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Is your TPS a POS? If so, rebuild it!


natallica
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O.K here it goes,

 

Long Story short, I bought a used TPS off of a member here and he claimed it "sweep tested great!" Well, guess what, the needle jumped all over the place.

 

So I thought instead of throwing $25 in the trash I'll cut it apart and see what it looks like and find out how they work. And here's what I did to fix it.

  • I took a Dremel tool with a cutting wheel and went about 3/16" of an inch behind the wires, and was careful to only cut through the thin plastic housing.

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02640.jpg

  • Pulled the halves apart, carefully!

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02641.jpg

  • I cleaned the 'circuit' (black and green) surface of the carbon deposits and Q-Tipped the "fingers" of the other half. Be careful not to pull or bend the brushes they break off easily

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02643.jpg

  • I also took the liberty of fixing those pesky broken wires by de-soldering and prying the brass clips up/cutting and re-stripping the wires, then I further strengthened them by adding some heat-shrink tubing where they penetrate the housing. Afterward I copied Mitsu and coated the whole section with JB. I'm assuming they used a similar product because it's a real chore carefully chipping it off.

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02644.jpg http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02648.jpg

  • I then reinstalled the 'circuit piece' back into the housing using very little JB Weld around the outer edge to hold it in place (Be mindful not to get ANY on the face of the circuit board), You'll find there is a flat spot on the 'circuit piece' so it's impossible to put it back incorrectly

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02646.jpg http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02648.jpg

 

  • Now, I know you're all gonna laugh at me here :) but...) I took a Mountain Dew bottle cap, drilled 3 holes in it, cut slots for the wires to slide into it and filled the whole inside of the cap with JB. Then I adhered the cap to the rear and let it set up really good... this allows it to totally seal all of the wiring from the elements (wiping off the excess and trying to make the cob-job look semi professional!)

http://i1234.photobucket.com/albums/ff408/n8tallica1/DSC02649.jpg

 

I'm sure if you guys look around you can find something that may be aesthetically better than a bottle cap, but believe it or not it make holding and moving the TPS during a reset a lot easier with the grippies. I was just playing around to see if it would work, and by George it works like a champ. So if you can solder and you have $5.00 for some JB Weld (Kwik Set)

 

Long story short, it didn't sweep test at first, now it sweeps great! And hit's 5.0 volts so I must've done something right!

 

*Please note, I assume no responsibility if you damage the one and only TPS off of your car. If you're feeling froggy and you want to "try" this repair, I highly recommend you pick up a junk TPS from the For Sale boards... trust me they aren't that hard to locate :)

 

 

Thanks for reading this and please let me know if this works for you, or if this helps you at all, You guys always go out of your way to assist me, so I can finally contribute something to the community :) Besides the decals and overlays.

 

Thanks

-N8

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Very nice, I tried to fix mine once and fubared it pretty hard. Maybe you should offer this service?

 

I thought about it Sir, but I know my luck!

And there are too many variables with other folks property...if something goes wrong I'm screwed. Don;t really wanna get blackballed from here for something stupid.

 

But I wouldn't mind helping the guys out and possibly making a couple dollars doing it, as long as they'd be aware...it may not fix it, it's a gamble because of the internals.

I cut up my old one and the inner brush had 3 bristles on it (as opposed to hundreds) and there is NO fixing that.

 

-N8

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Nice! Great work!

 

This isn't the proper forum for this good technical info.....so what is everyone's thoughts about moving this to the FAQ section? Bad thing about the FAQ section is nobody can post discussions/etc.

 

kev

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This isn't the proper forum for this good technical info.....so what is everyone's thoughts about moving this to the FAQ section? Bad thing about the FAQ section is nobody can post discussions/etc.

 

kev

 

Thanks Kev,

I wasn't really sure where to post it. I didn't really think it should go in the VM forum ( but I guess it's possible), I figured a mod may move it, if the deem it necessary.

 

-N8

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