Help with a 97 Intreped/Concorde

[old_man]

1997 Chrysler Concorde.

I don't actually own this car but hope you can help out a young couple with a problem. I am here in Frozen Hell working on a contract and a couple at the hotel couldn't get their car started. I helped jump start it. It is -5 degrees here. It cranked fine but it wouldn't fire. I grabbed my scanner and it said that the camshaft position sensor was bad. No biggie, I do those all the time in my Cherokee's.

He pulled the battery and took it inside overnight and put a trickle charger on it. When he went back to hook up the battery, he reversed the cables for probably 30 seconds. There was some smoke coming from behind the battery, in the region of the ECU. He got it unhooked and switched around. It cranks and has indicators on the dash, but it won't communicate with my scanner any more. I checked the fuses under the hood and all look fine.

I am hoping he fried a fusable link or something simple since they don't have much money. I can help them some with the $$$.

Is there something that normally gets fried in this situation? Being an electronics engineer, I figured it probably hosed the ECU, but I am hoping for something cheaper for them. Any input and help would be most appreciated.

The only good thing about working on a car in a frozen parking lot a thousand miles from home in Minnesota is that it isn't mine.

 

[bjoehandley]

Don't have a clue, never had any if the LX cars. I hope he didn't do something to fry the computer in it while putting the battery back in.

 

[GrimmJeeper]

look for a main fuse, im not familiar with that car but my brother in law did the same thing to his saturn and it fried a big fuse in the PDC and a couple of fusable links, but they were also close to the PDC and not the ECU. smoke by the ECU is bad news as is the failure to communicate with the scanner good luck.

 

[old_man]

I will check all of that when I get off work. As it turns out, a junk yard ECU is only around $30, so that's not so bad.

 

[GrimmJeeper]

from personal experience every time ive had a bad fusable link, they've burned up but left the insulation intact. I could only tell they were burned by pinching the wire with my fingers and it felt hollow inside the insulation. quicker than checking every one with a meter.

 

[sidriptide]

i may not be much help but i recently learned on my 06 Silverado that the scanner port is powered by a secondary accesory fuse under my hood. scanner would not communicate until i pinpointed it.
good luck, i hope it's just a popped fuse.