Morley says...

SEE, THIS is what I love about this industry: You give a bunch of techs a problem and one of them will come up with a solution that is not only simple, but cost-effective. Somebody, Harry, has rubbed up against exactly the same problem as you were having with your ECU, and somehow managed to come up with the fix. In this case, it’s a little box of electronic magic that makes the late-model computer think it’s still living inside a late-model car, but there are plenty of other examples.

I remember back in the 1990s, HSV was trying to figure out how to make the cable-operated clutch in its Commodore-based cars work with cruise-control. It seems crazy now, but right up to and including the VS line-up, the automatic HSVs had cruise, the manuals did not. And it was purely because the cable-clutch and the way it was adjusted couldn’t be made to work with the cruise-control sensors. HSV’s brilliant solution was to adapt the existing pedal set-up to a shorter cable which then operated a small, hydraulic slave unit to actuate the clutch. And bingo: Suddenly your manual HSV could be fitted with cruise-control.

Sometimes the solution isn’t as obvious, but turns out to be simple anyway. A few years back, I saw a split-window Kombi fitted with a late-model VW turbo-diesel engine. Great idea, right? The problem was that the old analogue dashboard had no chance of sending back the correct electronic signals to the computer that drove the fuel-injectors and everything else on the turbo-diesel. As a consequence, the computer, when it couldn’t find the right feedback signal, simply shut her down.

One solution could have been to fit the late-model dashboard, but that would have ruined the look and feel of the car. So the owner took the simple path and left the late-model dashboard hooked up to the computer to send back the right signals. And then

simply hid the whole dash assembly under the rear seat. Brilliant.

In fact, we’re all workshop brainiacs when it comes down to it. If you’ve ever flipped a bracket upside-down to make a cable line-up, cut up a Corn Flakes box to make a gasket or put a 34.5-degree bend in a spanner to reach a tricky spot, then you, too, my friend, are a backyard genius. And I salute you.