incognito
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- Jun 13, 2017
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Hi all, I'm building up an A3 for the wife but it is starting to get the better of me. After countless hours of researching and head scratching I have signed up in hope of a little assistance.
To start out I had an 12/07 build A3 with the 1.6 petrol that was damaged when I purchased it. I purchased it for another car which fell through so ended up owning a damaged car with no purpose. It had a front impact but started and drove fine, no issues other than the front damage. 119,000km on the clock and just had a major service including timing belt.
Several months later I get my hands on a 05/07 A3 with the 1.8 petrol turbo. No damage, nice car but destroyed the head after the timing belt jumped.
So I've stripped both cars, completely, to do a body swap. Found out the hard way that the body wiring harnesses are completely different to the two vehicles so that needed to be swapped out as well. Not a lot of fun but got it done.
Everything is swapped from the 1.6 car to the 1.8 car. That includes the full driveline by swapping over complete engine/gearbox assemblies still on K-frames.
I swapped the brake booster, 1.6 had a sensor, 1.8 did not. Swapped the M/C while I was there and also swapped out the ABS module.
Not much under the bonnet was not swapped out.
After connecting the battery for the first time I find the first issue, but not my main one, the secondary vacuum pump comes on and stays on. I disconnect it to worry about that later.
I then attempt to light up the dash and hit the starter. I get a brake fault warning. I have no connection it looks like to the brake pedal switch. I get no tail lights when I put my foot on the brake and the shifter will not unlock from park. Therefore when I hit the starter, I get nothing.
I attempted to manually trigger the starter with the ignition ON, it cranks fine but will not fire.
I've purchased the Elsawin service manuals which is an overload of information but I can not find anything at this point to help this situation.
I have an iCarsoft i908 scan tool but it will not connect to the car. Doesn't matter if I try to do an OBDII scan or by selecting specific components to scan, it wont connect. I am in contact with iCarsoft to try and find out why that is.
I'm thinking I should purchase the VCDS HEX-V2 Enthusiast as it appears to be the best tool to diagnostics but am hesitant to spend the money until I know more. Money and time spent at this point is becoming quite over the top.
To me it is like I have no power going to something to do with the brake system. I put a multimeter on the brake light switch plug and there is current coming from it.
I searched Elsawin to find that fuse 22 on the engine bay panel was the the brake light fuse. I am not getting 12v from it but instead it appears to be earthed out.
When I had to unpick the large plug under the engine bay fuse panel to pass the wires through the firewall I did damage some of the pins in the process. I've removed those that were and soldered on good ones from the donor vehicle's harness. Nothing else at all has been interrupted in that kind of manner.
I've backtracked, checked and gone over and over with no luck. Not having a functioning diagnostic tool is not helping but if anyone has any pointers, I'm all ears and very much appreciative.
Cheers,
Ash
Oh, and one more thing which may be critical, I am in Australia, I do not know if this effects anything at all?
To start out I had an 12/07 build A3 with the 1.6 petrol that was damaged when I purchased it. I purchased it for another car which fell through so ended up owning a damaged car with no purpose. It had a front impact but started and drove fine, no issues other than the front damage. 119,000km on the clock and just had a major service including timing belt.
Several months later I get my hands on a 05/07 A3 with the 1.8 petrol turbo. No damage, nice car but destroyed the head after the timing belt jumped.
So I've stripped both cars, completely, to do a body swap. Found out the hard way that the body wiring harnesses are completely different to the two vehicles so that needed to be swapped out as well. Not a lot of fun but got it done.
Everything is swapped from the 1.6 car to the 1.8 car. That includes the full driveline by swapping over complete engine/gearbox assemblies still on K-frames.
I swapped the brake booster, 1.6 had a sensor, 1.8 did not. Swapped the M/C while I was there and also swapped out the ABS module.
Not much under the bonnet was not swapped out.
After connecting the battery for the first time I find the first issue, but not my main one, the secondary vacuum pump comes on and stays on. I disconnect it to worry about that later.
I then attempt to light up the dash and hit the starter. I get a brake fault warning. I have no connection it looks like to the brake pedal switch. I get no tail lights when I put my foot on the brake and the shifter will not unlock from park. Therefore when I hit the starter, I get nothing.
I attempted to manually trigger the starter with the ignition ON, it cranks fine but will not fire.
I've purchased the Elsawin service manuals which is an overload of information but I can not find anything at this point to help this situation.
I have an iCarsoft i908 scan tool but it will not connect to the car. Doesn't matter if I try to do an OBDII scan or by selecting specific components to scan, it wont connect. I am in contact with iCarsoft to try and find out why that is.
I'm thinking I should purchase the VCDS HEX-V2 Enthusiast as it appears to be the best tool to diagnostics but am hesitant to spend the money until I know more. Money and time spent at this point is becoming quite over the top.
To me it is like I have no power going to something to do with the brake system. I put a multimeter on the brake light switch plug and there is current coming from it.
I searched Elsawin to find that fuse 22 on the engine bay panel was the the brake light fuse. I am not getting 12v from it but instead it appears to be earthed out.
When I had to unpick the large plug under the engine bay fuse panel to pass the wires through the firewall I did damage some of the pins in the process. I've removed those that were and soldered on good ones from the donor vehicle's harness. Nothing else at all has been interrupted in that kind of manner.
I've backtracked, checked and gone over and over with no luck. Not having a functioning diagnostic tool is not helping but if anyone has any pointers, I'm all ears and very much appreciative.
Cheers,
Ash
Oh, and one more thing which may be critical, I am in Australia, I do not know if this effects anything at all?