Acura RSX DRL Control relay repair

The DRL light on the RSX had an occasional habit of staying on until I put a bit of amperage through the circuit by switching the main lights on, high beaming or cycling the lights. I had researched the issue and it is a common one, the solution being to remove a little circuit module from under the dash near the steering wheel and check the relay solder points and resoldering as needed. 

In typical fashion, even though I have all the time in the world, it has taken well over a year to actually do the job, various and numerous reasons getting in the way, winter for one, sickness and a healthy reluctance to get my body into the pretzel type position to access the relay. However, in the last week or so, the DRL light has been coming on more, occasionally flickering, being very annoying and I suspected that perhaps my driving lights were doing the same in the daytime, so it was time to pull my finger out and do the responsible thing.

Here is the module :

The problem area can be seen on the flip side of the circuit board :

I inspected the soldered connectors for the relays, and you can see the discoloration of the six main connectors and also the four additional joints. The numerous, very handy, youtube videos online show that reflowing these joints will fix the issue, so that is what I did :

Removing the module was an uncomfortable five minutes or so, but rather easy and accessible depending on your ability to strike the pose of a pretzel in the drivers side pedal bay. Then another five minutes to set up all the tools in the right place, suitable magnification for old eyes and then heat up the thing that burns fingers quite frequently. The reflow of the ten joints, with a little extra solder and flux, took another five minutes.

Installing the module back was equally, if not more so, uncomfortable, but after testing it went back into it's holder without too much of a struggle and the annoying under dash panels were replaced and the job was done in under half an hour. 

This is one of those little repairs that Honda would love to have the opportunity to fix, more than likely they would charge a couple of hours troubleshooting/labour and whatever the price of a new Honda part would cost. The investigations on eBay show that a NOS replacement Dorman 704306 can be had for around $75 shipped from the USA, so it would not be that bad if the module had completely failed and a DIY replacement obtained and installed.

However, my cost was zero and perhaps a week of mild sciatica. A small price to pay for one less irritating, false, warning light on the aging chariot.