Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Chrysler Ignition Module Story

              
                                                                       The Chrysler Ignition Module Story
                                                                                         1975
                                    A true story involving me and two surplus dealers both located in Chicago  
                                                               Written 1/2010 and Re-written 1/2016
                                                                                  Howard Yasgar
   
    Throughout the 1970’s and into the 1980’s, cars and trucks were being produced in the United States in record numbers, and they were being exported all over the world.
    Because of this, there began a very high demand American made automotive replacement parts.
    Suddenly, many aftermarket replacement parts factories started opening up to meet the demand.
    Because of this, it eventually created a glut of aftermarket replacement parts in the marketplace, and that created a whole new industry of “Surplus Dealers”.
    They were companies that were looking to buy any kind of excess or overstocked automotive items.
    Soon the competition between all the surplus dealers to buy excess material became fierce.
    By the time that I entered the surplus business, it  was so competitive that many of the MidWest surplus dealers wouldn’t talk to each other.
    My company, was located in Miami Florida, and because we were one of the biggest shipping hubs to Latin America, our company did a lot of our  business exporting surplus automotive parts overseas.
    Because of our strong export market, we were able to buy from most  all the different surplus dealers around the country.
    Because they were such good customers, we were able to deal with all the surplus dealers, even the companies  that didn’t talk to each other.
    That is what this true short story is all about.
    In the early 1970’s, all of the car manufacturers were changing over from contact point ignition systems to new high tech electronic Ignition systems.
    By 1970 each of the major automakers had designed their own proprietary ignition system.
    To the automotive industry Electronic ignition systems were relatively new technology. so in the beginning, all the auto makers started having technical problems with their ignition systems.
    In the 1970’s it wasn’t uncommon to have a late model car stop at a red light and just quit, and it was usually found to be some kind of defect in the electronic ignition system.
    Usually, it was diagnosed that the problem was in the external electronic ignition module.
    Several electronic manufacturing companies started making hand held equipment designed to test the ignition modules.
    Because of the high failure rate of OEM  ignition modules, and the amount of money involved, several
companies started  making aftermarket replacement ignition modules.   
    Making and selling replacement ignition modules was big business, if a OEM module sold for $100.00, an aftermarket module could be sold for $35.00.
    This particular story is about Chrysler Corporation’s electronic ignition system. It was a system they invented based on a magnetic beam.
    Inside the engines distributor was a rotor, and as the rotor turned, it broke a magnetic beam, that beam was controlled by an externally mounted ignition module.
    In the case  Chrysler’s electronic ignition failing, it was usually the external Ignition module that was at fault.
    The module itself was designed in a metal case, it was about 4 inches wide by 6 inches long, it was about a half inch thick and on top it had a male connector for the cars ignition harness to plug into, the entire module was about the size of the palm of your hand.
    The first early production models were colored black, but as Chrysler improved their technology they changed the color of the module to blue.
    Now to complicate the story.
    Once all the auto manufacturers started using electronic ignitions, some auto parts companies felt that people that owned pre 1970 automobiles would want to convert their cars older point type ignition systems over to the new more modern electronic  ignition systems.
    So that’s when several parts manufactures started designing electronic ignition systems, that could be installed on pre 1970 cars and light trucks.
    However, they all of these companies went out of the business eventually
    The idea to convert older cars to an electronic ignition was good, but not enough people with older cars wanted to spend a lot of money converting their car over to electronic ignition, and that was the reason that all the aftermarket electronic ignition kit makers closed their doors.
    One of the largest kit manufactures that went out of business was a company in Chicago that made an electronic ignition system very similar to Chryslers OEM design.
    But, instead of  breaking a magnetic beam like Chrysler did, they designed a system that used a light beam or LED.
    This particular company went so far as to even copying the physical design of the blue Chrysler ignition module.  
    Now enter into the picture, the surplus dealers.
    In Chicago there was a surplus dealer named Abe Greenstein, Abe would buy most anything that was automotive, providing it was cheap enough.
    By 1975, our company had already been buying automotive surplus from Abe for several years.  
