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940 Manual Climate Control repair

Mr. V

Active member
Joined
Jul 5, 2004
Location
Portland, Oregon metro
1992 940 Turbo with manual climate control: it stopped working, as did the A/C.

Removed unit from dash, disassembled to expose circuit board, looked for evidence of failed solder joint (per repair link from brickboard): nothing visible.

Stymied, I took the unit to an electronic repair shop: the owner usually repairs stereos.

He tested it, found a bad solder joint and repaired it: took about 15-20 minutes.

I watched him do it: large, illuminated magnifying glass, myriad electronic test gear, specialized soldering and desoldering gear and techniques.

He said "no charge," but not wanting to impose I flipped him $20.

A new unit is reported to be about $400; a rebuilt one is over $200.
 
1992 940 Turbo with manual climate control: it stopped working, as did the A/C.

Removed unit from dash, disassembled to expose circuit board, looked for evidence of failed solder joint (per repair link from brickboard): nothing visible.

Stymied, I took the unit to an electronic repair shop: the owner usually repairs stereos.

He tested it, found a bad solder joint and repaired it: took about 15-20 minutes.

I watched him do it: large, illuminated magnifying glass, myriad electronic test gear, specialized soldering and desoldering gear and techniques.

He said "no charge," but not wanting to impose I flipped him $20.

A new unit is reported to be about $400; a rebuilt one is over $200.

my eyes are soooo flaky I have to use a 10x loupe:
http://www.harborfreight.com/5-piece-loupe-set-98722.html

the "10x" one works really well....
 
He did you a favor. When I went to an electronics shop with the same issue on 3 of them he wanted $40 each.
I got the new relay, also as mentioned on BB, and that works well, as does new solder on an old relay. Reflowing the old solder does not seem to last, at least on the 4-5 I've tried it on.
 
I have never had the ability to properly solder things, so I was happy to turn it over to a pro.

He "desoldered" the board to remove the relay for bench testing (it was OK), then quickly resoldered it.

He used some weird fabric looking stuff to "desolder," which I didn't understand at all.
 
desoldering is an either/or/both kinda thing. sometimes the braid works really well, sometimes the sucker works really well, and sometimes you get hosed up and have to fiddle with some combination of the two before ruining the pcb
 
the relay is never bad, it just needs a new bead of solder laid on each contact. it's stupid simple.

don't want to do it yourself? ship it to me and i'll refurbish it for you.

sounds like another good article idea for me to write on the next one i do.
 
the relay is never bad, it just needs a new bead of solder laid on each contact. it's stupid simple.

don't want to do it yourself? ship it to me and i'll refurbish it for you.

sounds like another good article idea for me to write on the next one i do.

That's good to know because I have a stack of the controllers that don't work. Probably, at least 10 of them. I'll fix them all at once. Marathon soldering adventure. BTW, I've fixed at least 10 clusters since your other article.
 
It's time for me to fix the cluster AND relay. Fuel gauge isn't working and sometimes when I turn on the HVAC fan the speedo drops or dies for a few minutes.

Same deal with every other relay in this damn 940.
 
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