ECU protection

lunchbox

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
2,133
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St Louis, MO
What have the masses done to keep that expensive pile of shit out of harms way. I just had to replace mine (again) because it’s rusted to shit and actually had debris inside it. Aside from sealing the plastic cover to the truck, what have you done? Has anyone tried a rust preventive paint?

chad
 

ERover82

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Nov 26, 2011
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Darien Gap
 

fishEH

Well-known member
Jan 26, 2009
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Lake Villa, IL
I knew a guy that relocated it into the glove box, but it was a major pain given the size of the connectors. I also thought there was some kind of epoxy that could be poured inside the ECU that would solidify and essentially waterproof it.
 

p m

Administrator
Staff member
Apr 19, 2004
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La Jolla, CA
www.3rj.org
I also thought there was some kind of epoxy that could be poured inside the ECU that would solidify and essentially waterproof it.
Some of the ECU components would eventually fry due to the lack of heat exchange.
I remember somebody took time to cut the harness to ECU, place ECU in a Pelican case, pass the harness through the hole in the case, and seal the hole.
It can be done well enough for ECU not to get wet even it were submerged for hours, but... cooling concerns remain.
You can substitute an aluminum NEMA enclosure for Pelican and do the same.
 
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kennith

Well-known member
Apr 22, 2004
10,891
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North Carolina
Some of the ECU components would eventually fry due to the lack of heat exchange.
I remember somebody took time to cut the harness to ECU, place ECU in a Pelican case, pass the harness through the hole in the case, and seal the hole.
It can be done well enough for ECU not to get wet even it were submerged for hours, but... cooling concerns remain.
You can substitute an aluminum NEMA enclosure for Pelican and do the same.

Just seal a CPU heat sink to the lid, let the heat pipes pass through, and put a thermal pad on the ECU. When you shut it you're good.

You can even buy the individual parts if you want it to look nice and not take up much room. It's not difficult to work with heat pipes. This is exactly why they're used in so many oddball environments.

It's just something people don't really think about unless they work for NASA or dick around with computers a lot. I don't know who invented the heat pipe, but that was one clever sum'bitch. If there's no way to get rid of heat... That's generally going to be the answer.

Cheers,

Kennith
 

lunchbox

Well-known member
Apr 20, 2004
2,133
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St Louis, MO
Yeah. I just want to stop the bottom from rusting. The top is covered with the factory plastic and glued into place. If I can just paint it or spray it, I will. I wasn’t sure of any heat issues or conductive issues