The challenge is not necessarily related to circuitry as much as it is related to dealing with me. In other words, your expertise will be tested by my ignorance on all things technical. For all I know, what follows is the dumbest thing anyone has ever heard, but I'm willing to try.
BACKSTORY YOU CAN SKIP = I'm an English teacher with absolutely no knowledge of circuits, but I enjoy figuring things out. Back in January my 2000 F-150 would not start. I always fix my own cars, so I traced the problem to no fuel injector pulse. I traced it even deeper to a malfunction on my instrument cluster, which houses an immobilizer chip. I know the PCB on my old instrument cluster is bad, so I got one from the junkyard. Now the truck will not start because the immobilizer data inside doesn't match the key/pcm. When I asked for info in an F-150 discussion forum, everyone insisted that only a dealer could solve the problem. I just can't accept that. Why should a dealer get to have all the fun when I'm willing to learn something new?
CHALLENGE = I have a 2000 F150 instrument cluster with a damaged PCB. I need help identifying the EEPROM chip that holds the immobilizer data so that I can remove that chip and reattach it to a new PCB. Below are pictures of the chips on the PCB. Which chip do you think holds the immobilizer data?
BACKSTORY YOU CAN SKIP = I'm an English teacher with absolutely no knowledge of circuits, but I enjoy figuring things out. Back in January my 2000 F-150 would not start. I always fix my own cars, so I traced the problem to no fuel injector pulse. I traced it even deeper to a malfunction on my instrument cluster, which houses an immobilizer chip. I know the PCB on my old instrument cluster is bad, so I got one from the junkyard. Now the truck will not start because the immobilizer data inside doesn't match the key/pcm. When I asked for info in an F-150 discussion forum, everyone insisted that only a dealer could solve the problem. I just can't accept that. Why should a dealer get to have all the fun when I'm willing to learn something new?
CHALLENGE = I have a 2000 F150 instrument cluster with a damaged PCB. I need help identifying the EEPROM chip that holds the immobilizer data so that I can remove that chip and reattach it to a new PCB. Below are pictures of the chips on the PCB. Which chip do you think holds the immobilizer data?