R33 Steering Rack Solenoid

[89CAL]

I have no memory of the first post about the capicitors, even though I replied to it lol. I'll pull my ECU apart next week and have a look if I have the same issue. Might be alright if I just have to replace some capacitors. Just have to find somewhere to buy them. I basically only have Jaycar locally to buy these sort of things from.

[GTSBoy]

You can buy single components on line from RS Components or Farnell. That's a silly extreme - you'd not buy singles, you'd buy a few of each that you need at least. But the point is you can buy small quantities of good quality components from those sort of vendors on-line easily enough.

[89CAL]

Yeah that would be the plan.

Turboedsloth: Do you know what sort of capacitors, and how mant farad they were etc. Also how many I would need in a worse case scenario? chances are I'll order 10 or so anyway to make it worthwhile but I'd like to order now so that they will be waiting for me when I get home next wednesday

Edited June 11, 2014 by 89CAL

[89CAL]

So I ended up getting a second hand HICAS ECU and slotting it in. SO far its been O.K, but I've only done a little bit of testing yesterday but didn't play up once.

Opened my old one up and all the capacitors look fine. None of them look burnt or have exploded so yeah bit strange. Was going to put a meter on them but can't be bothered if the new one has fixed it. Maybe one day I will look at the one that came out of my car and re-pairing it, but dont think I will bother really lol

Will keep this updated as i go, but hopefully its all good now. I seem to have a series 2 HICAS ECU in the car now. was one part number higher then the one that came out, but so far no problems.

[GTSBoy]

Caps don't have to be too obviously damaged (ie burnt). If the top is bulgy that's a good sign. You can't actually just test them with a meter either. You have to have an ESR tester (Equivalent Series Resistance) to find out if they're still in tolerance. Bit of a pain in the arse.

[89CAL]

Yeah thats why I'm probably not going to bother testing. Meter only shows a problem some of the time so no real point. I'll just keep running the new one and hopefully it goes alright. $50 fix can't really complain. Have another solenoid for the rack lined up anyway so may chuck that in anyway or keep it as a spare

Thanks to the guys who pointed towards capacitors and it being an actual HICAS ECU problem. I would have messed around with the other end of things if not for that so thanks for saving me the trouble