'77 Plymouth Fury Sport FS CA. Craigs

[Pete Kaczmarski]

great cheap car for someone...…

1977 Plymouth Fury Sport - The Valvoline Fury - Best Offer

1977 Plymouth Fury Sport. 360/ 4 bbl/ Torqueflight automatic.
This car was purchased new in 1978 as a dealer demo from Escondido with 9000 miles on it. The gentleman bought it for his wife, who kept it until 2015. She has been a San Diego car all her 109,000 documented miles. I have every note and service record from the original owner. Every oil change, tire purchase or service were kept track on 3"x5" notecards and all major service records have been kept as well.
The motor was gone through in 1991 with a 0.30 over bore and 10/10 grind on the crank.

Within the last two years the following work has been done...
New EGR vacuum switch
New Fan Clutch
New coil
New vacuum lines
K&N air filter
Upper and Lower Radiator hoses
Radiator flush
Carburetor rebuilt
Tune-up (new plugs, wires, cap/rotor)
Heater box removed and heater core replaced with a very hard to find NOS unit. I sprayed rubberized insulation under the dash and inner firewall before reinstalling heater box.
New control arm bushings
New Upper and Lower ball joints
New shocks all around (Coil over heavy duty on rear)
New brake lines (brake fluid replaced)
New complete front calipers (New pads and rotors turned)
Rear brakes - New shoes/ springs
New A/C compressor
New fuel pump/ filter/ lines
New door and window rubbers
Tires replaced March 2015
New carpet

The interior is all original. Plaid inserts on doors and seats are so unique but the seats need redone. The heat / defrost is awesome! There is factory air but still need hoses, dryer and recharged. It has a dealer installed cruise control that needs attention (not working). AM radio with one speaker in the front dash; still works great. All gauges and idiot lights work.
She starts great in cold weather as well as warm.
Runs strong despite the Carter carb that I finally have dialed in.
She has never left me stranded or refused to start. 1 pump and hit the key.
I drive her 50 miles a day for work but recently got a commuter POS for gas savings.
Asking $4000 OBO.
She is still in North County San Diego as she has always been.

High Mile Club Spotlight: Plymouth Fury Sport

 

[Davea Lux]

No mention if the lean burn is still installed.

Dave

 

[Pete Kaczmarski]

My lean burn is on all three of my cars and has not failed me yet.

 

[TNTrooper428]

My lean burn is on all three of my cars and has not failed me yet.

You are the first person who gave "Lean Burn" a positive remark. I am replacing all the lean burn components on my 79 Chrysler Newport with brand new lean burn components. Just because I like originality. Everyone I talk to thinks I am nuts for not converting. Is there a secret behind keeping these systems running well?

 

[Pete Kaczmarski]

My '78 New Yorker St Regis Coupe with a 440, '79 New Yorker with a 360 and '79 Dodge Magnum GT with E-58 all continue to run well as designed.

 

[68PK21 440.6bbl]

The Valvoline Fury has been for sale for quite some time now.

GLWS

 

[Davea Lux]

You are the first person who gave "Lean Burn" a positive remark. I am replacing all the lean burn components on my 79 Chrysler Newport with brand new lean burn components. Just because I like originality. Everyone I talk to thinks I am nuts for not converting. Is there a secret behind keeping these systems running well?

I worked on a lot of these systems and even bought a new '77 B Bodied Sport Fury with the 400 Lean Burn. The short answer to you question is that there is no magic bullet to keep them running reliably. These systems had several major faults: The first issue in the '76-'77 early systems was that there were lots of problems with the printed circuit boards. The electronics had manufacturing issues with lots of "cold" solder joints that failed often. The location of the Lean Burn computer on the air cleaner was a contributing factor to circuit failure because the vibration shook the printed boards and cause them to fracture. This problem was evident on police cruisers fairly early on as they had a significant amount of full throttle operation with the corresponding vibration of the whole air cleaner assembly. The second issue with the Lean Burn computers was that of the electronics failing because the components were not up to the amount of heat generated by mounting the computers directly on top of the engine. This also showed up on police cruisers early on, they spent a lot of time idling by the side of the highway and this caused a lot of heat to build up under the hood, especially during the summer time. Cars would be left idling while police investigated accidents or set up speed traps, etc. and the engines would quit where they sat and not restart. This brings us to the third issue with the Lean Burn Electronics. There was a design flaw in the dual pickup distributor arrangement. Mopar used one pickup module to start the car and another module to run the car. There were repeated failures of the cars to either start or run because the electronics had issues switching from one module to the other.

During the '77 production cycle, as a result of well publicized reliability issues, Mopar redesigned the electronics and the Lean burn system became some what more reliable. The new system was renamed "Electronic Spark Control". The redesigned system eliminated the dual pick modules in the distributor, the vacuum advance, mechanical advance and went to a single printed circuit board in the computer assembly. This redesigned system was significantly better than the original but still suffered from reliability issues. The electronics continued to fail due to vibration and heat issues. The vacuum transducer which replaced the vacuum advance was very sensitive to even small vacuum leaks which caused a lot of problems with the advance parameters. Often these small vacuum leaks were difficult to locate and diagnose even with the Mopar test apparatus. There were also many problems with the throttle transducer which was similar to a modern throttle position sensor. These things were hooked up to the base of the Thermoquad carbs and had an annoying habit of working lose and sending false readings to the computer which generally made the car run like crap. Another issue was that folks did not understand the theory of operation and would try to tweak the sensor to improve performance, always a bad idea and usually resulted in much worse performance.

