Just took out the door lock timer from my max (92 GXE) and disconnected all powers. From what I see on the timer there are 12 silver connectors on the right side and 6 bronze connectors on the left. My question is Do I have to resolder all the 18 connectors? It seems that these 12 connectors are hard to reach. What do you guys do with them? Any good suggestions? How much is the new part?

Thanks a lot!

Buzzhd

 

Pull the cover off of it and you'll see the solder pads on the circuit board. resolder all of the ones that deal with power- basically anything with large wires or ones that are around the relay. should get you back up and going again.

new ones are $60 or so, I believe... if you can't fix it or don't want to mess with it, mail it to me and I'll repair it for a small fee. email me for more info. blehm@utulsa.edu

 

Thanks! But do you mean the solder pads are the connectors or two separate things? I am kinda new, but would like to save some money for this 10 year-old car. I want to make sure I have to resolder the pads on the circuit board or connectors (18 of them) or both? Relay is the black plastic thing on the board?

 

What I did was carefully inspect all the joints on the entire board. A magnifying glass will help. Look to see if there are any joints that have a slight hair line crack in it. I saw one of those and resoldered it and plugged it in and it's been working ever since. And if it ever breaks again, I will quickly do the same thing. It's not time consuming at all.

If that quick fix doesn't work, then resolder all the joints on the board and make sure they are all new and shiny. And if that doesn't work, replace all the capacitors or just mail it to Matt and he'll take care of you.

 

if you're good with a soldering iron and have a solder sucker, the whole job takes about 15 minutes to resolder all the connections on the entire board.
usually, I'll crack open two or three of them at once and it takes only marginally longer. it takes more time to set up the tools and heat the soldering irons than it does for me to do the fix.

 

it's funny this morning the door lock came back and now it can lock and unlock. I have alarm system installed on my car. Could it be alarm triggers the door lock or it's my door lock time?

 

Well, that is a good sign that the door lock timer is on the way out... loose connection. I believe that this morning it was cold, so I guess it made a connection b/c it might have swelled or something. I am also guessing that your door lock timers don't work when it gets much warmer... like later that day.

My friend's locks went through the same phase.. and now they don't work.

When I bought my car, my locks didn't work and my timer was already messed up. If you know how to solder, then take out your door lock timer do the job.

I didn't know how to solder before my door lock timer went out, but I learned. I grabbed an old modem and resoldered a bunch of joints. Once I got to the point that I was able to make a perfect shiny solder joint that sucked itself into the hole... then I was ready.

 

thanks very much for the info! Yeah, I will get a chance to do the soldering.