I have leaking capacitors in my ecu this is a new ecu and it's the same capacitors that leaked in my old ecu it's the 2 100uf10v caps what do those manage and why are the leaking. It's only a few months old. I'm assuming it operates the cam sensors due to that's the CEL I'm getting but I have no idea where to look when it comes to that any help is greatly appreciated

 

Send it to Tanin for repair.

 

from what ive read on this forum, this is a common issue with SC's it can cause a whole lot of issues when it comes to how the car runs. your better off trying to find another used ECU and see if it fixes your problems.

ive also read that you can change the caps if the board isnt fried. heres a good posting with alotta info w/ pictures about this issue. to understand what is involved.

https://www.clublexus.com/forums/ls-...capacitor.html

but as biddles said. if you dont care about the technicality of it all. just send it tanin for repair. hes praised w/ good feedback on this forum.

 

What is your definition of a "new" ECU???

Tanin is well known and trusted. There are a few others as well and most will warrant for 1 year.

If you purchased an ECU "new" from Toyota, that would be a $4-500+ or more investment and should have some form of warranty as well.....

 

I suspect "new" is used in a context of "new to you, but used." No new ECU will look like that.

 

I believe all those caps in the 90s ECU are bound to leak. Even though it is newer, it's just a matter of when. If you meant new in a sense that it was a already reworked 6 months ago, it is possible the person that did the rework may have not replaced them if they weren't leaking.

 

you can just upgrade to better caps and wont have this problem anymore, look for the silver ones

 

usually causes an overfueling condition and/or cam sensor codes for some reason probably due to the loss of capacitance from the fluid leaking out, also you have to worry about when the fluid hits the board it is conductive in nature and can short out adjacent traces on the top layer of the board. a full repair would be to clean the board and replace the capacitors as well as repair any damaged traces depending on how bad it was.

I would opt for a repair when its a small leak like that and its still running. as you learnt the hard way if you just grab another ecu you can end up with the exact same problem right away or in years, its all based off not only age but condition. a 15 year old ecu that sat in a car in a garage in a low humidity environment can fair better than a 10 year old one that is parked outside everyday especially in a place with humidity.

with the repair you know that the capacitors are new and wont fail for a long time, as long as it hasn't failed to badly already.
Some of them look much worse than that and if its not salveagable, then get another better condition used ecu and replace the caps Before they go bad again or else you will be in the same boat.

 

I was goin to redo the capacitors but I'm also in the process of replacing the engine harness but I was worried about doing all that and there being a short ground something else causing that and didn't want to short out the new harness and caps again I'm assuming the harness is why the ecu is messed up cuz it's all messed up

 

The harness isnt going to cause that. capacitors go bad do mostly to age there are diodes to protect the capacitors from any voltage surges. anytime you have an issue like that it's almost always related to age more than heat because that's not a high amperage circuit

 

But when I first bought the car the orig ecu someone messed it up and tried to fix the capacitors themselves and have 1 cap in the 10v group they had reversed so I'm thinking whoever did that shorted the wiring and that's why it keeps leaking