What is the weirdest repair you had to do

[bsco]

Somebody bought me the cluster assy from a 2010 Toyota SUV...
The hazzard lights would not turn off...you had to remove the fuse which kills the signal light function as well....

Toyota quoted him $1875.00 for the defective unit,(it was tested using an "Intelligent Tester"...whatever that is), plus the labour to install it....

When I took it apart, and started tracing the hazzard switch through the three circuit boards, I discovered that the switch only uses the three boards and interconnecting cables to connect it to the large connectors which reside in the dash wiring.....it did not connect to any active circuitry.....so how come the lights were always flashing??The switch was fine...

Anyway, I could not find anything shorted that would cause this....I gave it back to him and asked him to try it out...also suggested it could be his flasher as this controls the hazzard function as well......

He called me back and said "It Worked"...and he did not have to replace the flasher unit which by the way costs over a hundred bucks....he was back that night and paid me cash and thanked me for saving him a two thousand dollar repair bill....

The thing is...I had no way of doing dynamic tests on this....I had to use my DMM and what little bit of knowledge I have accumulated over the years...I guess I must know more than I actually think I do...one thing is for sure...no other technicians in town would touch it...

This is the main reason why I take practically anything to repair....I find that the more of a variety of equipment you look at, the more you learn...after all......a switch is a switch, a resistor is still a resistor.....the basic electronic components don't change.....it's the overall package....and if you take something and can't get it figured out,
no harm done and you still learned something....
Just my thoughts on it in general.....
Cheers,
Bernie

P.S. Hope I posted this in the right place!

[g1]

You didn't mention if you did any work? I find with a lot of the automotive clusters etc. it comes down to bad solder connections. Just did one for a Ford Freestar van that had bad solder on some SMT resistors, apparently a common fault. The job would have cost $500+ just to have a USED cluster installed. It was a bit of a pain as the LCD sub board had to come out to get at the resistors under it, but less than 2 hr. job including getting the cluster in and out of the dash.
I did find out something (not the hard way ), air bags should be disabled before getting into the dash, or you run the risk of a face-full or even major injury.
I agree with what you said about working on the odd/different stuff, always something to learn and the challenge is fun.

But the title of this thread made me think about weird repair stories, so here is mine.
A guy brought in some Fender combo amp asking for a new AC cord. The one still attached to the amp was about 30ft long and very thin. Turned out the plug got stuck in the elevator door and stretched a floor instead of breaking .

[bsco]

hahaha...good one...actually, I removed the three boards, unplugged them from each other, started tracing the traces all around the board, then out to a connector and back around another board...there was one board where the trace went under a 24 pin connector...I had to remove that to see for sure where the trace went.....that is pretty much what I did...re-installed the connector and assembled everything and re-tested for contuninity.....everything checked fine...so I gave it back for him to try out....I never really thought that it was going to work....I figured the problem was in the vehicle somewhere else.......but apparently not.......so I have no idea of what caused it....which is disappointing in a way......

on another note, I find the automotive electronic parts very expensive even for used stuff.......if it can be fixed, it is definately worth the money.....

[drewl]

Hmmm, so many odd things I've repaired around the house or at work.
I've gotten the rep around here that I can fix anything, and that's what I get.

[gui_tarzan]

My furnace. Or maybe the power windows in my car that use a data line that runs under the drivers seat to control them which has a splice connector that gets wet and corrodes and the windows and locks won't work.

[bsco]

My furnace. Or maybe the power windows in my car that use a data line that runs under the drivers seat to control them which has a splice connector that gets wet and corrodes and the windows and locks won't work.

yeah.......I know all about that one.....

[bsco]

My furnace. Or maybe the power windows in my car that use a data line that runs under the drivers seat to control them which has a splice connector that gets wet and corrodes and the windows and locks won't work.

My wife tells people that as well......I get all kinds of stuff....I even had control boards from gas generators....the ones that you would use to power your cabin....or power some of your home in the event of a power outage...there are a lot of people around here with those.....

