Had an opportunity last night to attend a dinner put on by the Great Lakes Region of the WPC Club. Had the great good fortune to spend the evening talking to Marc Rozman. For those of you who don't know Marc, he is an, if not THE authority on many, MANY things Chrysler. Compared to him I am as dumb as a stick. Everyone in the old car hobby has a particular area of interest and mine happens to be getting to sit down with the people who made things happen. Marc is one of those guys.
He's now retired from Chrysler, but one of his earliest assignments was working on the Lean Burn system, and in particular, working on getting a LB system to work on competitor's cars in the hopes of Chrysler selling them the system. Lean Burn is just THAT good.
There are plenty of naysayers out there who consider their first priority with a LB car is removing the system and tossing all of the components aside. But it really does work well when it works properly. The system does have two `fatal' type failures, and in talking to Marc, I discovered that there are either fixes or work-arounds to keep you from ever being stranded on the side of the road if you still have an operating LB system in your car.
First: One of the "fatal" failures was that the main circuit board in the brainbox on the side of the aircleaner, could crack from vibration. Because of the orientation of the board, a small "C" clamp placed at the center of the box, vertically, with mild tension put on it to the point that you've just started to deform the outer housing will bring the fractured area of the board back together and allow the car to run. Not likely well, but it will be a "limp home" mode, if you will. So along with travelling with a spare ballast resistor and ignition box, add a "C" clamp to your emergency kit.
The second failure involved the diaphragm on the end of the box that received engine vacuum and translated it into a variable signal for the box to process. The rubber in this diaphragm can fail and when it does, it is not repairable. Every diaphragm was unique to the box it worked with, just as there are many, many versions of the box depending on the engine that it controls. But, again, there is a work-around. The diaphragm controls/creates a variable signal which the box reads. Opening up the box, and finding the two wires that come from the diaphragm, it is possible to solder those two wires together and the box will continue to work. Again, like the "C" clamp, not as well as the design intent, but it won't dumb it down to a limp-home mode either.
This wasn't the entire conversation with Marc last night, but suffice to say I learned A LOT, and I thought this was worth sharing.
He's now retired from Chrysler, but one of his earliest assignments was working on the Lean Burn system, and in particular, working on getting a LB system to work on competitor's cars in the hopes of Chrysler selling them the system. Lean Burn is just THAT good.
There are plenty of naysayers out there who consider their first priority with a LB car is removing the system and tossing all of the components aside. But it really does work well when it works properly. The system does have two `fatal' type failures, and in talking to Marc, I discovered that there are either fixes or work-arounds to keep you from ever being stranded on the side of the road if you still have an operating LB system in your car.
First: One of the "fatal" failures was that the main circuit board in the brainbox on the side of the aircleaner, could crack from vibration. Because of the orientation of the board, a small "C" clamp placed at the center of the box, vertically, with mild tension put on it to the point that you've just started to deform the outer housing will bring the fractured area of the board back together and allow the car to run. Not likely well, but it will be a "limp home" mode, if you will. So along with travelling with a spare ballast resistor and ignition box, add a "C" clamp to your emergency kit.
The second failure involved the diaphragm on the end of the box that received engine vacuum and translated it into a variable signal for the box to process. The rubber in this diaphragm can fail and when it does, it is not repairable. Every diaphragm was unique to the box it worked with, just as there are many, many versions of the box depending on the engine that it controls. But, again, there is a work-around. The diaphragm controls/creates a variable signal which the box reads. Opening up the box, and finding the two wires that come from the diaphragm, it is possible to solder those two wires together and the box will continue to work. Again, like the "C" clamp, not as well as the design intent, but it won't dumb it down to a limp-home mode either.
This wasn't the entire conversation with Marc last night, but suffice to say I learned A LOT, and I thought this was worth sharing.
