Well, I finally got around to removing the relay for the secondary air injection pump. It’s a bit of PITA, even for someone who is familiar with soldering, but not de-soldering.

For anyone not practiced in de-soldering, you should check out this helpful YouTube video:


Tips:

• Use a decent quality soldering station with small tip. (I have a decades old Weller W-TCP.)
• A de-soldering pump works better than a bulb sucker.
• Main takeaway from the YouTube video: Adding new solder is a critical step in de-soldering!

It took me to three steps to remove the relay: initial solder removal (which did not result in being able to get the relay off the board), cutting the relay apart using a Dremel, and then more de-soldering to remove the remaining pieces of pins stuck on the board.

This is the good news part of the story; my next post has the bad news.