How to save yourself $1,000

ZetaTre

Active member
San Diego County
Here's the story: last time we went with IMZ4N to Cars & Coffee, somehow we got to my battery compartment and, as usual, I got crap on how my cars are dirty (although this is my wifes, so technically I shouldn't be the one cleaning it :oops: ), and why I haven't I vacuum the chips from there, and bla bla bla... :D
Chips were there when I bought the car, so I have no clue how they got in the battery compartment, but cleaning them was on the to-do-list. So last weekend I decide to do it: I pulled out everything from there, including the battery and the amp. I dumped a bucket of water and added some baking soda to neutralize any spill of sulfuric acid that might have heppened (you nver know, not everyone out there cares about their Zes)...
Time to reconnect everything and... the radio doesn't work anymore. Long story short: along with chips the previous owner spilled also some water or soda that got inside the connector of the amp and corroded the pins. As I unplugged it, on of them broke off.

It's probably a little hard to see but is pin #18 which is the 4th from the right in the third row of smaller pins from the top.
DSCN1699.jpg


A new amp is about $1,000 and I found a used one for $540... But was still a lot of money, for something so stupid as a broken pin.
So I took the thing apart a pulled a wire from the behind the pin to the wiring harness and... BOOM, it works.... I'm so happy!!!!!!!!! :D :D

Here's some pix
DSCN1698.jpg

DSCN1697.jpg

DSCN1696.jpg


Bottom line: if it ain't broken, brake it; if it broke, fix it!!!!!
 
Nice job man, so it looks like you just replaced the pin with a wire and had it connedted to where the pin would go on the other harness. any plans on relacing the whole connector?
 
Rasalon said:
Nice job man, so it looks like you just replaced the pin with a wire and had it connected to where the pin would go on the other harness.

That's exactly what I did

Rasalon said:
any plans on replacing the whole connector?

Replacing the whole connector requires replacing the amp. I don't think you can buy it separate, but that would require A LOT of soldering and I 'm not sure I'll be able to do a good of a job as the 15 year old Chinese girl who does it for a living... I'm just a financial analyst...
 
I love fixes that save big $$$ on component swaps -well done.
Did you consider just soldering a new pin in situ?
 
cj10jeeper said:
I love fixes that save big $$$ on component swaps -well done.
Did you consider just soldering a new pin in situ?

I didn't think about that, but I wouldn't know where to get one and I'm not sure the old one could be removed: I think is not held in place simply by the solder on the board, but also attached into the connector.

I left some extra wire so I can move the amp around if needed, and worst case scenario, I just melt the solder between the green wire and the harness (I didn't use the fast connector because, IMO, solder is still the best way to connect two wires; however the radio was working fine also with the pictured 3M fast connector).
 
Back
Top Bottom