Re: Bad fuel pump relay/socket

[rdh@sli.com (Robert D. Houk)]

   Recent difficult starting and poor running problems in my '89
   200TQ have been traced to the fuel pump relay.  The relay has
   ...
   What's involved with replacing the relay socket?  Do I need to
   replace the entire fuse box as my fiendly (sic)  Audi Dealer
   tells me or can I just replace the socket?  Any tricks or
   incantations I should be aware of?

Well, drinking heavily tends to dull the pain . . .

Wildly extrapolating from my '83 UrQ...if the relay is plugged directly
into the main fuse box, well, have fun . . . (no idea if the fuse box
itself comes apart in a manner conducive to putting it back together
again) If the fuel pump relay socket is a "separate" piece, should be
no problem. Many of the Audi "relay sockets" are of a snap-together
variety (in umpteen different flavors, dual, single, in brackets that
are spot-weld on to the body, is brackets that screw in, etc., and so
forth). You just have to raise (depress, depends on your viewpoint) the
little tab and many of the relay sockets "pop right out" (excepting of
course the ones spot-welded to the body). Further, the individual con-
tacts are snap-fit into the socket -- just slip a little doohickey into
the little hole to depress (...) the little tab and the wire/connector
slip right out of the socket. In fact, if it's just a loose connector
you can probably just jam a little screw driver into the hole and, um,
scrunch the connector itself to retighten it.

  
======================
~                    ~
~    / --\   /--\    ~
~    |   |   |  |    ~
~    |          |    ~
~    \__________/    ~
~         ""         ~
=========     ========
        ~     ~
        =======

That's a quickie ASCII rendition of the individual wire connectors, from
an end-view-perspective, sitting in the relay socket body, the = and ~
characters outline the hole that the relay pin sticks into to mate with
the individual connectors held in the socket body, and the /-_\ char-
acters outline the connector itself, nestled inside the relay socket,
the little "" on the bottom of the connector is the tab that sticks out
from the connector body and locks the connector into the socket. To re-
lease the connector from the socket body, stick a proverbial small pointy
object (small nail, small test prod, scribe, etc.) into the small notch
in the socket opening until you have (in this drawing) raised the little
tab back flush with the bottom of the connector, which will then pull
loose from the backside of the socket (the wire side). This will usually
"bend" the tab up, so that you must then rebend it back down before it
will lock in place into the socket again. (You can usually do this a
few times before the tab breaks off). 

Alternatively, sometimes the connector itself loosens up -- it is a press-
fit onto the male pin of the relay; that's what the two up-n-over curls
represent; if these curls are decurled, the male pin will be a loose fit.
By just mashing them "down" (in the above drawing), you re-tighten the fit,
and it should grab the relay male pin more tightly. (This fit is easy to
check, just stick a random male tab fitting into each of the relay socket
female connectors -- if any of them fit in easily, that connector is too
loose.) [Note however that the relay male pins come in a variety of sizes
depending on the load they carry... don't scrunch the female connector too
much!]

Your fiendly (sick (sic)) local Audi dealer can sell you the individual
connectors to redo your socket at less that $500/each (one of those rare
exceptions to the general rule that nothing for an Audi costs less than
$500).

Many of the sockets themselves "lock together" in an analguous manner to
how the individual connectors lock into the socket. On my '83, the fuse
panel is a 3" x 6" (roughly) panel (1.5" deep, roughly) with half-a-dozen
"slots" along the top for relay sockets to snap into place. The left-most
two slots actually hold auxilliary dual-fuse holders (one is two-tiered,
for a total of 6 extra fuses in addition to the 15 held in the main fuse
panel), with several relay sockets next to them. In addition, there are
a couple of relay sockets built into the fuse panel (the load reduction
relay is the main one, as I recall) itself. One of the six aux fuses is
my fuel pump fuse, but the fuel pump relay itself is located in a six-bank
of relay sockets remote from the fuse panel, up against the underneath of
the dash above the fuse panel - the center two relay sockets are in a
bracket that is spot-welded to the body, with two relay sockets snapped
together on each side for a total of six...

Again, modulo my '83, replacing the fuse box itself is a fairly-straight-
forward exercise in awkard tediousness . . . there are a half-dozen major
plug assemblies in the lower back of the fuse panel (like 15-18 wires/
plug assembly), plus some assorted individual major wires (like the 
radiator fan wires) that plug in individually. Unplug them one at a time
and plug them into the new fuse panel (so you don't forget which ones go
where, and have to trace them all .... Unsnap the aux-fuse holders (if
applicable) and relay sockets and snap them onto the new fuse panel. When
there is nothing left attached to the old fuse panel, pitch it (or take it
to the range and use it for target practice -- AFTER you've sobered up and
calmed down again) and reinstall the new fuse panel. Presto, faster than
than you can rebuild a quattro transaxle, one new fuse panel installed.
(Oh yeah - MAJOR HINT: disconnect the battery before you start this pro-
cess! 12V doesn't spark, it welds/melts major metal structures and random
wiring harnessii! Not (NOT [***NOT***]) an experience you want to add to
your resume!)

All in all, kinda like a "Lego(tm)" snap-together toy (except not as
dependable) . . .

Good Luck!

					-RDH