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McBandy

Member
Joined
Aug 28, 2017
Messages
114
Location
Havant
Finally got round to starting my own thread in hopefully the right section...if it behaves itself this may become a long thread!

So I bought my Puma in September 2017 for a very good price as the previous owner (girl racer) had got bored and just acquired a taxi! It also came crammed with spare parts, from what I can make out the remains of two other Pumas that could be squeezed in the back (no rear seats). It behaved itself on the test drive but then problems started on the short drive home with a stutter/misfire, then discovered I have no engine temp readout despite the fact the owner mentioned they’d replaced the sensor. The brakes started making a noise from the rear but that was then overtaken by a worse noise from the front till one day approaching work the noise continued after I got off the brakes and realised I needed to sort it! Luckily I had a complete caliper in stock with a set of brake pads too, after discovering one of the caliper bolts on the other side wanted to round off rather than come out I bodged it back on the road with one caliper, 2 brake pads and 1x disc replaced! After learning via youtube how to make a brake bleeder and bleeding (on my own) just the new caliper (like I said, it was bodged) it’s working again as good as before, I know it’s not the recommended way and I shouldn’t condone it but it worked for me!

I then ordered the recommended ELM code reader, sussed how how to get it working then plug it into car... won’t work... I’ll try and attach a pic of the error, anyone experienced problems with these? HELP!

Apologies if it’s a bit rambling, I hate trying to type out long, meaningful posts on a phone!

Chris.

EDIT: Photobucket appears to be riddled with advertitis so the error basically says “bad ELM327 clone detected” and you’ll just have to imagine several pictures of a badly painted purple puma!
 
Sounds like your code reader is faulty. If it's a cheaper one then it's likely a Chinese clone and they can be hit and miss. Send it back and try another would be my suggestion.

Photobucket is horrid, try somewhere different.

Good luck with the project, I'm imagining the purple Puma :grin:
 
It’s the one everyone recommends and came from Manchester, I’ll contact them but I am suspicious it may be the car as the previous owner did all sorts to it...

Imagine no more my friend!!!
flU7P1p.jpg

km7F4fl.jpg
 
So either your computer connection or the one to the car isn't correct. I bought a code reader for £100 you can get cheaper ones.

I don't really like touching anyone's cars that look like that, they often haven't been well maintained and have been rallied to within an inch of their lives. Maybe I'm just fussy, but if I see a car I'm after and then see the ad, and it shows a cherry bomb exhaust or something similar I lose all interest and go to the next car.

Also has the previous owner notified the DVLA & your insurance of the colour change? If not you're asking to be pulled over, and your insurance is most probably void if you get in a crash.

Also the T reg has the sought after TAPE ECU. If your temperature guage isn't working (nine times out of ten when it's disabled on a car it overheats) then the ECU might have been swapped for a later less sought after DIVE ECU. I bought a car once that had a light flash when it overheated, the dodgy seller that ripped me off knew a trick, he sabotaged the waterpump. So when I was driving it, it wouldn't overheat. But when I pulled up I noticed the car felt really hot and was clicking. So I investigated, and sure enough I could see the waterpump wasn't spinning! I removed it and could see it was deliberately sabotaged with a pry bar or similar, no waterpump just sheers in half. I threw a new one on it, they're only £30 and it turned out the head was cracked, soon as the coolant began circulating you could see it leaking like a tap from the cylinder head.
 
I contacted the seller and they gave me a link and some instructions(!) on how to install the software properly because it’s clear as mud when you receive it!

The car was cheep like the budgie and has lasted me 6 months already so it’s not a major concern, trying to shift some of the parts that came with it now!
 
You can check what ECU it has, just pull the carpet back in the passenger footwell. If it's a black box with rivets that don't look tampered with (the rivets have to be drilled to fiddle with ECU) then it's probably the standard TAPE and there's another reason behind the temp gauge not working.

If you have a Machine Mart near you, then you can get a handheld OBD device for about £40. It'll get the codes off. The TAPE ECU isn't able to set the engine light off constantly, but stores fault codes.

So if you do have an engine light that stays on, you most definitely do not have a TAPE ecu
 
I’ve got the ELM327 that everyone always recommends but need to try installing it again, most has been tampered with lol, I’ve got another ecu - what marks it out as TAPE or DIVE?
 
Cheers, mate, but this is not PCM (ECU) on your picture. I am not sure what it is, looks like BCM (body control module). The PCM is all metal and looks like this:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Ford-Puma-1-7-DIVE-ECU-1S6F-12A650-HA-for-digital-odometer-2000-09-on/182417035032?fits=Car+Make%3AFord%7CModel%3APuma&hash=item2a78e70f18:g:nq4AAOSwt5hYdNPs

And there you can see the DIVE on it. If it is TAPE, it would say TAPE
 
Yes, but MUFF is for analogue cars. T reg is digital, so it won't display the speedo rev counter or mileage IIRC. The speedo is ran off a cable on the analogue cars. A lot of stuff won't work if it was a MUFF ECU.
 
Lol, I checked it when I got home last night, deffo says muff, temp gauge is only thing I’ve noticed, would it stop the bonnet release working????!!! ;-)
 
If it is an analogue car, it has additional coolant temp sensor (used just for the instrument cluster) in the small housing that doubles as the stand for coil pack. Most probably the wire there is snapped, or pulled or damaged somehow.

https://www.projectpuma.com/viewtopic.php?t=15133
 
Think I’ll just take pictures of everything troublesome and you can solve it with your encyclopaedic knowledge of where on the forum the answer is! Appreciate the help, so a bit of work has gone into making everything work with that ecu then?! Maybe that’s why I have a spare instrument cluster for it?!
 
Why, do you have a MUFF ECU? Is your clocks digital or analogue? I'm sure T reg's are meant to be digital, as they're the year the Racing Puma's came out. And they all use TAPE ECU's.
 
McBandy said:
[post]368781[/post] Think I’ll just take pictures of everything troublesome and you can solve it with your encyclopaedic knowledge of where on the forum the answer is!

In all honesty, puma is 20 years old car so everything happening to you must have happened before to someone else. And this being such a good forum, everything is properly documented. The search function is very good so, why not using it? :wink:
 

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