I recently bought a 97 Discovery and the remote fob would only work very intermittently. The unlock button had lost most of its rubber and the lock button was only marginally better.
After opening up the fob and removing the PCB (whilst wearing an anti-static wrist strap to avoid damaging the components with static electrickery) I noticed that the 2 switches had persihed to the point that the top had come off one and the yellow plunger had deteriorated.
I ordered a new case including new rubber buttons from ebay (found a couple of sellers on there) and managed to track down almost identical switches from RS Components (part no. 7075641) at 20p each, minimum order of 5.
Whilst I was trying to reattach the metal cover to one of the existing switches it pinged of the PCB so I assume that there were also dry solder joints which wouldn't have helped their operation.
The switches are surface mount so they're a bit fiddly to replace but with a suitably pointed soldering iron tip I managed to replace the unlocking switch.
The locking switch was still firmly attached to the PCB but the metal cover was missing and the rubber plunger was perished. I decided to dismantle one of the new switches and transfer the bits (metal disc, rubber plunger and metal cover) to the new switch. Again, this is a bit fiddly and you need to make sure you've removed the old metal disc to reveal 3 contact points within the body of the switch. Whilst putting the metal cover on I noticed that the plunger was operating the switch without having to be pressed. This was because the body of the new switch was a bit deeper than the old one. So I got a razor blade and removed most (but not all) of the protruding nipple from the underside of the rubber plunger and refitted.
My remote fob now works reliably!!
After opening up the fob and removing the PCB (whilst wearing an anti-static wrist strap to avoid damaging the components with static electrickery) I noticed that the 2 switches had persihed to the point that the top had come off one and the yellow plunger had deteriorated.
I ordered a new case including new rubber buttons from ebay (found a couple of sellers on there) and managed to track down almost identical switches from RS Components (part no. 7075641) at 20p each, minimum order of 5.
Whilst I was trying to reattach the metal cover to one of the existing switches it pinged of the PCB so I assume that there were also dry solder joints which wouldn't have helped their operation.
The switches are surface mount so they're a bit fiddly to replace but with a suitably pointed soldering iron tip I managed to replace the unlocking switch.
The locking switch was still firmly attached to the PCB but the metal cover was missing and the rubber plunger was perished. I decided to dismantle one of the new switches and transfer the bits (metal disc, rubber plunger and metal cover) to the new switch. Again, this is a bit fiddly and you need to make sure you've removed the old metal disc to reveal 3 contact points within the body of the switch. Whilst putting the metal cover on I noticed that the plunger was operating the switch without having to be pressed. This was because the body of the new switch was a bit deeper than the old one. So I got a razor blade and removed most (but not all) of the protruding nipple from the underside of the rubber plunger and refitted.
My remote fob now works reliably!!
