprogram an ECU is a joke. It's a 30 minute job.

cheers
Paul

Originally Posted by md90

Well after 3 weeks of land rover ownership, my '04 td5 defender has had a major breakdown.

Driving along with everything running fine, the engine shut off. After stopping initially it would turn over but not start, but after a few minutes it would start but run extremely rough, and blow heaps of black smoke, and stall after about 10 seconds.

While trying a few things, a bloke stopped who had done a decent amount of work on land rovers, and had just moved into a new garage only about 300 meters up the road. He kindly towed me there to look at it the next day. Initially he thought it was the air flow sensor, but after looking at it today and putting the diagnostic computer on it, he has said it's the ECU.

He's quoted $1430 for the ECU + programming so around $2000 all up.

They seem to be available second hand for around $350, is it viable to drop It in myself and find someone to program it? Is this similar to the performance remap? From what I have read, as it needs to be flashed anyway, I can use a td5 discovery ECU, is this right?

Thanks for the guidance.

Matt

matt, i would suggest that you take the advice of the previous posts, and yes a reflashed used defender ecu will be a whole lot cheaper, however i would also say that it is possible the ecu is not at fault. most likely a blocked/ collapsed intercooler hose (black smoke) or similar.

it is 30 minutes to remove , refit and reprogram a defender ecu.

jc

Thanks for the replies.

Oil in the harness was the first thing I checked, all looks good. Haven't spoken to the mechanic just got his voice mail message as I'm away for work till Friday in a sketchy area for coverage. Will ask him about fault codes. He initially said there was a lot of faults that came up (20 or something) and that after he cleared them he got injector high AND low, and that he was looking into the air flow sensor. This was a quick look on Saturday afternoon and got his message today.

I actually have a friend who has a nanocom, but he is overseas and won't be home for 6 weeks, so might have to test the waters for borrowing it...

Thanks

airflow sensor has little to do with this problem. injector peak charge faults can appear with oil in the loom, or an actual injector fault itself, but unfortunately we are just guessing without all the info etc infront of us

hope it gets sorted soon,

jc

Thanks Justin, would the intercooler hose give those symptoms of running perfectly one minute and crook as a dog the next?

An intercooler hose won't give you that sort of issue.

As Justin says it could be any of a range of problems from something like as a failing crank position sensor or oil in the loom, through to a engine harness that has rubbed through. Without seeing the error codes it's hard to know exactly what is going on.

cheers
Paul

I have had a Td5 collapse an intercooler hose so badly that it permanently blocked the airflow, as it developed a huge bubble internally, which would reinflate as soon as the engine started...wouldn't run at all.

I would be getting him to remove the IC hoses and take a good look as a matter of course I think. Just in case?

JC