"Leonard Caillouet" wrote in message news:PH4fd.74459$hj.51928@fed1read07...

I find leaky caps that test fine for ESR all the time. If
they are mounted so that you can't see the legs, which most
larger caps are, you have to perform the "smell" test or
remove them to inspect them. The smell test consists of heating
the legs and noting whether you smell bad tuna or not.

When in doubt replace. A few caps is not worth the time to have
to go back into the unit a second time.

Thanks for the information. I wrongly thought that if a capacitor had
low ESR and wasn't shorted that it was OK. That's interesting about
the smell test.

I was going to replace all the caps, but the only ones available
locally are either too fat, mystery brands, or old enough to have been
made at the same time as all those defective Taiwan caps.