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Old 11-11-2018, 12:10 PM   #6
hatzie
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Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Wentworth, NH
Posts: 4,911
Re: Hatzies 2005 2500HD

Some of the switches needed lamps. The switches and controls worked but the illumination lamps were out.

If you don't have the equipment and patience to do this I would reccomend farming it out to someone who does. The circuit boards are very thin and the trace plating is equally thin. Very easy to overheat the boards and lift the traces. Not much fun to install tracer wires to repair that kind of screw up. I didn't make any errors like that on this project but I have in the past. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying.

I have some used "low mileage" ESD safe electronics soldering equipment that I bought for more than decent pricing at a Hamvention... $30 for a Hakko 472D Desoldering station and a $75 for a used Professional Weller WD1M Soldering station power supply and a new WXMP Micro Pencil from yet another vendor. IMHO these are astronomically expensive new. Used was another story. They didn't have corporate inventory labels or the glue outlines from said labels and they were obviously used and not cleaned up. The guys selling them at the Hamvention flea market didn't look like meth heads and they had a lot of similar equipment that looked like it came from auction sales so...
You can get a Weller WLC-100 for around $50. I have one under the bench with a lot of miles on it that I used before I stumbled upon the WD1M. You'll need an infrared thermometer to set the temp on a WLC-100 to 660°F and keep in mind that it heats up much slower than the pro level stations so the temp control isn't as tight as the pro or even entry level equipment either. Un-regulated pencils and the old WLC-100 stations are NOT ESD SAFE so you don't want to use them around static sensitive parts like the microchips on the digital climate control, radio, or the instrument cluster...
Honestly... I'd look into a Weller WE1010... They are an entry level ESD safe digital temp controlled station with a pro level changeable tip pencil and they're priced around $130 new... just right for serious hobby use. Even tho the threaded ferrule tip pencil isn't as sweet to work with as the plug-in tip WXMP there are fine gauge screwdriver and conical 0.015" tips available to confine the heat to just the area you want to solder. It's still far and away a better station than the WLC-100 or any of the un-controlled plug-in soldering irons. It's not a Corvette but I'd say it's about like moving up from a Chevy Spark to an Epsilon 3.6L Impala...
I use lead electronics solder.. not a fan of ROHS compliant solder. I use fine gauge 20AWG Tin & Lead Kester rosin core 60:40 Sn:Pb. Why? Because LEAD WORKS. Kester isn't expensive and they use better quality rosin than the uber-cheap stuff from Radio Shack, WalMart, etc. and won't smoke you out of the bench room.
I use a flux remover from MG Chemicals but there are several DIY recipes online for flux remover. Not sure how well they work. The Bottle of MG Chemicals stuff works quite well.

Even tho a few of the switch and control dash lamps worked I replaced all of the panel lamps in the Mirror Heater Indicator, and Climate Control with new Tungsten bulbs with the correct voltage and wattage ratings. The old ones lasted more than a decade and I didn't want to open the instrument cluster, door switches, and steering wheel switches to match different color LEDs in the everything else...

The aftermarket radio is expected to look different and it does.

One bulb in the climate control was still working. The rest were dark.
I didn't take pictures of the controls and switches when I had em open. Google will turn up a plethora of pictures where folks are showing how to do LED upgrades on the various GMT800 switches and controls and even the instrument cluster.

The old burnt out climate control bulbs are interesting. The bases were crispy and a few disintegrated as soon as I gently pulled on them after sucking the solder out of the through holes in the super thin circuit board. The tungsten vacuum plated itself on the inside of the bulb when they blew out so they look like tiny very convex mirrors.

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The climate controller only had one instrument lamp that worked behind the LH red blocks of the temp dial.
This is the control head with actual lights after I re-installed it. It's worth noting that I re-used the original blue silicone lamp covers on the new bulbs.

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This is a HowTo video from AudioExpress on repairing the climate control bulbs. I bought their climate control and Delco radio bulb kits along with one bulb for the folding mirror indicator. My Jetta had a mirror heater position on the joystick so I incorrectly assumed the re-lit hieroglyph on this truck was a mirror heater.
I'll fix the burnt out lamps on the Delco radio this winter and keep it in the attic.
__________________
1959 M35A2 LDT465-1D SOLD
1967 Dodge W200 B383, NP420/NP201 SOLD
1969 Dodge Polara 500 B383, A833 SOLD
1972 Ford F250 FE390, NP435/NP205 SOLD
1976 Chevy K20, 6.5L, NV4500/NP208 SOLD
1986 M1008 CUCV SOLD
2000 GMC C2500, TD6.5L, NV4500
2005 Chevy Silverado LS 2500HD 6.0L 4L80E/NP263
2009 Impala SS LS4 V8


RTFM... GM Parts Books, GM Schematics, GM service manuals, and GM training materials...Please include at least the year and model in your threads. It'll be easier to answer your questions.
And please let us know if and how your repairs were successful.

Last edited by hatzie; 12-04-2018 at 10:48 PM.
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