Ouch! Sorry to hear of such expensive prices to MAYBE take care of your problem. I went through a similar experience with my '92 5.2.

Only difference was that I did get my ECU repaired for a lot cheaper. I'm not trying to rub salt into your wounds just

relaying my experience with a company that's closer to me-about 30 min. drive one way. I'm not endorsing them and I am not

being compensated by them. Just telling of my experience. Heck I don't even know for sure if they're even still in business as my

dealings with them was 2 years ago. I learned of them by asking around locally if anyone knew of someone/business that could repair

auto computers. Got directions and their company name-headed out with my disabled ECU, dropped it & $55.00 cash with the

understanding they would call me in 3 days to let me know whether they could repair or not. They did call & said repairs could be

made but they would have to order the part(s) & said parts would be there in 3-4 days, price for repairs would be $134.00 + sales

tax. Ask them to repair & call me for pickup which they did about 4-5 days later. Picked up repaired ECU which came with a 1year

warranty. Ran it for over a year & had no problems whatsoever. I sold the Dak but not the ECU as it was a MP P5049516. I had kept my

stock ECU when I bought the MP ECU from a individual. Here's a link to the company I dealt with. https://www.autoecu.com/

This posting may not help you but maybe someone else is having problems & it will help them. Good luck.

 

Ralph, need your insight. Go to my other thread... https://dodgeforum.com/forum/1st-gen...ml#post3480315

Thank you! Ed

 

So anyway, I want to wrap up this thread for history's sake by commenting on the end result. I used an outfit out of Jacksonville, FL called Module Experts to solve my PCM problem. I have kind of a mixed review. My biggest complaint is the amount of time it took to solve my problem. It took 31 days plus another week or two solving the problem that came with their last remanned PCM. But to be fair, I cannot blame this all on Module Experts. Why so long? I sent my PCM in for repair. They came back and said the microprocessor was bad and it could not be repaired. So I bought a reman from them. It showed up and did not start the engine. Exchanged it for another remanned PCM. It worked perfectly fine except the voltage regulator in the PCM was shot so I had to install an external voltage regulator. All is fine now. But when you add up the time to ship stuff back and forth, their time to work on it, weekends, etc. it took a long time. And also in defense of Module Experts, let's be honest...they are trying to make 27 year old PCMs like new and that is not realistic. You cannot make a silk purse from a sow's ear. These 27 year old PCMs have issues and so does the vehicle you're marrying it up with. In the end, Module Experts stuck with me and was always willing to keep working on it to make it as right as they could. For that reason, I liked Module Experts.

Rather than sending the last reman back and taking my chances on yet another one, I decided to bypass the regulator in the PCM and install an external voltage regulator (thanks to HeyYou and Ralph for their help here). It works perfectly fine and I'm back in the saddle again. Additionally, Module Experts agreed to maintain their lifetime warranty on the PCM even with the external voltage regulator.

So while this solution is not for everyone due to the amount of time it takes, Module Experts has stood behind their work. When dealing with 27 year old components an argument can be made that this is all you can ask.

https://moduleexperts.com/

 

Another resource I've seen is eBay. I bought an ECU off of there recently from a 1992 Dakota. Seemed to be in good shape.

 

I came close to doing that. My top choice was to send my PCM in for repair. Something about keeping MY PCM that I liked. Unfortunately, it could not be repaired. So my options were to have them send it back to me and I'm out the $150 I paid for the repair OR spend an additional $350 for a reman (they credited my $150 repair cost toward the $500 reman price). Most of the PCMs on Ebay are the better part of $200 so basically for an additional $150 I could get a reman from a module rebuilder. I opted for the reman. Now, do I know how much effort they put into a reman? No. For all I know they found a used one off Ebay, cleaned it up and sent it to me. Quite possible. But I took my chances they checked it out thoroughly before sending it to me. I must say the reman arrived impeccably clean. I also got a lifetime warranty which was worth a lot to me as well. And they DO stand behind their warranties.

So it's a bit of six of one half dozen of the other but I'm glad you brought up the Ebay option because it is definitely a viable option. Either way, there is a bit of risk on 27 year old parts regardless of where they come from.

BTW, I did get a PCM connector off of Ebay when I busted up my connector during rebuilding it.

 

The thing I noticed about those PCMs is they are filled with potting compound - some sort of thick dark orange epoxy-like substance to shield it from the elements. You need to remove this before you can access the components on the board. I wanted to take the ECM plug to make a harness, but I damaged a whole bunch of components on the board and the plug itself by doing so. You need to use a lot of force to pry it off but it is easy to scratch or get your screwdriver under a capacitor or chip and inadvertently pry it off.
This could be why many shops don't want to touch it.

I'm attaching a photo of the ECM with the plug removed and the potting compound around it to give you some idea.

 

Just one of many reasons why I didn't mess with it.