Relay Board

[tracer]

Upon looking at my relay board it is very dusty and dirty. I was thinking about taking it out of the car and cleaning all the contacts and such which look like they have some corrosion on them now. Has anyone taken this job on and had some pitfalls or ??? All replys welcome here. Don't want to make a bigger mess for no reason.


------------------
Thanks,

Brian
'74 1.8L in resto

[HMeeder]

Brian;

I have pulled my relay board out and cleaned all the contacts. I had no problems. I used an electrical contact cleaner that you can buy for just a couple of bucks at Radio Shack. Also buffed all the contact surfaces with a fine emery cloth. I read somewhere about some old board's contacts becoming brittle. The circuit contacts are just pressed through the board. I have heard of someone resoldering the contacts.

Clean contacts make for good connections and a happy and strong running car

Good luck!


------------------
Herb
'72 1.7 Tangerine 'Teen
'74 2.0 Red Rustmobile

[Lawrence914]

Hi there!

Relay boards can get pretty disgusting. On the underside is a black tar-like substance. If it's cracking and brittle, you might want to consider replacing it. Remove it gently (warm it to peel the majority away softly, and then use a solvent to clean it up). Replace with a substance called potting compound. I did this on my 914/6 and it really did the trick. The guys on the Rennlist turned me onto this trick.

[Lawrence914]

Dear Brian,

Herb is right on the money. Something else you might want to consider is inspecting the back side of the relay board. They tend to get pretty disgusting.

If the back side of your relay board is all cracked, you can remove the tar-like compound with a heat gun and some GENTLE scraping. Then, use a solvent to clean the residue up.

Get some potting compound, and you can reline the underside of your board. My old 914/6 was pretty nasty, but now it's nice and neat.

[tracer]

Thanks for the encouragement, I cleaned it all up today and now it looks great.


------------------
Thanks,

Brian
'74 1.8L in resto