[nevetslab]

Simulating finger holding a speaker in the surround to elminate buzz

This one is within the number of wierdest repairs I've had to do. One of the Mackie Fussion 3000 3-Way powered PA speakers came to the shop to see what I could do about a noticable resonant buzz that was occuring with it, a result of the cabinet being knocked over. After manually sweeping the system with 1/3 Octave Pink Noise from my Bruel & Kjaer 1027 Sine-Random Generator, set for Pink Noise, and switched in the B & K 1617 1/3 Octave Filter set, I found there was substantial mechanical buzz excited at 80Hz 1/3 Oct Pink. from one or more of the four 12" woofers, each pair mounted on a V-shaped baffle. After changing signal source to 10Hz 1/3 Oct pink noise, whose signal character is a wide range of excursion over time, AND below audible pitch, I was able to hear just the mechanical noise of the one speaker causing the problem.

After removing the one speaker causing the problem, I could feel the voice coil assembly scraping within the magnetic gap of the speaker. I tried rotating the mounting orientation on the baffle with no success (back to using the 10 Hz 1/3 Oct Pink signal source). Then, I found I was able to eliminate the buzz by applying pressure with my thumb at a specific location on the speaker surround. After playing with some neoprene cable jacket material, I had fashioned a large 'rubber band' of sorts with a larger cable jacket, holding the portion of the surround with smaller jackets, as seen in these photos below:



I've found different flexible neoprene cable jacket material has come in handy for a variety of repairs over the years, though never had to use any for one like this. It did take a bit of fiddling, with doubt it would work, but surprisingly it has held up in service since July '09.

[Chuck H]

Not too weird, but weird enough... I had a cold solder joint in one of my amps that would only act up on a specific note in the upper register causing a crackling noise to accompany the note. If you tuned the guitar off pitch you would need to bend the fretted note to get to the right frequency to effect the problem. I hadn't originally pegged the problem for a cold solder joint because of it's specific nature and the fact that the amp had been working fine for five years. Whacking the amp wouldn't cause the problem and OF COURSE being a combo amp it would stop if the amp was removed from the cabinet because resonance was eliminated. I tried new tubes, different speaker, testing the cabinet for loose screws, playing the amp in a different room in case it wasn't the amp at all, tested all operating voltages and parameters, etc. Maybe six+ hours. Then I posted here and someone said it might be a cold solder joint. BAH! A cold solder joint in an amp "I" made!?! NEVER!.. So I sucked it up and re touched all the preamp solder joints and the problem went away forever

[Mick Bailey]

A good while back the new neighbour next door came round and asked if I knew anything about car electrics. I said a bit, but what's wrong? He said he'd been having a misfire and sometimes the car wouldn't start. I had a look and spotted a few connectors in the ignition circuit that had been crimped with pliers. I showed him what I thought was wrong and he asked if it would it would be OK for the weekend. I said I'd replace them and he'd need to see if that was the problem. He then said jokingly he needed it for a getaway car and it had to work first time.

Well, it turned out later he was the driver in a robbery and got caught. His wife said the car packed in when being chased by the police. So that hung over me until he got out of prison, when I asked him if it was the ignition that had let him down. Thankfully it had overheated in the chase, but never misfired.

[bsco]

Mick....that must have thrown you for a loop when you found out he was actually telling
you the truth......

[52 Bill]

Personally, other than my own cars, I don't do car stuff anymore. Well I suppose that if somebody brought in a radio or a panel, I'd look at it, but I'm past the point of crawling under dashboards.

Back when I was in college, during Summer breaks, I did work for a guy that bought vintage Porsches and rebuilt them to sell. He had guys that could do engines, bodywork and most other stuff, but I was his wiring guy. Spent a lot of time tracing wire looms in order to find shorted wires. Probably spent more time cleaning and reconditioning sockets and connectors. Didn't know about DeoxIt back then. But I was a lot younger (and thinner) then and climbing under and over things was a lot easier.

What i find is that most auto guys have mechanical backgrounds and electronics either scare them or confuse them, so they tend to approach repairs as replace the module rather than repair it. That's the way they are trained, but so are we. It costs too much in time to repair an amp, so just replace it under warantee.

[Mick Bailey]

Mick....that must have thrown you for a loop when you found out he was actually telling
you the truth......

He seemed to be a pretty amiable type at the time, bit of a likeable rogue. But it did play on my mind all the time he was in prison. I don't know what happened to him - I left the area. Shortly beforehand his house was surrounded by uniformed soldiers in the middle of the night so who knows what went on.

I suppose robbers and any other villains need to get stuff fixed, get a haircut or buy groceries.

[J M Fahey]

it had overheated in the chase

Maybe a bullet pierced his radiator or clipped some water hose.

After that, it's only a question of minutes.