When mine died I did not have any stuttering at all. Just cranked. As far as thermal stuff goes, I agree, it doesn't get that hot. What I'm concerned about is the cycling change in temperature leading to a breakdown of something in the ezl-be a solder joint, bond wire or solid state junction. Mine was dead when I went to start the car, i assume it died when the ezl cooled off, something in its circuitry just went open. But then that kills my dying alternator theory (and my alternator WAS dying, its been replaced right before the ezl died) because you'd expect it to die suddenly while running. I did try experiments to get it to work again but wasn't successful. I tried freezing it and starting the car as well as getting it hot but never even had a stumble. I need to open up that one I have and see if I can find if any parts of the board are still working to get some insight into why they die.



I'm also wondering...Are Siemens ones more likely to fail? both my working one and spare are bosches.

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1981 300SD 512k OM603