AT&T sunset and MyFordMobile app

[cr08]

This is interesting:
https://connectedcar-sdk.com/dashboard
Log in with your Ford Pass email and password.
Supposedly you can force a FordPass activation when FordPass says that activation is not available:

Don't know the security of this site, so it might be good to use it only to get FordPass working, and then change your FordPass password.

The developer of this site is actually over on the F150 forums and has been a regular participant in the Sync Connect retrofit thread. Many Ford owners have used this site for the TCU activation. Most owners have found doing the activation step here versus in the FordPass app has been a lot more reliable. All of his code is open sourced on Github too, FWIW.

https://www.f150forum.com/f118/sync-connect-retrofit-any-ford-452708/

https://github.com/ianjwhite99

 

[cr08]

I decided to go the DIY route and have got the modem. But will need the antenna.
So does anybody have the part number for the stick-on 4G antenna? I heard that there is a third-party antenna that works, but it gives DTCs. Might need the part number for that extension cable as well. Thanks

The DTC for the aftermarket antenna is harmless and works 100%. I can personally vouch for this as well as other users. The TCU still gets a solid signal.

That said, here's the part numbers as well as a link to the related thread on the F150 forums where much of this has already been covered:

Optional antenna cable:
HL3Z-18812-C (generic Ford part)

HL3Z-19A390-A (Ford-Generic) / HL3T-19K351-AA (F150-Specific as shown in photo):
The bolt acts as a ground.
30mm M6.

https://www.f150forum.com/f118/sync-connect-retrofit-any-ford-452708/

That said, these do seem to be hard to find, especially the required cable (the 3G TCU has an integrated antenna. The 4G one requires an external one and the antenna part itself does not include the cable to attach the two).

 

[Heima]

Thank you very much for that information CR08. If I can't get any further with my ideal solution, I will go with those.

I was hoping that somebody who has bought the upgrade kit, could provide the part numbers from the components themselves.
Any takers? Thanks

 

[Anti_Climax]

The tag on my antenna appears to show part # NL2T-19K351-AB

The end of that seems to match other antennas. Really any antenna that works on the right frequencies and has the right connector should be fine. Some adhesive antenna that supports 700MHz and 1700MHz would likely work on most areas. You could get specific bands from the modem info.

 

[Heima]

Thank you Anti_Climax!
Seems that it is going to be a challenge to find that antenna all by itself. The part number implies a 2022 Ford Explorer, but checking for that vehicle, it shows a different part number and type of antenna. Will have to call the dealer tomorrow to get the lowdown on that.

In the meantime, I thought, what the hell, and bought this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PFLWY77

The fakra connector seems to be a universal type. I am a little concerned with the 10ft cable, but if it works. Cool.

I also discovered a site, Taoglas.com, where you can have a cable or antenna custom made. Not crazy expensive, but shipping is unreasonable.

 

[Anti_Climax]

The modem module lists these frequencies:
706.5-713.5
709-711
829-844
826.4-846.6
1720-1745
1850.7-1909.3
1860-1900
1852.4-1907.6

So a multi band antenna that covers 700/850/1700/1900 would work. 850 and 1900 are probably more important for 3G fallback but now that ATT has really started cutting areas, they probably won't matter.

I can't find any other codes or markings that tell me who actually made it. It does say made in Portugal but that could be the final manufacturing for Continental. It appears to have a K logo but that's a bit too generic to find on its own.

 

[cr08]

Thank you Anti_Climax!
Seems that it is going to be a challenge to find that antenna all by itself. The part number implies a 2022 Ford Explorer, but checking for that vehicle, it shows a different part number and type of antenna. Will have to call the dealer tomorrow to get the lowdown on that.

In the meantime, I thought, what the hell, and bought this:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PFLWY77

The fakra connector seems to be a universal type. I am a little concerned with the 10ft cable, but if it works. Cool.

I also discovered a site, Taoglas.com, where you can have a cable or antenna custom made. Not crazy expensive, but shipping is unreasonable.

This antenna you linked is the same one I have installed in my C-Max (and used by some other Ford owners) and can confirm it works and gets a good signal even with the long cable. Haven't had any signal related issues with the 4G upgrade, just that harmless DTC.

 

[Anti_Climax]

What DTC does it post?

 

[cr08]

What DTC does it post?

I don't have the exact DTC in front of me. I can try to pull that later this afternoon. But it is for an open circuit or ground on the antenna. But that's the only code it reports. It does come back if you try to clear it as well.

FWIW, I intend to try to retrofit a 'kitchen sink' sharkfin antenna on my C-Max at some point so it'll cover AM/FM/Sirius/GPS/LTE all on the roof antenna and it should wipe out that DTC.

 

[Anti_Climax]

So possibly a contact you can short to fix it.

 

[Heima]

Regarding the DTC, I was thinking, seeing that there is an electric motor near by, and all that extra wire for the antenna had to be bundled, could it effectively make a transformer, that induced a current into the antenna wire from the motor's magnetic field? Or maybe the length of the wire was enough to affect the impedance of the antenna?

