Dash gauges / lights on and off 997.1 turbo

[Legzr1]

I managed to get my passenger to catch this on video which I'll upload when I find a hosting site.

Basically, car just back from service including all coils and plugs, lots of suspension renewed and a new ignition switch which had been dodgy for a few weeks.

Everything fine for a week or so then first sign of issues was red tip emergency run on dash on cold starts which disappeared within seconds. No issues with warm starts.
I also noticed the car struggling to maintain a decent idle when first started in the recent very hot weather - almost as if the ambient temp fooled the car into thinking the engine was hot although probably a red herring.

This can all be looked at when my Indy reopens but the latest issue is alarming - intermittently all gauges, tip indicator and electrical systems just shut down. Fraction of a second later get the beep and everything returns to normal. On one occasion this occurred about 5 times within a mile.

Crawled car home and not driven since.

I've changed a blown canbus sidelight bulb - it's better but 2 hours later it all happened again but just one off/ back on cycle. Currently got the car on trickle charge to rule that out. Battery has been fine.I'll try restarting later and see what happens.

Indy not open till Monday so just after any thoughts on this. Iain perhaps?

Just to add, at no point did the engine stop, stutter or feel any different to normal.

A couple of years ago I had major issues with this car. The main bus pin was removed and cleaned and lots of modules changed and trialled until I ended up with a £4K bill including a new ECU. I detailed this in an earlier thread but the fried ECU was likely the AA recovery trying to jump the car after getting the polarity mixed up and causing a huge spark. However, that wasn't the root cause.
I'm hoping I'm not heading for the same kind of trouble.

Thanks for any thoughts you knowledgeable lot may have.

 

[Legzr1]

Hopefully link works:

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/3DujGOcsyT8

 

[deMort]

Difficult to answer but it's an electrical failure or a can bus failure to the cluster .. gateway control unit is responsible for can messages .

You say you had the main power distributor pin cleaned a while back ? that imho wont work long term and the pin and cable needs replacing ..

Reverse jump start sounds like the reason you had a large bill .. i have one in atm and we are getting to the point of writing off the car !!


Post here about the power pin ..

http://911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=118716&highlight=power+dist

Tip is going into limp mode then back to normal on a cold start .. again that sounds electrical to me .. first thing i would be doing is checking the charge rate , the battery , earth straps and of course the power pin .

Ignition lock replaced .. totally separate issues i take it ?

Non standard bulbs ? led ones ? .. always worth swapping out non standard items for original although i struggle to see how this would affect anything other than the front end control unit which cant cause this issue .

Indy might be busy for a few weeks though .. i know we are .. sigh .

 

[Legzr1]

Difficult to answer but it's an electrical failure or a can bus failure to the cluster .. gateway control unit is responsible for can messages .

You say you had the main power distributor pin cleaned a while back ? that imho wont work long term and the pin and cable needs replacing ..

Reverse jump start sounds like the reason you had a large bill .. i have one in atm and we are getting to the point of writing off the car !!


Post here about the power pin ..

http://911uk.com/viewtopic.php?t=118716&highlight=power+dist

Tip is going into limp mode then back to normal on a cold start .. again that sounds electrical to me .. first thing i would be doing is checking the charge rate , the battery , earth straps and of course the power pin .

Ignition lock replaced .. totally separate issues i take it ?

Non standard bulbs ? led ones ? .. always worth swapping out non standard items for original although i struggle to see how this would affect anything other than the front end control unit which cant cause this issue .

Indy might be busy for a few weeks though .. i know we are .. sigh .

Thanks for the helpful reply Iain.
I tried messaging you earlier but it doesn't seem to have sent. No matter.

Ignition switched was replaced because of wear and age - the often reported issues of failing to activate one out of five times which was steadily getting worse. Just thought it was worth mentioning 'just in case'.
Same with the bulb - I'd already bought a pair of standard 501 (I think they were) a week previously. Not aftermarket LEDs. Again, thought it worth mentioning. After changing the bulbs I went out for an hour without problems. Just as I was thinking 'ah, that was the problem' it happened once more.

The good Indy's always seem to be busy - the lads I use are good and will normally take the car in straight away then work on it where possible. Better than 3 or 4 week waits.

I'll check out that thread you've linked to.

I might pre-empt it and simply get a new bus pin and lead and a new battery - it's a Bosch item on it and is at least four years old. Never had slow turning over or failure to turn over but I know batteries can be very fickle. It's on trickle charge at the moment and I'll leave until tomorrow.

Again, many thanks mate :thumb:

 

[deMort]

Bosch batteries are pretty good to be fair so unlikely to be that ..

I can only guess but it would be gateway control unit or power pin from what i've seen ..

May Well be something totally different but looking at the car , fault codes etc helps a hell of a lot .. if you have many what i would call flat battery codes then it would lead to a loss of power whilst driving .

We currently have a 6 week lead time .. we are losing work because of that but the same as every other garage im afraid .. i don't remember times like this ever with regards to the shear amount of work .

 

[Legzr1]

Thanks again.

I think the best bet is to just get it to the Indy's and let them sort it.

Hopefully stored codes will give a clue.

If the power pin is the issue would you expect the erratic on/off of dashboard gauges but the engine continuing to run perfectly normal without missing or simply cutting out?

A couple of years ago it was the engine cutting out that led to the power pin diagnosis. This leads me towards the gateway controller but, with a bit of luck, it should be sorted soon.

Turning work away is never good but I guess it's a better problem to have compared to the covid years.

 

[deMort]

Power pin doesn't really fit what you have listed but i have to say what's technically possible .. gateway again .. they are pretty robust units but its possible ..

Unfortunately many items are possible and i tend to list things in order as to what's most obvious .. in this case .. nothing really is .. a list of fault codes from Every control unit would make it much clearer i feel .

That is after all the car telling us what it thinks is wrong .

it may well turn out to be a single electrical connection not making a good circuit .. I cant say from here i'm afraid .. wish i could !