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I have been reading what I can on bad ECM's on the net and for the Toyota pickup there is very little info.  Mostly water damage and voltage spikes.  My cab is bone dry, so I do not see that as an issue.  The spikes have me curious, the Toy sits alot and I use a charger at times.  I have an older but quality charger capable of putting out 20 amps.   Could a charger be the cause of my problem?  

  Jim

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Too many threads to keep up with. You do any welding on your rig?

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50 minutes ago, jjrbus said:

I have been reading what I can on bad ECM's on the net and for the Toyota pickup there is very little info.  Mostly water damage and voltage spikes.  My cab is bone dry, so I do not see that as an issue.  The spikes have me curious, the Toy sits alot and I use a charger at times.  I have an older but quality charger capable of putting out 20 amps.   Could a charger be the cause of my problem?  

  Jim

I find one big problem with trying to glean info on the Web. If it happens to be a subject you are not privy too, how do you weed out the bad from the good? I know this.  When I stumble upon something that I DO know about - what I read if most often wrong.  As far as computers go - in my experience - they just have one small circuit fail somewhere and that because there is NO fuse protection.  Lets say one leg of the ECM controls a solenoid and that solenoid shorts out. It instantly burns out that one circuit in the ECM..   So far, every computer  I have ever replaced, and had a chance to find out what circuit failed, went bad from an external failure like that.  Can't prove a negative though, so I cannot say other types of failures "never" happen.

Just had the computer board go bad in our Jenn Air electric wall oven.  That happened when a Fox squirrel got turned into toast up on our electric transformer on the pole and our power went out due to the transformer fuse being blown.  Power company fixed right way but then we found out double oven no longer worked.  Typical example of some sort of external cause (this time a squirrel).  I was surprised to find out that Jenn Air, or Sears, called our $2000 oven that was new in 1995, obsolete and had NO repair parts.  To make it worse - I found a place in Florida that specializes in repairing "obsolete" boards.  I called them and they said it would cost $75 to check my board, and $150 to fix IF they can fix it. They said some of the original firmware is "proprietary" and Jenn Air does not release it. So if certain chips are fried, there is NO fix.  We sent it in, and they DID fix it for the $150.  Works perfect now.  For all I know, they had to solder in a ten-cent fuse somewhere.  Very happy to have it back and working.

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I did have a bit of welding done, that was over a year ago, so I discounted it. I'm sure we disconnected the battery when doing. 

Interesting thing on the net, for Toyota pickups, they seem to be bullet proof and most claim rarely go bad. There is very little about the PU ECM which in a round about way backs up that claim.   The 4Runner is found all over with bad ECM's, so many so I doubt I would buy a 4Runner!   Of course the ECM might not be the cause of the 4Runner's woe's. Not sure maybe there were 20 times more 4Runners sold?  

The external issues have me nervous,  if this were a $10 part I could run down the road to buy, I would not be concerned. Out of curiosity I am going to put my battery charger on a battery and check its output.  It is scheduled for delivery today, but do not expect to install it today.

Now that I am thinking about it, is there any reason I should not open the ECM and see what they did?

Thanks for the responses always greatly appreciated.      Jim

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Look at the receipt, if there is any warranty question about the ecm repair, opening it up could be a problem.

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Mr Brown delivered it and it is sitting here....    Receipt says replace 2 capacitors and corroded (looks like trecc?) then in parentheses says power circuit.

Tape on ECM says Warranty void if seal is broken.   Now I wish I would have opened it up before I sent it.    Jim

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6 hours ago, jjrbus said:

Mr Brown delivered it and it is sitting here....    Receipt says replace 2 capacitors and corroded (looks like trecc?) then in parentheses says power circuit.

Tape on ECM says Warranty void if seal is broken.   Now I wish I would have opened it up before I sent it.    Jim

Triac????

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7 hours ago, WME said:

Triac????

I suspect it is trace?   Triac is a possibility, of course I had to look it up to see what it is.   Jim

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Well all that matters is it runs the engine.

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15 hours ago, jjrbus said:

Mr Brown delivered it and it is sitting here....    Receipt says replace 2 capacitors and corroded (looks like trecc?) then in parentheses says power circuit.

Tape on ECM says Warranty void if seal is broken.   Now I wish I would have opened it up before I sent it.    Jim

If it just had bad caps, that would be a failure NOT caused by something external. Caps just get weak over time, AND there are been a few bad runs of Chinese caps that caused many failures in boards all over the world.  But just because they replaced a few weak caps does not mean it had anything to do with your engine running or not.  Seems you will find out soon.

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2 hours ago, jdemaris said:

If it just had bad caps, that would be a failure NOT caused by something external. Caps just get weak over time, AND there are been a few bad runs of Chinese caps that caused many failures in boards all over the world.  But just because they replaced a few weak caps does not mean it had anything to do with your engine running or not.  Seems you will find out soon.

Thanks for the input.  When I was reading about this, the Toy caps are  pretty good.  It was caps not manufactured by I think it was  Denso?  That were causing the problems.  Many warn to only buy replacement caps from authorized supplies and not from Ebay and Amazon and such.  Seems the aftermarket ones leave out a key ingredient.  That's if you can believe what is on the net.

I hooked my battery charger up with a volt meter and have not seen the output go over 15.8 V.   Of course only a random sample, I cannot stand there and watch it all the time.