Dunno, but thought that the kit from Ford has about a meter long extension cable. So I shortened the cable for the antenna to about 1 meter. Maybe tomorrow I can start removing the trim pieces from the interior, plug it all together, and see if it works.

So that I understand this correctly, the As Built data is actually stored in each module, right? So I will need to pull that from the old modem with forscan, install the new modem, and then write back the as bulit data, with that little edit for 4g. Right?

Thanks

 

[cr08]

Regarding the DTC, I was thinking, seeing that there is an electric motor near by, and all that extra wire for the antenna had to be bundled, could it effectively make a transformer, that induced a current into the antenna wire from the motor's magnetic field? Or maybe the length of the wire was enough to affect the impedance of the antenna?

Dunno, but thought that the kit from Ford has about a meter long extension cable. So I shortened the cable for the antenna to about 1 meter. Maybe tomorrow I can start removing the trim pieces from the interior, plug it all together, and see if it works.

So that I understand this correctly, the As Built data is actually stored in each module, right? So I will need to pull that from the old modem with forscan, install the new modem, and then write back the as bulit data, with that little edit for 4g. Right?

Thanks

Given the location of the TCU in the various vehicles, I have a feeling an induced current isn't the issue. But just a guess on my part. On the C-Max, the TCU is located behind the driver side D pillar panel up close to the rear window and away from any heavy current devices. The Fusion's have their antenna and TCU under the parcel shelf in the back.

Regarding the AsBuilt stuff, I wouldn't bother trying to re-use the old AsBuilt. Most of it is not compatible and it is missing a lot of necessary bits from the new TCU's. In reality, it's relatively easy to update this from the AsBuilt already on the 4G TCU and that's been discussed in this thread previously. Here's an excerpt from a post I made a while back:

754-01-01: B742-xx (B for Sync 3. Change to A if you are still on Sync 2)
754-02-01 1EA0-xx (some have had 00A0 here as well at least on the C-Max. Doesn't seem to make a functional difference. Nothing in these bits should change for the FE either)
754-03-01 -through- 754-03-08 all bits should be 7D so it should be a repeating 7D7D all the way. ForScan shows the checksum bits which are the last two bits on each block. These will never be 7D. Ignore them.
EXCEPTION to the above line: 754-03-06 should be set to 0078-7D7D-7D.

One final note: You should verify the calibration level on the TCU as well, even if this is from the official upgrade kit from Ford. It should be at -UM or above. If it is lower than that, the calibration should be updated. Without this UM or higher calibration, the Scheduled Departure Times and Preferred Charge Locations (what used to be called Go Times and Value Charging respectively in MyFord Mobile) will not work.

 

[Heima]

Great! Thank you very much CR08!
Will hopefully have this all completed by the weekend.

 

[Heima]

Well, something might not have gone right.
I got the trim pieces off and connected the TCU.
In Forscan I cleared the DTCs and yeah, that one for the TCU came right back.
The modem had -UE calibration so I downloaded the "available" -UM in forscan.
Something did not seem right, it would download, reach 100% and then jump to 51% and download to 100% and then jump to 51% and so on. After about 20 minutes it said that it had successfully download the files.
I then started a firmware update. Forscan indicated it would take about 7 minutes to complete.
It took 2 hours. I cannot help but think something was wrong.
Afterwhich it stated that the update was successful.
However, I then had a bunch of DTC for the ABS, the PCM, the GFM2, and another module. These DTC could not be cleared and they dealt with communications. So I thought that maybe the TCU was at fault. I disconnected the TCU, but the DTCs stilll would not clear.
I reinstalled the old TCU and the DTCs cleared.
This behavior seemed like the TCU was a gateway for other modules, but I do not believe it is.
Nevertheless, I have downloaded the -UN files and will attempt to program them tomorrow.
Or is my TCU fried?
Or are these DTCs caused by not having the correct configuration (As Built Data)? But the DTCs were not there with the -UE calibration.
Thanks

 

[Anti_Climax]

That actually sounds like the CANBus pins on the new TCU might be shorted or something similar. If any one device on the loop messes up the impedance it causes comm errors for everything on the loop and triggers DTCs. Nothing actually breaks most of the time but it freaks out as expected. I've seen the same problem from the vampire taps that splice in my CHAdeMO hardware.

Edit: looking at the system diagram, the termination resistor is not in the TCU and it also seems that at least one of those devices you named is on a separate bus - so I'm at a loss. The behavior certainly looks like general CAN bus comm failure but doesn't otherwise fit at first glance.

TCU - ICAN (another HS CAN bus)
ABS - EV HS CAN
PCM - HS CAN
GFM2 - EV HS CAN
What was the other module?

