Car stalling, due to leaking capacitors?

[Dream On]

Hey guys. I checked my ecu a while back to see if the caps were leaking and they were fine. Today when I was driving my car it would stall out until the car was up to operating temp. It would only stay running when it was cold if I kept my foot on the gas. There was a CEL at first, but now it's gone and my logger didn't pick up on any stored codes. When it stalled the first time or two, I heard clicking sounds underneath the dash, so I pulled the ecu to check on it. Now the caps are leaking, and I'm wondering if the ecu can be fixed or if I should just get another ecu. I planned on going to an eprom, so maybe now is the best time. Here are some pics, what can you tell me from looking at it? Thanks.

 

[dieseltech]

It appears repairable. Although My capacitors were all black, so it appears as though it has been repaired once before. You can look on ebay for replacement caps for less than 8 bucks. They aren't bad to replace either, you just need a soldering station and a solder suck gun.

 

[Dream On]

I've got access to a soldering iron and solder, but not a solder suck gun that you're speaking of. I don't even know what one looks like for that matter.

 

[steve]

I doubt those caps are leaking. It just looks like a typical low quality commerical repair job that is failing. That one doesn't look too bad, some of them really look like hell.

I've come to the conclusion that the warenty void stickers are really to keep people from seeing the hack jobs these guys do to ECUs.

Steve

 

[Dream On]

Steve, do you still think that this is causing the stalling problem? I haven't touched anything else on the car, and it was running great before this. I saw on vfaq that leaking caps usually causes the car to stall like this, so maybe something with the way it was done is creating the same symptoms? Does it look repairable? I'm wondering if I should just go ahead and go eprom now instead of putting money into this thing. Then again, I could sell it after its fixed. Opinions? Thanks.

EDIT: yeah the ECU has been messed with before as the outer shell has been painted and says that it has been "remanufactured".

 

[dieseltech]

You could go eprom. As far as solder suck gun, you can get those on ebay for cheap, or radio shack. You stated you also heard clicking from under the dash, another sign of bad caps. If you have the money go eprom, then fix this one for a backup or sell it.

 

[steve]

Sure a bad ECU can cause this but then so can several other things too like a dead ISC or a vacuum leak.

If you had a friend you could swap the ECU with that would help narrow down the possibilities.

Making sure you have a good battery connection and that it's bolted down is a good idea, as well as, pressure testing (Boost Leak) the intake and checking the ISC coils resistance.

 

[Dream On]

I just fixed the majority of my boost leaks, with the only one left being the pcv valve. I'm trying to find a nice check valve to put in line with it so I don't have to worry about the crappy oem ones failing. The battery was bolted down fine and the connections were tight. I got power and everything and the dash lights stayed on when it died. It started back up fine so I don't think it could be the battery. I just removed the isc not too long ago when I fixed my tb shaft seals and gaskets and cleaned it out somewhat. It was running fine beforehand for a couple hundred miles since fixing it so I don't think it would crap out all of the sudden. I'll have to check since I have a couple spares though and see if it makes any difference. I already ordered an eprom and dsmlink so hopefully the new computer will solve the problem.

 

[Dream On]

Update: Checked the ISC and the numbers were around 26.8-28 or so, so it wasn't the problem. My eprom and DSMLink are here.