Printed Circuit (blue foil) repair

[professorplumb]

Most of you diehards are probably aware of this one, but I found a cheap and effective way to repair small breaks in the conductor on the blue printed circuit foil in your instrument cluster:

The kit contains a tiny bottle of conductive copper paint that you are supposed to brush onto gaps in your rear defroster wires and will complete the circuit there. It works just fine for small breaks in the foil as well (if you have whole sections rotted out, you'll need something else.)

The kit is Permatex part #09117, and while all the major auto parts stores claim they carry it, it can be hard to find in stock so you're better off ordering online. It's somewhat pricey at $17, but way cheaper than the GoWesty or vanagon.org printed circuit replacement kits.

The brush that comes with the kit is too coarse for the circuits in the foil, so I used a toothpick to apply the conductive paint, and it worked great - now I have a dash clock again! Next step: finding a new backing plate for my tachometer to replace the disintegrated one.

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[2wdvanagon]

That's a great idea professor. Thanks for posting!

[Tom Powell]

There are also these:

https://www.radioshack.com/products/radioshack-gra...5717840837
https://www.radioshack.com/products/caig-circuitwriter-pen?variant=11132405509
http://www.zogdo.com/electronics/electrically-conductive-wire-glue/

I used the radioshack-graphite-filled-conductive-wire-glue to repair a circuit tester and it worked well. It's probably important to scratch the surface of the blue foil circuit to get it clean for the glue to make good contact with the copper circuit.

Aloha
tp