Relay board repair, How I did mine Options

[Bartlett 914]

I have a relay board that was giving me grief. Several times the car would not start. Cleaning the fuse seemed to help but once in a great while the problem returned. The problem was the fuse holder. As these connections get dirty, they heat up. The problem in my case was aggravated by the use of the heater fan. This draws more current and made the problem of the fuse heating worse. I have some before and after pictures. You can see how the fuse holder is leaning back. If you look closer, you can see melted plastic where it is mounted. My solution was to install a new fuse holder. I recently installed an Engman fuse panel so now all my fuses will be the newer style. No more VW fuses! Te resin I used was Vagabond Model-cast 3521S black. This stuff flows like water and dries pretty fast. It is hard when cured and looks real nice. The biggest problem is the resin flowing through the board and leaking. I knew this would happen and I taped where I thought it would leak out. I missed the voltage regulator socket. It looked fine from the rear but it leaked real bad. I had quite a time sealing this up. If you do this, try epoxy first to seal where the pins come through.

[Bartlett 914]

kjyf

[VaccaRabite]

kjyf

Hey, I know this is an old thread, but I may need to renue my board.

How did you get up all the old potting? I know you said you hit everything with a little glass bead, but did you do any testing of the relay board to make sure all the connections were solid?

Zach

[Bartlett 914]

kjyf

Hey, I know this is an old thread, but I may need to renue my board.

How did you get up all the old potting? I know you said you hit everything with a little glass bead, but did you do any testing of the relay board to make sure all the connections were solid?

Zach

Good news and bad news here. I still have that board. I came out great looking and worked awhile but the old issue came back. I replaced it and I never went back to see exactly where the issue is. I suspect there is a bad connection with the buss bars and probably a relay socket pin. I have heard that these should be soldered first and then the epoxy installed. Now that this has been done, it is too late for mine. I consider the board to be not repairable at this time.
The epoxy was from Smooth-on. If someone does this there is a problem with the epoxy running through where relay connections are located. Make extra sure these holes are plugged somehow.

[porschetub]

kjyf

Hey, I know this is an old thread, but I may need to renue my board.

How did you get up all the old potting? I know you said you hit everything with a little glass bead, but did you do any testing of the relay board to make sure all the connections were solid?

Zach

Good news and bad news here. I still have that board. I came out great looking and worked awhile but the old issue came back. I replaced it and I never went back to see exactly where the issue is. I suspect there is a bad connection with the buss bars and probably a relay socket pin. I have heard that these should be soldered first and then the epoxy installed. Now that this has been done, it is too late for mine. I consider the board to be not repairable at this time.
The epoxy was from Smooth-on. If someone does this there is a problem with the epoxy running through where relay connections are located. Make extra sure these holes are plugged somehow.

Seems when they are shite they don't work again after TLC mine was no better and still had a dead pump feed,got a reconditioned unit from a very good seller on here and all is well.