“Would these little devils “leak” if they are not installed anywhere — just sitting in the bin?”
I suppose it’s possible but I think that they had a problem under load. Sometimes they would fail without leaking although usually they looked “puffed out”.
That’s what my husband said. So, it could be years before we discovered a problem. The caps sit here (probably on a tape), then they are installed and shipped, then they sit at the customer a while before he installs them. Heaven help us if they go into an assembly that has be be potted. We’d never find out what’s wrong. Nightmare alley.