147 GTA ECU Failure

[norman gen]

A big shout out to Baz - On the Spot Alfa for getting my GTA back on the road after diagnosing and repairing my dead ecu

The car was sent to the local Authorised Alfa Service Centre in Tas. I get a call back from them some 3 weeks later telling me what I already knew - new ecu's are NLA. It was suggested I send the ecu off to an auto electronics guy they knew who could possibly repair my ecu for a similar cost to a new ecu , when they were listed as being available - the price was in the vicinity of $3K.

Seeing Baz offer good free advice to many an alfa forum member I thought it would be prudent to query Baz about my problem. He advised he could check it it out and repair for a nominal fee far, far below my initial quote.

The ecu was sent to On the Spot Alfa in Qld and received 2 weeks later (Baz was recuperating from an illness and apologised for the extra week's delay)

Suffice to say the GTA is back on the road to enjoy the many pure driving roads on offer in Tas.

Thanks again to Baz  - On the Spot Alfa

[poohbah]

Excellent news, Baz will be first call on my list if my GTA ECU fails. As a a matter of intetest, was the failure down to the rectangular capacitor coming unglued from the circuit board? I've seen a couple of YouTube fixit videos repairing that.

As a preventative measure I'm looking into getting data and settings on my existing ECU cloned, so they can be uploaded onto a replacement unit if ever needed.

[warsch]

Bazz is great, good to know he's back in action. And good to learn he can help with ECUs. I know there's some guy in Sydney resoldering ECUs at a good price.

[norman gen]

baz did replace a capacitor but I'm not sure which one....he also had to re solder some broken joins

[poohbah]

Glad someone we know locally (virtually) can do this job.

[Craig_m67]

He's actually a certified rocket scientist type ... potty mouth though 👍

[bazzbazz]

Thanks again to Baz  - On the Spot Alfa

One is glad to be of service.

potty mouth though 👍

I assure you Sir, my elocution is up there with the greats, Plato (the great philosopher), Shakespeare (the great playwright), Clarkson (the great ape)!

[SeleMatt]

Great story.
Bazz is the man.

[poohbah]

For those interested there is a young Sydney fella on YT who's posted a video showing how to repair the GTA ECU with conductive epoxy.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mh0-ppZhed0

[bazzbazz]

While not wishing to demean Luey's achievements, and it's a novel approach, there are few problems with this -

1/ Two things that Conductive Epoxy does not like, heat and vibration.

2/ Should the Capacitor fail in the future, good luck removing it without destroying the circuit board.

3/ There is a reason why the joint is supposed to be cured at 150'C, its why when he does the second continuity test the meter does not "Zero out".

The biggest issue repairing these units is people who are not trained in re-working surface mount circuit boards "having a go"
and making a mess of things, as one can see in this video the mess that someone has already made of the circuit board.

And no, just because someone knows how to solder does not make them qualified to do this job, for a start a soldering iron is not used to re-attach surface mount components.

Please understand that this is not an act of self promotion, it's just over the years I have had several ECU's sent to me where an attempt has been made to repair them elsewhere, and I have unfortunately had to give the owner the grim news.

On a completely different note, the best ECU modification one can carry out on your 156GTA/147GTA/GT ECU is fitting a metal heat shield around the ECU, as Luey has done. You'll notice it at the 55 second mark, and it's something we can fit for you if your in our area.

[poohbah]

Thanks Bazz, rest assured I would never be tempted to have a go myself on my GTA with either solder or epoxy!

[bazzbazz]

Where's your sense of adventure, I mean what could go wrong?

It's not like it could burst into flames or anything . . . . . . . . .