SharkSkin

Well, it's a pain, but it worked for me. Aha, you have the connector shells in the way on the later panel. You might have been better off with a straight brush, like the pic below. Mine had no obstructions, so was just a matter of approaching at an angle with the disc-shaped brush.

Alan

The connector shells are removable - although since they are 3 sided that will only really help you with one side of one row - it will allow easier handling and better angles with a dremmel tool so may be enough...

The shells do get brittle so proceed with care... this also has the advantage that damage is replaceable with an ~good donor panel...

Still don't think I'd do this unless my panel was in a bad way already

Alan

SharkSkin

Alan, the patina he's describing sounds pretty hardcore...

Clay,

Jascd

I had a problem with one of my fans going off line, the whole story would take pages to tell but i have replaced the fan loom, fan output stage, checked the fans, battery connections, fuses and a whole bunch of stuff over a lot of hours but still sometimes the passenger fan would not work and sometimes the fuse for that fan would fail. In a moment of brilliance I noticed that the fuses were not blowing so much as melting. I spoke with a mechanic friend who instantly said poor contact leading to high resistance. I replaced the fuse, ran the car with fans on and measured upwards of 110 degrees C on the fuse. I pulled the fuse holder apart and what i saw gave me bit of a shiver, maybe this is the sort of thing that leads to some of those CE fires I have read about?

I replaced the copper parts and have got the temp down to maybe 70 degrees. Still a bit high but I will monitor it. Anyway the point is, you probably need to be careful to not remove too much when cleaning the contacts or you could end up with my problem, especially on those 30 amp circuits.

Alan

Jason,
As you proved the fuse block (unit of 5) are also replaceable (though are uniquely numbered - if you care since its normally not readable). jason - yes good point... loose clean fuse terminals can quickly become damaged & 'tight' but carbonized and this can cause local heating due to contact resistance esp on high power circuits - Its clear this could be a source of fires - if not directly - melting the insulation off the wire ends creates lots of new secondary risks...

Clay - It would be nice to see the before & after pictures to have feel for what you are working with here (as Dave subtley pointed out )

You can see here how the colored plug shell sockets attach modularly.

Alan

SharkSkin

Jason, you're right, that may have become a fire some day... nice catch!

FlyingDog

I think each block is different. The top row of contacts is bridged into different buses.

Alan

Matt,
Yes - some do have internal adjacent contact bridging & once the blocks are out that is obvious and quite easy to modify. Note these connections are also year specific. Some of the fuse input bridging shown on the CE diagram is actually either wired directly (daisy chain loops) or implemented via the plug in 30 bus-bar at the top (central portion). Thats why most of the 30 supplied fuses are always in the middle of the panel.

Alan

gasmanstl

But in my own defense, my digital camera and software is not real user friendly ...however, I did take some pics this evening. However, although I have a nice, pro-quality camera, apparently I don't know how to drive it very well. Oh, no...the pics are terrific. But the files are so big, Rennlist won't take them. They're like 292k, and they can only be 140k. I can probably save them smaller somehow, but I'm afraid I'm digitally challenged. Perhaps soon I will figure it out. I wouldn't be able to show "complete" before and after, because the panel is already pretty much done - BUT two of the connectors are unused, so I didn't do them, and at least I could show them as contrast. Let's just say it's impressive. Dave, you're right about the connector shells and the brushes. No way to get the big round one in there, though it had originally been my plan. And I did use a brush shaped like the second one you showed - long and skinny at the end, and it fit just fine...but it was made of BRASS, and the brass just wasn't as hard as the oxide coating. I mean, no matter how long I held it there. The brush was coming apart, but the coating was UN-touched. I didn't have a skinny *steel* brush, and I'm not sure they even make them. But I *did* have a nice diamond abrasive point, shaped much like the brush, but slightly thinner. Worked OK, but I wish I had a polishing point that small too. The abrasive left the blades a bit scratched up, which perfectionistic me doesn't like. But I think it'll be fine, especially with stabilant. I roughed up the connectors inside the plugs, too. Other than that oxide corrosion, the panel is really in good shape. No burned wires in back, and only 2 of the fuse receptacles have been hot enough to appear slightly crispy: the (HVAC) blower motor, and the rear window defroster. No crispy relay plugs. Also wirebrushing/cleaning female contacts of ignition and fuel injection brainboxes and connector plugs, and the lamp-checking computer sentry thingie.

Will try to figure this picture thing out and post the pics. Looks like I might need a crappy camera to do it...

Clay

Alan

Clay,
You need software - not a crappy camera!!

You can use the free Microsoft Photo Editor (you may have to load it from the Windows disk) or really any image editor (photoshop or similar) - just look under image/resize (or similar) and change the size and resolution to compress down and maybe crop too to get below the size limits...

Not really hard but just a few extra steps...

Alan

SharkSkin

Clay, check this out: http://picasa.google.com It does the trick, delivers higher compression with better quality results compared to M$ stuff. Makes it easy to resize too. That skinny brush is available in steel, maybe your hardware store was out of stock or doesn't carry it. Sounds like you're making good progress though!

Alan

Dave - yeah why didn't I think of that - I've got Picasa on my machine - its wonderful (and Free!) though I only use if for Photo organization & browsing - Google is good! Google is good!

(though I do wonder about their global domination plans - just not as much as I worry about the Microserfs...)

Alan

SharkSkin

Yeah, It's cool for the work laptop... The home machine does more of the heavy lifting though, Pshop, Thumbs+, etc.

I haven't compared picasa to Pshops web-optimized output but it might be an interesting experiment.

gasmanstl

How cool...thanks for the tip. I have needed a thing like this for awhile.

Here are pics:

Note top left connector in green set where I just began to clean it before I realized it was unused. That pic is pretty true-to-life.

Fuses: Note that the ones on the right are already wire-brushed <gag>...the one on left is almost new.

Wire brush: I know it looks like it will work, but believe me, it doesn't. I wished it had, while I was sitting there trying to *barely* touch these blades, with the grinding point absolutely parallel, so that I removed the oxide but as little of the metal as possible...and symmetrically. If I'd only known there were steel, round pointy brushes, I'd have probably ordered one from siberia and waited.

Relay: The flash has hit the front blade (which is wire-brushed) a little too hard...and it also makes the other ones look a little lighter, I think. I should have set up a spotlight to shoot all of these instead of just using the flash. This pic doesn't really do the contrast between the blades justice. It's actually more striking.

THERE...EVERYBODY HAPPY NOW??

Today I cleaned the ground point behind the CE and alllll of the "plugs" in the passenger footwell and behind the CE and used stabilant on them. Tomorrow I"ll take that plastic grille behind the glovebox off...hey Stan...what about that condensate pan?

FlyingDog

Clay, you're probably better off just buying new relays. That one is 22 years old. I have found out recently that 21-23 year old relays don't like being removed, moved, touched or even breathed on.