 

[Heima]

The other module was the BECM.
But the site has been down for a while, and here is an update.
I found that if I disconnected the 12V battery for a few minutes, the dang DTCs would go away.
So with that in mind, I went for -UN. and again, it took 2 hours to install.
(As an aside, when I do firmware programming, there is a relay in the battery junction box that clicks about every second. Is this normal?)
After the -UN update, there were those DTCs again, but disconnecting the 12V battery for a minute made them erasable.
So now I have the modem working, but I am still wondering if I should change the as built data. I do not use the scheduled charging, because my electric power rates are the same, no matter the time of day.
The charge logs would be nice to see, but would updating the As Built configuration fix that? UPDATE: Looking at the cyanlabs database, yeah, gonna need to update that.
Anyway, I was thinking about the DTC for not having a grounded antenna. The antenna in the kit does not mount to metal, just a plastic trim piece. So it makes me wonder, why is there no DTC for ungrounded antenna with the kit? Or is there? If not, then does that mean the kit modems are internally grounded on the antenna shield? If so, then it should be possible to just open the modem and solder a wire from the shield conductor to ground. Or, is there a resistor or something to affect impedance? I guess if you could measure resistance from the shield conductor to ground, you would get a value.

So my curiosity got the best of me and I took my best multimeter to the modem to check and see. This is a modem from a 2017 Escape and not from the kit. However, the part number is HJ5T-14G087-UE. I measured the resistance between the ground of the modem (metal plate) and the shield of the antenna. 0.4 ohms. And then between the metal plate and the ground terminal 13 of the C4803. And its 0.4 ohms. It seems that between the shield of the antenna and ground terminal 13 is 0.4 ohms. There doesn't seem to be any active components between them.

Does this mean the resistance should be lower to prevent the DTC?

Here is the current as built data for my TCU:

;Block 1
754G1G1B14250
;Block 2
754G2G100E03E
;Block 3
754G3G17D7D7D7D7DD0
754G3G27D7D7C7C7CCE
754G3G37C7C7C7C7CCD
754G3G47C7C7C7C7CCE
754G3G57C7D7D7C7CD1
754G3G600787D7D7D53
754G3G77D7D7D7D7DD6
754G3G87D7D60
;Block 4
754G5G1000000781EF7
754G5G20277DB

And here is that antenna DTC:

Code: B1246 - GSM (Group System for Mobile) Antenna

Additional Fault Symptom:
- Circuit Open

Status:
- DTC Present at Time of Request
- Malfunction Indicator Lamp is Off for this DTC

Module: Telematic Control Unit Module

 

[scottt]

Wanted to ask (after reading all this). Is there anyone who had their modem upgrade just "work" the first time? Or did it require 1 or more trips back to the dealer for reprogramming, etc?

My upgrade is scheduled shortly, and if there's anything I need to test, tell the dealer, etc.....

Thx all!

 

[Heima]

Don't know about the dealer.
Though it might seem that my installation has been problematic, it hasn't been as bad as it sounds.
I am a bit of a perfectionist, so I want things to go right and am willing to take extra time, extra effort to make them happen that way.
I am not used to doing these types of repairs/modifications on a car, I am more of nuts and bolts type of repair person.

I can say that after hooking everything up, the system did work. It took a couple of hours for the message to appear on the center screen to permit the remote access.
After that it was just a matter of waiting a few days for things to magically happen.
I say magically, because it happened without interaction by me.
For example, after activation, the map in the FordPass app would only show my phones location. A little over a day later, the car's location appeared. And it was fairly accurate.
I did nothing for that to happen.

You would think that in this age of computers, the feature set would propagate instantaneously. However, I believe that there might be time synched scripts (cron jobs) that occur at odd hours, and not in sequence, so it takes a couple days for stuff to work out. Perhaps there is some poor sap somewhere, that has a menial job of verifying X for every Ford Pass activation, and only after he has done that, does the feature set actually become available. You never know what happens on the back end.

Suggestions for things that my speed up the process or make it go smoother? No guarantees here, but guessing....
1. Download, setup, and activate the FordPass app on your phone well before the kit is installed. What could it hurt?
2. After the installation and the dealer has supposedly set the As Built configuration, make sure that they have downloaded and installed the latest revision of the firmware for the TCU. -UN, -UP, or later.
3. After that is done have them disconnect the 12V battery for a few minutes. Or you can do that for certain when you get the car back from them.
4. The bulletin that describes the work the dealer is to do is not very complete. It gives about 3 steps to remove all of the trim pieces and it is incorrect. The latest service manual describes the process better, and even following that, it was fairly difficult to remove trim pieces so that they were not damaged. The black fabric-type cover in the trunk side where the modem will go will get man-handled, So expect that to get damaged or torn. Two things I did that were not mentioned in the service manual was to remove the upper battery cover, and the trunk sill piece. With these two things out of the way, it was easier to lift that black fabric-type cover up. Not out, because it looks to be impossible to remove it without tearing it or removing the LH rear seat striker.
5. Its no consolation, but the person doing the repair probably knows less about the car than you. So if you do have the opportunity to talk to them before the repair, buddy up with them, let them know you are not in a rush, and they can take their time. Making the situation more personable, will make the tech work better.

I am sure there are others who can chime in with suggestions.

 

[Anti_Climax]

Add your vehicle to FordPass ahead of time. It won't have the activate option until after the upgrade, but one less thing to do.

 

[scottt]

Anti, THANKS for all that.

I do not want the car torn up, so I'll definitely mention what you said to them.