Is A/C capacitor supposed to look like this?

 Trane central air unit quit doing its thing (recently made another
post about it) and I finally cracked open the housing.

Here are some pics - front and rear of a capacitor and a pano of the
electronics. Am I mistaken or is the cap leaking stuff out that it's
not supposed to be leaking? If so, under what heading in the yellow
pages should I be looking for replacement pieces?

http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/3/22/2800754/cap_front.jpg

http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/3/22/2800754/cap_rear.jpg

http://www.fileden.com/files/2010/3/22/2800754/electronics.jpg


Anything else you see that stands out as being obviously bad or
suspicious? I can take closeups of anything you want a better look at.

Thanks for all input.

 

Look under > electric motor repairs<   ww

 wrote:


Yes, this is the place, assuming it it the cap.

 brassplyer wrote:

Yellow pages? How quaint!

Enter "air conditioning capacitor" + {name of your town} in Google.

Take the presumed defective one with you. Say "Gimme one of these" to the
guy at the counter.

 How do you know it's the cap? You have to start with the basics first.
When you turn down your t-stat to turn on the A/C, the contactor
should click closed. If it doesn't, you have to look at that first.