By the 1980 production cycle, most of the design problems with the Lean Burn/Electronic Spark Control system had been addressed and the systems began to function much more reliably. That lasted a short while until Mopar morphed Electronic Spark control into Electronic Combustion Control to use with the new throttle body injection systems. A disaster for another day's discussion.

In retrospect, the Lean Burn/Electronic Spark Control proved to be more reliable on the small block Mopar engines, mostly because of less generated heat under the hood and less vibration due to lower air flow thru the air cleaner from the smaller engines ('77-'78). If you are going to keep these systems, try to go with the latest electronics that you can use as these should have the improved components installed. So much for my long winded two cents worth. I sold my '77 Sport Fury after one year because it was always in the shop with something wrong with it, not the least of which was three failures of the Lean Burn in the year I had it.

Dave

 

[TNTrooper428]

I worked on a lot of these systems and even bought a new '77 B Bodied Sport Fury with the 400 Lean Burn. The short answer to you question is that there is no magic bullet to keep them running reliably. These systems had several major faults: The first issue in the '76-'77 early systems was that there were lots of problems with the printed circuit boards. The electronics had manufacturing issues with lots of "cold" solder joints that failed often. The location of the Lean Burn computer on the air cleaner was a contributing factor to circuit failure because the vibration shook the printed boards and cause them to fracture. This problem was evident on police cruisers fairly early on as they had a significant amount of full throttle operation with the corresponding vibration of the whole air cleaner assembly. The second issue with the Lean Burn computers was that of the electronics failing because the components were not up to the amount of heat generated by mounting the computers directly on top of the engine. This also showed up on police cruisers early on, they spent a lot of time idling by the side of the highway and this caused a lot of heat to build up under the hood, especially during the summer time. Cars would be left idling while police investigated accidents or set up speed traps, etc. and the engines would quit where they sat and not restart. This brings us to the third issue with the Lean Burn Electronics. There was a design flaw in the dual pickup distributor arrangement. Mopar used one pickup module to start the car and another module to run the car. There were repeated failures of the cars to either start or run because the electronics had issues switching from one module to the other.

During the '77 production cycle, as a result of well publicized reliability issues, Mopar redesigned the electronics and the Lean burn system became some what more reliable. The new system was renamed "Electronic Spark Control". The redesigned system eliminated the dual pick modules in the distributor, the vacuum advance, mechanical advance and went to a single printed circuit board in the computer assembly. This redesigned system was significantly better than the original but still suffered from reliability issues. The electronics continued to fail due to vibration and heat issues. The vacuum transducer which replaced the vacuum advance was very sensitive to even small vacuum leaks which caused a lot of problems with the advance parameters. Often these small vacuum leaks were difficult to locate and diagnose even with the Mopar test apparatus. There were also many problems with the throttle transducer which was similar to a modern throttle position sensor. These things were hooked up to the base of the Thermoquad carbs and had an annoying habit of working lose and sending false readings to the computer which generally made the car run like crap. Another issue was that folks did not understand the theory of operation and would try to tweak the sensor to improve performance, always a bad idea and usually resulted in much worse performance.

By the 1980 production cycle, most of the design problems with the Lean Burn/Electronic Spark Control system had been addressed and the systems began to function much more reliably. That lasted a short while until Mopar morphed Electronic Spark control into Electronic Combustion Control to use with the new throttle body injection systems. A disaster for another day's discussion.

In retrospect, the Lean Burn/Electronic Spark Control proved to be more reliable on the small block Mopar engines, mostly because of less generated heat under the hood and less vibration due to lower air flow thru the air cleaner from the smaller engines ('77-'78). If you are going to keep these systems, try to go with the latest electronics that you can use as these should have the improved components installed. So much for my long winded two cents worth. I sold my '77 Sport Fury after one year because it was always in the shop with something wrong with it, not the least of which was three failures of the Lean Burn in the year I had it.

Dave

Dang it, Dave. I feel like I owe you money. I know that the computer system had been replaced in the car and there were a number of vacuum lines that were compromised. I am in the process of running all new vac lines and have replaced the computer with an NOS one. I hope it doesn't have problems. I am identify all major components to this system and replacing them one by one. If this doesn't work out, it is not beyond me to scrap the whole works for a more reliable solution. Thank you for your input, it is always greatly appreciated. Happy New Year!!

 

[Davea Lux]

Dang it, Dave. I feel like I owe you money. I know that the computer system had been replaced in the car and there were a number of vacuum lines that were compromised. I am in the process of running all new vac lines and have replaced the computer with an NOS one. I hope it doesn't have problems. I am identify all major components to this system and replacing them one by one. If this doesn't work out, it is not beyond me to scrap the whole works for a more reliable solution. Thank you for your input, it is always greatly appreciated. Happy New Year!!

You are welcome and good luck.

Dave