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Update - I hired a neighbor who is a mobile mechanic to troubleshoot this, based on the linked diagnostics (thanks Steve).
He determined the biggest issue is corroded terminals. He cleaned up the terminals on the distributor connector and got it running.
Now we have a rough idle. It seems one cylinder is running way rich. Misfire, almost a dead cylinder. black exhaust smoke.
Trying to track that down today.
Finally got back to this. I took it to a local shop, who charged me $108 to tell me what I already knew (can't pull a code) and then told me a replacement ECM was needed for $675!
Back home, I pulled the ECM and found this:
Spontaneous ECM combustion - why?
What could have caused this?
Sure looks to me like something pulled more current than it was made for.
I have a Cardone reman ECM on order. While I wait for it, I'd sure like to determine whether something else has failed and cause this ECM failure.
Any suggestions welcome.
Someone connected the battery or a high-current charger backward. The tall thin round thing in the middle of the burned area is a power diode. Reversing polarity to it causes it to virtually explode, as your pics show.
Someone connected the battery or a high-current charger backward. The tall thin round thing in the middle of the burned area is a power diode. Reversing polarity to it causes it to virtually explode, as your pics show.
Except nothing like that happened. It went from running fine one morning to dead on the road. I towed it home and parked it in the front of the house. We got it running by cleaning distributor terminals and replacing the spark module on the fender. The only thing electrical that was near it was a VOM and a code scanner. No battery charger, no jumper cables as it cranked and started easily, it just ran crappy. It was 50 feet from the nearest electrical outlet.
It's been 2 months, and you've paid at least 2 other people to work on it, including on the battery terminals. The battery could have been reversed or reverse-charged during that time.
Anything is possible, but the battery never ran down. The first guy to work on it did so at my house and I was present. The shop I took it to tried to pull a code and gave up.
At any rate, I nothing external to the ECM should be pulling the amps to make that kind of damage,
05-16-2018, 12:04 PM
