Gratuitous Leaking Caps Pic & Thread
So I open up the computer. In all honesty, the third can just fell off today when I picked it up at a shop I tried to have it repaired at this week.
The guy I took it to had over 40 years TV/Stereo exp. He didn't like the traces & said it was hopeless to try & tack onto the legs. Plus he was of the opinion that it looked like other items were going soon. The large square IC has a chunk missing out of its skin. I have no idea what the speckles are covering everything, its not dirt. My personal opinion is its been cooked/heat cycled too many times.
The PCM is a F4TF-12A650-TA, Batch LOW0.
I found 2 remans on ebay at an ungodly $341.99 & 329.99
I tried 2 FTE (Leaky cap threads) recommended outlets and wasn't too impressed. Standard's site was just not navigable. A.C.E was at 309.99
For a wild-assed chance I tried Rock. Top listing was my PCM out of 8 & least expensive @$97.89 + 67.50 core.
Yes. it is a Cardone. So I've rolled the dice & ordered. 2-3 days I'll find out.
The guy I took it to had over 40 years TV/Stereo exp. He didn't like the traces & said it was hopeless to try & tack onto the legs. Plus he was of the opinion that it looked like other items were going soon. The large square IC has a chunk missing out of its skin. I have no idea what the speckles are covering everything, its not dirt. My personal opinion is its been cooked/heat cycled too many times....
I have fixed much worse PCB's than what your photo shows. That can be fixed, just takes little more time to clean and trace out the ate up lines and repair with jumper wires.
As long as there are no heat damaged areas on the circuit board, that PCB is in good shape beyond the capacitor damage areas. The PC board I fixed had a leak damage area the size of a 50 cent coin and was under a IC too.
The IC with a chunck missing is just a protective coating, nothing to worry about as the whole PCB is covered in it.
Visual inspection of capacitors is half-assed. Plenty of failed capacitors don't leak, at least not right away.
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The remaining two are just as bad. All in all I'll risk at least a name reman over a complete kludged fix attempt right now. And again, the rest of the unit does not look good. (I.E. heat damaged)
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And again... a guy in business for over 40 years doesn't know what he's talking about. Got that too.
I guess that if you spend your life just behind the front tire/wheel of a Ford truck, a few shocks in shipping is no big deal...

Computer was in Cardone box with 1 inch clearance side to side, half inch front to back. That box inside the Rock A box with no padding/air-cell, etc. clearances roughly equivalent. In other words, the whole shooting match flopped around. There was a rattle.
The rattle was the rear cable/chip cover
But it works. It started the truck, ran smoothly & on its first test drive, set & recorded a code that helped me eventually locate the source of my trouble.
https://www.ford-trucks.com/forums/1...s-testing.html
I'm going to keep the original for a while. Here are some comparisons.
The quality of the solder job.
Some other non-capacitor repairs & strange red board coating. Notice there are no screws holding the board to the frame. I added some from my PC supplies.
All in all for under $175 I'm happy. If I can shake out all my last issues, I can progress with a Mass Air swap that I've been wanting to do for years.
I purchased 10 each the needed capacitors off E-bay from a lady in Texas for less than $20. One of the new members in our chapter (Iwarrior1016) is an up & coming tech who took my original ECU & in under an hour replaced my caps & got the unit back to me during Cruising the Coast.
As stated earlier, I've been chasing some other issues. (VSS code & shifting issues, replaced PSOM and no other VSS codes) Now that I've got enough miles without issues, I replaced the Cardone unit with the repaired original.
Glad to have the original back. After some shake down miles I have no codes other than a 512, 311 & 538. The 512 is somewhat bothersome & the remaining two are fully expected & tell me things are as they should be.
I did have a single 624 code, but after clearing & more miles it has not returned.
Some issues I had with stalling going into reverse seem to have been solved with going back to the original unit. The power level & shifting quality are seemingly superior too.
All in all, I have (with some priceless help) two serviceable units that will drive my truck should I need to do some diagnostic comparisons
I've also since my earlier posts picked up a remanned HOG0 ECU & nearly a complete engine harness, so after a few other things get done I'm start working on swapping over to Mass air.









