jcrews
Top Post Dawg
I was getting tired of having illegible odometer numbers. I was able to fix it for a while, but the problem is just a result of a manufacuturing defect in the LCD unit. Oh well.
I decided it would be a nice time to upgrade to the MFA, so I pulled out the old cluster (it was a 1J0-919-xxx part), but the CAN wires were present in the instrument harness. A multimeter confirmed this, so I went ahead and bought a Bora MFA cluster, 1J5-920-925 C. I think it was manufactured in 2000, so it's probably for a 2001 MY.
After recoding the J533 CAN gateway to 0002 (ABS), the airbag light went out as planned, so I'll have to deal with periodic scans to check the ignitors. I've only ever seen a low voltage fault once, so I don't think they will be a problem. Of course, the ECU has no immobilizer, so the immobilizer freaks out.
What works:
CAN communication (MPG display, glow/MIL)
MFA!
Oil pressure switch, coolant level, window washer level
Basic displays (including ASR button) and gauges, lighting (also enabled on key on)
What doesn't work
Airbag light (don't care/will VAG-COM)
Engine will need diodes on the MIL and glow to eliminate a MIL appearing (strange it doesn't ignore those when it detects instruments on CAN).
Immobilizer (emits a shrill tone and blinks the light)
My NA spec '99 was made in 11/98 (Mexico) and does have CAN data-bus going to the instruments, but the original instruments don't use it.
Questions:
Can the IMMO be soft-deleted? I did the "If I can't see it it isn't illegal" trick for the light (piece of tape), and the tone doesn't bother me much, since the old one did the same with the fuel light. The initial IMMOBIL. ACTIVATED never comes back until the power is disconnected. Can it be hard-deleted? I'm pretty sure it's in the main controller's software though, but I don't have an interface to read it with.
I decided it would be a nice time to upgrade to the MFA, so I pulled out the old cluster (it was a 1J0-919-xxx part), but the CAN wires were present in the instrument harness. A multimeter confirmed this, so I went ahead and bought a Bora MFA cluster, 1J5-920-925 C. I think it was manufactured in 2000, so it's probably for a 2001 MY.
After recoding the J533 CAN gateway to 0002 (ABS), the airbag light went out as planned, so I'll have to deal with periodic scans to check the ignitors. I've only ever seen a low voltage fault once, so I don't think they will be a problem. Of course, the ECU has no immobilizer, so the immobilizer freaks out.
What works:
CAN communication (MPG display, glow/MIL)
MFA!
Oil pressure switch, coolant level, window washer level
Basic displays (including ASR button) and gauges, lighting (also enabled on key on)
What doesn't work
Airbag light (don't care/will VAG-COM)
Engine will need diodes on the MIL and glow to eliminate a MIL appearing (strange it doesn't ignore those when it detects instruments on CAN).
Immobilizer (emits a shrill tone and blinks the light)
My NA spec '99 was made in 11/98 (Mexico) and does have CAN data-bus going to the instruments, but the original instruments don't use it.
Questions:
Can the IMMO be soft-deleted? I did the "If I can't see it it isn't illegal" trick for the light (piece of tape), and the tone doesn't bother me much, since the old one did the same with the fuel light. The initial IMMOBIL. ACTIVATED never comes back until the power is disconnected. Can it be hard-deleted? I'm pretty sure it's in the main controller's software though, but I don't have an interface to read it with.