Two Thinks in Finland

[Zuikkis]

I  built the CHAS cable and tested that the connection is working. I tried to reproduce the problem by driving around but obviously today it had no issues.

All Fault flags are zero so that is nice. Hopefully something changes when the fault is present.

Perhaps temperature has something to do with it, the problems seemed to happen at about 0C temps.. Now it's much warmer again.

[Zuikkis]

Obviously now that I'm driving around with laptop and CHAS there is no more errors.

However while looking at the values while driving, I do feel the APS is behaving strangely. See screenshot:



APS2 is much lower than APS1 or APS3. I didn't photograph it, but at very low throttle APS1 & APS3 can still be like 8% and APS2 already reaches zero. At full throttle APS1 & APS3 reach 100% but APS2 is only 92%.

The fault code excel says that >25% disagreement causes a fault. So I only have 7-8% disagreement here "normally", but maybe it sometimes glitches higher.

[Zuikkis]

Yes! Finally it happened again while I had the CHAS cable and a laptop.



So FltSt0 has one fault, and this translates to:

s[3]^11   aps1_rmx_fault   fault_status[0]^1   sM   sPL      all   APS sensor 1 signal above maximum - likely short to +5v or +12v

So throttle pedal it is, as suspected! Luckily I have my other "spare parts" Think, I'll just grab the pedal from there. Hopefully this fixes it! In theory I think the fault could be in PCU too..

[Zuikkis]

Oh, just noticed FltSt3[11] is also set, but this is:

aps_oor_dtc_fault   fault_status[3]^11   M            APS 1 2 or 3 out-of-range

So it's the same thing.

[Warlock]

Yes, exaclty the same as I had (might have been one of the two other lines form the throttle pedal).
Changing the pedal solved it, just two bolts and a plug (make sure it's not corrosion in the plug that does it). A very easy change
Been driving a year or so with no problem after the change

Anyways, nice find, and hopefully this solves your troubles for a long long time

[worry]

A great find, congratulations! 

But the next obvious question will be; is it possible to repair the throttle pedal? Some day we will be out of spareparts.

[Warlock]

The pedals are sealed plastic, so I did not open ours (I believe I saw som pictures of it's inside at one point tho?). One could break in if one want to of course, and almost everything it repairable/replaceable at some level, it just becomes increasingly more difficult to do so. If everything else fails, we would just have to recreate the electronics in the pedal, or put in a "man in the middle" box to "translate" form a pedal form something else. It would of course also be interesting to find out if the pedal in the think is actually common with some other car from Ford. 

And yeah, may our Thinks live long. Like they say in Commodore 64 retro communities:
"Old computers don't die, their owners do"

[Zuikkis]

A great find, congratulations! 

But the next obvious question will be; is it possible to repair the throttle pedal? Some day we will be out of spareparts.

It is from a Ford, like everything else in this car. Ford diesels use "fly by wire" throttle. I'm not sure about the exact model, but for example this one is pretty close:

https://www.iprresearch.com/Ford-Accelerator-Pedal-05-07-6.0-Diesel-F250-F350-F450-F550-w-o-Adjustable-Pedal.html

The pedal part looks different (shorter?) but the sensor looks identical to me.

Also found a "china edition" from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Dorman-Solutions-699-125-Accelerator-Assembly/dp/B07QNLP9XD/ref=pd_day0_sccl_1_1/137-6426952-5259836

Edit: Real Think pedal for comparison:
https://ecooparts.com/en/used-auto-part/accelerator-pedal/think/city/18714554_accelerator-pedal-5351010c-think-city-3-puertas.html

[worry]

Ahh, I see. Thanks.
Agreed, I will probably die before my cars. Maybe I should stop repairing them. 

[Zuikkis]

Oops it did it again... 

With the pedal from the other car, it worked fine for almost two weeks. But now it was super cold (-19C) and now car refused to go completely. So it was slightly different from the earlier problem, earlier it would go for 1-2km and then stop, now it failed right at the garage.

Plugged my laptop and sure enough it is the throttle sensor again, but this time I was able to see the incorrect APS values myself. APS1 is 33.57% while APS2 and APS3 are at 0%.



However after a few minutes the APS values started working normally and after a restart the car worked. But then it failed after few hundred meters again. Not very promising.

Maybe I have water damage in my PCU? The spare car probably has a working PCU but I know it's horrible job to swap.. Or I might have two broken pedals..

[bcx238h]

That's really annoying... 

I had a similar problem with a VW Caddy 2009 model.
The pedal was defect three times because of snow and ice.
Every time I sat me in the car in winter, I had snow on my boots.
I tried to get rid of the snow as good as possible, but there was some snow always fell of my boots and collected around the pedal.
After a while the pedal got stuck and stopped working.
That was not funny while driving down or up a hill, and no matter what I did with the pedal, I couldn't control the engine speed anymore.

So electronic accelerator pedals can have a weak point in cold weather, I guess!

[Zuikkis]

Hmm I'm clueless here.

I tried to swap the old pedal back. Just the connector, so the pedal was just hanging there. It didn't change anything. I could reproduce the problem with both pedals.

At this temperature the problem is so bad it's easy to reproduce it with car standing still. Just keep car in P so it doesn't move, twist throttle back and forth a few times until it fails.

Then I thought I'd go for a test drive. I sit on the driver's seat and closed the door. You know Think doors need a good wham to get closed. Anyway, the instant I closed the door, the warning lights came up.

I could reproduce this many times. toggle power so warning lights disappear. Shut the door and warning lights come up.

It's even possible to just rock the car sideways a few times, that is enough to make the fault appear.

I tried to whack the PCU with a piece of wood, but that DIDN'T cause the fail. So perhaps the fault isn't in PCU after all? There must be some loose connector somewhere?

Oh I also tried to heat the pedal sensor and the PCU with a heat blower, but that didn't seem to change anything.

I have to look at the wiring diagrams to see what connectors there are in between of throttle sensor and the PCU..

[Warlock]

The cables through the doors ar very badly designed. They used too stiff cables, and bending them thousand of times more than 90 degrees makes hem snap. I at least have spliced cables in the harness there many times.
The accelerator harness joins the rest of the car in connector C1 i think, and the cables to/from the door also go the the PCU through the GEM-box. Might it be that you have a intermittent short in some cabling that knocks out the GEM completely which then do strange things to the rest of the car?
At least cold weather does not soften the cables in the door i guess...

[Zuikkis]

I fixed it! Woohoo! Car went nicely for over 5km, must be fixed now forever! (Hopeful thinking) 



I looked at the wiring schematic, indeed there is connector C1 as Warlock just pointed out. I check the PCU connector first, it looked nice.

Then I wondered inside the car where C1 might be. There is a huge bunch of connectors below the fuse box in the passenger footwell. While looking there I noticed a huge set of connectors that are locked in place with a purple plastic piece. That purple plastic was not fully pressed, it was at least 1cm out! I pushed it in and there was a nice "click" sound. After that car worked without issues, I went instantly for the test drive and it worked nicely.

Hopefully it is really fixed.

Below is the picture of the wire madness and the purple piece on plastic, now fully pressed. Above you can see a cardboard box that holds my Duinomite Mega, it's possible I have touched the connector while shoving the box there..

[bcx238h]

Nice work! 100% description of a fault is 50% description of the solution - at least!
Good to see, that you found the reason for this trouble.
 

I have problems with the cables to the left and right door, too.
There is a problem in the left door with the locking system and the right door with the loudspeaker.

Fun fact: under -10°C I have no problems with the locking problem.