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Followup To
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Followup To
Roland,
I have looked at the circuit board inside my control panel and have not found anything looking wet or greasy. No capacitors are buldging either. I found an 87 lebaron at a local junkyard but the guy didnt know if it had the automatic control panel or not. If it does, he said he would charge $35 for it. Another place in town told me to order it, it would be $100 even. But if the circuit board doesn't look fried, could it be something other than the control panel itself?
Brandon
Question -
My heater/ac control panel one day suddenly didn't work. It won't turn off and the buttons do not do what they are supposed to. Pushing various combinations and different buttons, the heater will turn on but won't stay on unless the buttons are held. This happened a month or so ago. Just a couple of days ago, I got a flat tire and let the car sit for a couple of days. When I came back to fix it and drive away, the battery was dead. When I jumped it, I noticed the dome lights were on. They won't turn off either, so I took out the bulbs. Problem, the door lights stay on too. My grandfather told me to push the plungers inside the doors and I tried but that didn't work. I'm stuck and tired of jumping my car. Please help. And not as importantly, it is burning oil. Do you know what might cause this so I can fix it too? Thanks a ton for your time and effort.
Answer -
Hi Brandon,
Is this a coupe/convertible LeBaron or a 4-door sedan? They have different wiring setups so I need to know that. On the heater system, is this one that has a digital temp readout which is called an automatic temperature control unit, of is it conventional with slider for temp/cool, and push bottoms to direct the air, and an a/c pushbutton, and a recirc push button and a 4-speed fan? I need to know that too. On the interior lights, have you tried rotating the headlamp switch on the dash as when it is extreme in one rotation or the other it turns on the interior lights.
Oil burning is generally a wear issue (valve guides or piston/rings/cylinder walls). Increasing the viscosity number of the oil when you change it will reduce the amount of burning but nothing will stop it except repair which will be costly. I would try to use the viscosity approach first.
Let me know the body style, and tell me about the temp control unit and tell me exactly which buttons do and don't seem to be doing what they are supposed to. And let me know if the headlamp on-off switch rotation technique will turn off the interior lights for you. Otherwise I'll get into some circuit analysis. I have the wiring diagrams. I won't be able to help out till tomorrow though, but get back with your answers so I can get to it.
Roland
My lebaron is a coupe. The heat unit is automatic where the display is on a LCD screen and you push buttons to change fan speed, temp and types of ventilation(no sliders). And could you tell me the what vescosity number on oil is and where to find it? Would it be 30 on say a 10W-30 pint of oil? The dome lights were because the headlight switch was turned all the way over. I knew that was exactly it too when I read your answer. Thanks again for you time and effort and no rush at all.
Brandon
Answer -
Hi Brandon,
A capacitor takes two forms which might be faulty. First if there is a cylindrical metal component on the top side of the board then if you look on both the top side and the underside where the soldering and wire traces are located you might see some moisture or grease around the base of that "can" as an indication of a failed capacitor. Then there are the paper wrapped cylindrical components with wires that are on either end in what is called an axial configuration. Again look for similar wetness, etc to be present directly under each end if the cap has blown. There are plastic caps that generally are rugged so won't show much of a signature of blowing if at all. Similarly, there could be a transistor (flat round metal case) which is surface mounted to a metal finned heat sink and has some silicon grease (white) used for heat conductivity (dissipation of heat) and when those go the silicon grease will often "run" a bit so it (the grease)appears differently than a transistor that has not undergone that overheating experience. So see if you notice any signs like that.
On the 23 code, that is indicating that there is something wrong with the voltage signal from the intake air temp sensor mounted on the rear side of the intake manifold on top of the engine. This is a 2-wire plug in device with wire colors black/light blue and black/red. It could either be a loose plug, the insultation on the double wire could have melted and shorted out the signal because it is so close to the exhaust manifold, or the temp sensor is bad.
So try to find it, check the wire colors and then look over those possibilities. You could check the function of the device by removing it and heating it from room temp to maybe 200F in an oven and measure the resistance between the two pins of the sensor. At room temp it should read around 7,000 to 13,000 ohms and at 200F about 700 to 1,000 ohms. Its main purpose is the help the set the mixture to aid in engine starting from a hot shut down situation.
So look over the circuit board of the ATC for abnormalities. It may be hard to find a used ATC control of this time frame because the 86 and 89 is not identical to the 87, and I don't know about the '88 for lack of a wiring diagram. But you could take along your present one and compare wire colors on the plugs to see if they are identical if you found an 88.
Roland
Roland
You've been a ton of help so far narrowing down my problems on my lebaron. I took out the ac box and can't seem to find anything that might seem out of whack for a circuit board. What would a capacitor look like if it is fried? I have to wait until to tomorrow to see if any junkyards in town have any lying around since none are open today. And I went to your site and couldn't try the control panel test obviously so I did the ignition test which gave me the following code: 23* Incoming air temperature sensor may be bad. Maybe the two problems are linked? Thanks again for your time and effort!
Hi Brandon,
If the push buttons don't function properly or the display figures are partial the '87 manual points toward finding a replacement control panel. It would be worth removing the panel and looking for any components on the circuit board that look wet or fried (primarily this would be the capacitors that as they age tend to leak and ultimately short out). If the blower motor only operates at high speed then another of the components needs to be replaced unless there is a short in a wire. If the control panel were behaving normally, then there is a self-test you can run which directs you to how to repair other sorts of malfunctions. Here is a url for that info:
www.allpar.com/fix/codes-climate.html
So check out the control panel circuit board and do the code readout test and let me know what you find out. I suspect that you can replace a burned out capacitor and get it running again if you can find it and have a soldering gun. The manual has about 14 pages on all aspects of the unit which I can xerox and snail mail it to you at a modest cost for copying (4 cents/page + postage).
On the oil, I would try 20W-50 so long as you aren't going to be exposed to below 20F weather, in which case I'd use 15W-40. The first number is the viscosity when the oil is cold, the second is when the oil ia at operating temperature.
So I'll wait for what you learn about the A.T.C. unit.
Roland
AnswerHi Brandon,
The manual says that if the push buttons don't function properly and the figures on the display are partial that the control panel should be replaced. The only thing I can suggest is that you check the incoming blue 21 pin plug. The white wire on pin 1 should read battery voltage when the ignition in on, pins 11 and 14 should be attached to the body (0 ohms resistance thereto), and pin 11 should be attached to pin F of the headlamp switch. If those check out then I see no alternative to replacement.
Roland
