Thank you Andrew
The demise is the dreaded error 99 that pops up on just about every Canon in the world

Mine was the mirror up motor that burned out and later when i replaced the motor, it worked for about four shots and the new motor burned out too.
Later i found out that the shutter was stuffed too

If i only could get past the error 99, i could use the camera via the computer because i can still get pics from the cf card and eos camera control pops up when the 40D is connected (this all without shutter,backpanel,mirror box, top and lcd display).