How To: Fix a main relay!

[Midship]

A lot of Honda's inc the beat (and now my CRX!) develop main relay problems in their old age, this is cause by dry solder which cause the relay to fail when the car is hot. It means that you have to wait for things to cool down before you can start the car again making it a really annoying problem!

Below is a mini "how to" is put together form numerous posts on the topic. Hopefully it'll be helpful to someone trying to solve this problem.


1. Unscrew the four screws holding the tape holder/sub and remove it
2 there’s one screw holding the panel beside the driver’s seat and one on the passenger side (the panel the seat belt goes through) the panel should then clip out.
3. Unscrew the four screws that the hood cover clip on to and remove the panel
4. Finally unscrew the four screws holding the compartment behind the passenger seat.
5. Pull the carpet back and the main relay is the grey thing in front of you. Simply click out the old one and pop in a new one.
(Part number is 39400-SS1-003 and cost about 50 quid with a 3 day wait in the UK)

Here's an interesting read on how to re-solder it

http://techauto.tripod.com/mainrelay.htm

Here's a read on how to test it

http://autorepair.about.com/cs/troubleshooting/l/aa010301c.htm

and here's a few pictures to help with the removal:

[Midship]

2

[Midship]

3

[Midship]

4

[ozsamurai]

here are the points inside the main relay that tend to have poor conectivity through dry soldering.