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A week ago I pulled my '85 Dodge out to drive on a nice day, make sure she had no problems. I smelled something kind of funny like burning oil, but it was a little "sweeter" smelling. The next day I went driving again only to suddenly lose all power at a backroad intersection. Being a third-hand van, breaking down is nothing new to me. After getting her home and going through all the diagnosis, it looked like my ignition control module might be bad. Turns out it was a little more catastrophic than I thought it might be. lol

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There had been some weird goo dripping from a few places on the firewall, I thought nothing of it (being the third owner) perhaps some kind of sealant somebody used.

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Suffice to say, it was not. frown

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The only symptom this showed was no spark when cranking until I stopped cranking, where it finally sparked. Has anyone else had theirs fail this catastrophically? I thought the whole point of the potting material was to not melt under heat (thermoset/epoxy) since my engine bay is already around 120 degrees F but it looks like they used expanded foam.
Very common with the electronic ignition. I don't know why but just about every pickup and van I've ever had shows the melted goo under that box. Sometimes it's been replaced int he past sometimes it hasn't. When that stuff melt out the cooling capacity of the electronics goes with it so the board will overheat and fry eventually. It might happen right away, it might take decades. The good thing is that it's one screw and two bolts to swap out. And even new really good ones aren't that expensive. Cheap ones are around $20. A lot of parts stores keep them on hand. I usually have a known good one in the glove box of all my pickups and van just in-case, right next to the extra ballast resistor!!!

-Micah
We've had the potting material 'melt' out of our timers and such on our Dodge. It happens all of a sudden - like it just lets loose and yes it smells interesting when it heats up on the engine. So long as everything under the potting material looks good and the part is working we've had great success filling it all of them with RTV and putting them right back in for many more years of working without incident.
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I have had more melted ones than I can count, I too keep a spare on hand.
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