    Abe went and bought 175,000 of the electronic ignition kits from the company that was going out of business.
    It was the aftermarket kit  that worked with the LED, and Abe had bought the entire lot  for $20,000.
    When I first saw the kits Abe had bought, I saw that he had about 100,000 kits, that were nicely packaged in a colorful cellophane covered cardboard boxes, and he had another 75 thousands kits that were all in loose pieces, unboxed.
    I knew there was no market for exporting the kit, so when Abe offered them to me, I simply said no.
    Then Abe showed me all the extra kit parts and modules that he had stored separately.
    When I saw the aftermarket blue ignition module, I immediately knew that it looked identical to the one used on Chrysler automobiles.
    I asked Abe if he thought his modules would work on a Chrysler automobile?
    Abe said he didn’t know, but he was being cagey, so I suspected Abe already knew the modules wouldn’t work on Chrysler product cars.
    I knew that I wasn’t the first person Abe had tried to sell the kits to, and I knew that if those modules actually worked on Chrysler products, he would have already sold them by now.
    Turns out I was right,  Abe said he had been trying to sell them for several months and every one said he was wasting his time, they said the modules he had were for a completely different electronic ignition system.
    Abe said he had already resigned himself that he had bought a bad deal, he said that he had been trying to sell the kits for over 6 months, so now he was going to throw all the modules into the junk and take a financial loss.
    I looked close at the module and I wondered if the electronic experts in my shop in Miami could open them up and re-design the  electronic circuit inside.
    If they could, and the modules worked on Chrysler products, I was sure they could be sold  for around $10.00 each.
    I asked Abe how much he  wanted for all the modules and he said he would take .75 cents each.
    I told him to pack 30 modules and UPS  them to me in Florida, I wanted to see if we could redesign
the circuits in them.
    When I arrived back in Miami the following week, a box with the 30 ignition modules were sitting in my office waiting for me.
    I opened the box, and Just as I picked one module up to look at it, I had a visitor step in my office.
    Of all people, It was my friend, the Chrysler Corporation’s Miami export parts salesman.
    I told him the story all about Abe and the ignition kits,  and I asked him if he thought the ignition module would work on Chrysler product automobiles.
    He said he already knew all about Abe’s kits that were in Chicago, and he said, “Even though the module looked like a Chrysler product it wouldn’t work as it was for a completely different electronic system, “He said Abe’s module was for a L.E.D. system, and I shouldn’t waste my time fiddling with them”.  
    The Chrysler parts salesman assured me 100% that the L.E.D. system wasn’t compatible with Chrysler’s magnetic system.
    It was two weeks later when I was again in Chicago.
    There was a another surplus company located about two blocks away from Abe’s  warehouse, it was called Fleet Supply Company.
    Fleet Supply was being managed by a fellow named George Lustig.
    That day, just by chance, I stopped in to see George before I went to see Abe.
    George and Abe were competitors, and they didn’t talk to each other.
    I said hello to George, shook his hand and sat down in front of his desk.
    The first thing I saw was that George had one of Abe’s blue electronic ignition modules sitting in front
Of me.
    I said, George, I see you have one of Abe’s ignition modules.
    Yes he said, I want to buy them all, but Abe won’t  talk to me.
    I said, that’s no problem, I can buy them for 75 cents each, I know that Abe will sell them to me.
    But why do you want them, I asked George?
    George said, “Yesterday we installed one of them onto a Chrysler car and it works perfectly.
    I can sell the modules for $5.00 each.
    George said, “Everyone was so sure that the modules wouldn’t work, so no one ever tried one on a car”.
    I said, George,  Abe has 175,000 of them, are you sure you want all of them, that’s a lot of money.
    George opened his desk drawer and gave me a thick brown envelope. George said, “there is $10,000 cash in that envelope, give it to Abe as a deposit.
    George said, “You will be my partner, just go to Abe and try to buy the modules for 50 Cents each”.  
    I was so excited, I quickly left the Fleet supply office and ran up the block to Abe Greenstein’s place.
    I went into Abe’s office and I said, Abe, thank you for sending me the 30 sample modules to Florida,
I can offer you, 50 cents each for them and I will buy them all. I can even give you a cash deposit today.
    Abe said, “Thank you for the kind offer, but I just sold them all to a Turkish guy this morning for .75 cents each”.
    I guess that was the end of my story, Abe had just made $131,250.00 selling electronic  modules that two weeks before he was going to throw in the scrap, had I not stopped him.
    Abe didn’t even offer to buy me lunch.
                                                   
                       

1 comment:

  1. George used to take me to lunch at Agostino's, just to see how much I could eat. I knew him at 1313 S. Clinton.

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