Preemptive ECU repair

[Wildthings]

I don't really know how many miles are on my 83 1/2 POS, but it is likely very high as the non working odometer read something like 250K miles when I bought it and the vehicle had already trashed its second coat of paint. I have added another 100K to it since. I am thus thinking of preemptively doing some resoldering of joints in the ECU and would also love to raise the decel fuel cutoff speed a bit while I am dinking around in there. We did have a mystery problem with the unit years back, where when on a long trip the engine would slowly drive worse and worse until it almost wouldn't idle and have very little torque down low. The problem would slowly improve with around town use until it would eventually disappear, only to come back on another 1000+ mile trip.

Looking for others thoughts and ideas

[shagginwagon83]

Why not reflow the solder. Practice on some old circuit boards. You could just add new solder, like I did. If you want to be a pro reflow all joints with flux solder then use a desoldering iron to remove all old solder and flux. Then put some good solder down (I don't know what to recommend here)

I used to sell these things at radioshack back in the day. They are great, I stocked up like 10 tips for this before they went bankrupts

_________________
Brandon
"Jo Ann" - '83.5 Westfalia EJ22e w/Peloquin
Instagram @joannthevan

[Tom Powell]

If it works, don't fix it. Buy a working ECU. Swap them to test. Keep a spare.

Aloha
tp

[ohhorob]

[Howesight]

Hey Wildthings:

Regarding re-soldering, I would suggest not doing so.

My "straw poll" suggests that the ECU "cracked Printed Circuit Board" phenomenon is more common on the 2.1 units than the 1.9. Your van's symptoms are also not consistent with the cracked PCB phenomenon.

Regardless, my theory is that if the ECU connector is provided with appropriate strain relief, so that the harness does not place twisting or bending forces on the printed circuit board, then the problem is highly unlikely to arise. Remember that unlike some other newer types of ECU, on the Digijet and Digifant ECU's the harness connector connects directly to the Printed Circuit Board.

So, the solution to this problem is prevention and is rather low-tech - - adjust the harness position and wiring position to eliminate bending and twisting forces at the connector. If at all possible, make the radius of the wiring bundle as large as possible. You can pull a bit more of the wire bundle into the under-seat area through the grommet to do this.
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'86 Syncro Westy SVX

[ohhorob]

[Wildthings]