Hello Dave,

I finally managed to get the dim dip relay free from its mounting board.

First, I freed the board by removing the obvious orange screw and then pulling and yanking the board toward me. Aside from the screw the board is held in place by a sort of clip at the other end. None of this can be easily seen but from the diagram I figured the board had to be pulled sideways from its mount after the screw had been removed.

Once freed from its mounts the board could be seen better but the relay holding clips were still intent on keeping everything together. I was able to push a thin screwdriver between the relay and the clip on one side and then I pulled the other clip away from its relay with another screwdriver and I pulled on the relay body at the same time.

The nubs on the bodies of the relays are about a full eighth of an inch in height.

I pulled three relays out because I could not get to relay A without removing the two relays beside it first. I filed the nubs down on all three relays for future action. I also dusted them with baby powder to make them more slippery.

I am now awaiting my American car relay which is slightly different to the Canadian version. Happily I don't drive much at night and I have the 240 insured as well and the weather is hanging in there.

Putting the board back in place was fairly simple. It snapped into place almost by itself and I was able to easily find the screw hole for the orange holding screw. I might be able to just pull the relay out without removing the board when the new relay arrives.

Thanks again for your input.

Bob

Hi Dave,

I am not a trained mechanic and sometimes feel like a naive idiot when asking these types of questions. But time and time again I think that what should be a fifteen minute job turns into a three day saga. This thing about plastic clips instead of screws drives me wild.

Every electric plug connector has some kind of holding device that has to be figured out before the plug can be separated from its electronic module.

Is this a devious Swedish plot to drive us all to take out cars into the dealer for repair?

"On doing a bit of reading to follow your relay removal progress, yeah, those side mounted relays in the later 760s and early 960s sound like they can be a bear to deal with. Who designed that? Oh right, the same guys that designed the 960 steering column ignition switch assembly that's been mentioned recently."

Thanks for that. Anyways I am now looking at trying to bring the whole platform out into the light of day and then trying to remove the relay.

I do have a picture of the setup which shows the obvious long, serrated orange holding screw at the front connecting the relay mounting platform to a bracket. There does not appear to be any other connector.

Relay j is shown plugged in on one side of the platform along with all of its fellow relays.

And then another connector plugs into the opposite, hidden side directly to the other side of relay j. Perhaps it brings power to the platform. I am guessing from the picture that this is the only other thing holding the platform in place.

I bet there are holding nubs for this connector as well however.

Thanks for letting me know that I am not alone in my struggles.

Bob