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34 minutes ago, jjrbus said:

Thanks for the input.  When I was reading about this, the Toy caps are  pretty good.  It was caps not manufactured by I think it was  Denso?  That were causing the problems.  Many warn to only buy replacement caps from authorized supplies and not from Ebay and Amazon and such.  Seems the aftermarket ones leave out a key ingredient.  That's if you can believe what is on the net.

I hooked my battery charger up with a volt meter and have not seen the output go over 15.8 V.   Of course only a random sample, I cannot stand there and watch it all the time.

The big "capacitor crisis" was maybe 5 years ago.  A company in China was making caps for many high-end name-brands, as well as el-cheapo stuff.  Mostly TVs and monitors as I recall.  There were early failures all over the place.  Those caps just went dead or worse, shorted.   No nice gradual "fade away" death like a good cap is supposed to do - like the old wax-paper caps in tube radios from the 20s-50s.

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1 hour ago, jdemaris said:

The big "capacitor crisis" was maybe 5 years ago.  A company in China was making caps for many high-end name-brands, as well as el-cheapo stuff.  Mostly TVs and monitors as I recall.  There were early failures all over the place.  Those caps just went dead or worse, shorted.   No nice gradual "fade away" death like a good cap is supposed to do - like the old wax-paper caps in tube radios from the 20s-50s.

I looked around the drug store and they do not have a cap tester,  I notice the tube testers are not there anymore either.      Jim

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4 hours ago, Derek up North said:

I don't think we've heard if it does yet. :)

I had to stop and fix the door, it's rainy season in FL, so never know when the rains will start.  

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I gently carry my refurbed ECM out to the toy and set it on the floor.  I go and unhook both battery cables, the + and - . Then I carefully install the ECM in its appointed location, not tightening the bolts too much or too little.  I slowly insert the plugs into there receptacles waiting to feel the click of there full insertion, then give a gentle tug to make sure.

I go out to the engine compartment and and, should I hook up the + first or the - first,  I hate not being able to remember.   I go with +, no smoke, no sparks a sigh of relief.   I go over what I have unhooked by the engine and find  the clips from the coil wire missing, I quickly find and install them and go over everything a 2nd time. 

I get the key and move the accumulated things off the driver seat and sit down.  I hesitate, I do not want to insert the key, but I do.   Holding my breath with great trepidation I force myself to turn the key, slowly it moves.  Then click and the check engine light comes on, I breath, my pulse drops and I have never been so happy to see a CEL!  

I turn the key farther and it is turning, it cranks for a couple seconds, OH NO, it's not going to start, it never cranks this much.  ZOOOOM! it fires up,  Thank you Toyota God's, thank you forum, thank you Ebay, thank you ECM re builder.    Life is good.     Jim

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hot dawg!  i'm about to head out myself.  glad to hear your trip will come together.  can you post the info on the place you go it done?

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I am so happy this all worked out. You should be proud of yourself for sticking with your gut. Almost every Toyota site said it probably wasn't the ECM but in your case it was. Hope all your other updating, which looks fabulous by the way, comes out just the way you want.

Linda S

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Thanks for the responses, greatly appreciated.It was not so much my gut as not being left with any other options.  Everything tested good except the MAF.   

 

I went through Ebay    http://www.ebay.com/itm/321708270034?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

SIA  Electronics

730 N Minnie St

Tilden, IL

               62292

I was impressed with the turnaround, really quick

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Caps dry out with age early 2000 to 2004  computers had issues with bad caps that came from China the tops of the caps had an "X" mark it was a case of stolen design the only problem the design was not complete when it was copied and they failed right and left. I would think the ign driver would more than likely be  a triac because they can stand a pretty good current load.

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9 hours ago, jdemaris said:

The big "capacitor crisis" was maybe 5 years ago.  A company in China was making caps for many high-end name-brands, as well as el-cheapo stuff.  Mostly TVs and monitors as I recall.  There were early failures all over the place.  Those caps just went dead or worse, shorted.   No nice gradual "fade away" death like a good cap is supposed to do - like the old wax-paper caps in tube radios from the 20s-50s.

I re-worked a lot of Samsung power supplies in flat screen tv's for people several years ago.  Everyone seemed to have them die.  Just replaced a few caps and done.  Funny thing is, there is only a small cost difference to specify better quality caps.  I guess in quantity it adds up.  I thought the ones in the Samsung were too low of a rated operating temp on a power supply.  50-75 cents each maybe in small quantity at the time.

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Scroll up a bit,  I could have used them direct, but thought that Ebay and Pay Pal put a little leverage in my corner.

I have not had a chance to drive it much and it is running a little funny,  I checked and it looks like it will take the computer a bit to get back to normal.   Not running badly just seems a bit off.  Jim

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Nothing that old will "adapt".

On 5/27/2016 at 8:48 PM, Back East Don said:

I re-worked a lot of Samsung power supplies in flat screen tv's for people several years ago.  Everyone seemed to have them die.  Just replaced a few caps and done.  Funny thing is, there is only a small cost difference to specify better quality caps.  I guess in quantity it adds up.  I thought the ones in the Samsung were too low of a rated operating temp on a power supply.  50-75 cents each maybe in small quantity at the time.

Got a very nice plasma Vizio TV at the dump cost me $3.14 to replace 3 caps that was 4 years ago.

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