I think this question exposes a problem with the fragmented sites. An electronics site should be able to answer the question but they forwarded it to us. Would we replace caps on the board? If be more likely to replace the whole board, not desolder a cap.

My opinion isn't strong on this one though. If you'd like to reopen, I wouldn't veto.

Sorry, they are transistors, not caps.

@BobCross Thanks Bob, I can repair most clusters in under an hour and with about $5 in parts. Many of the old Blazers and corvettes were easily fixed that way. Replacement clusters, or even rebuilt clusters cost several hundred dollars.

One of the things the industry is loosing is the repairing of components, hardly anyone rebuilds starters and alternators anymore. When this first started happening the rebuilt alternator or starter was really cheap, it got to where it wasn't as cost effective because replacements were so cheap.

Now that you can hardly find a rebuild shop, or even the parts sometimes, costs for the components have gotten a lot higher. Not sure if it's causation or just correlation. But at any rate, if you can find the parts to repair the components it can be a lot more cost effective.

@BobCross Agreed, but apparently repair is off-topic for them all together, they just focus on design which seems odd to me, but I don't use that stack at all.

@BobCross ... I was a bit taken aback by the Electronics.SE saying they don't do repair stuff? This would mean they only deal with theory? This seems totally bass-ackwards to me. It's not that I could answer any of these types of questions ... but I sure gave it a go trying to figure out what the transistors were the OP was trying to find out about. I have absolutely no clue on how to figure it out. Anyway.

@BobCross & @Movemorecommentslinktotop ... Personally, I appreciate that the question was opened back up. It gives the OP and others a place to be able to attempt to repair these kinds of things and it also leaves open another avenue for people to ask questions on here. This is about keeping the site viable and moving closer to being full fledged.

In other news, I discovered a bubble in the paint on a rear panel that looks like it wants to breed rust. In fairness, that would be the first spot in twelve years. Makes me sad though. The lady had a hard winter!

@BobCross :( Well at least you caught it early, should be that bad to fix it right now

Yeah I'm just in wow college tuitions are big numbers mindset right now.

@BobCross No kidding, we are paying off the wife's Law school debt :(

@BobCross Go in state, and go to Community College first...lol