i am gonna get in there and get at it with some braid to clean it up
i saw the other ones and while i was there I am gonna touch them up too...the part just wears out apparently..

cant you just LOOK to see if there is a light out LOL??

DDadler--any tips for cleaning the surface of the PCB and copper lines to get a good "volcano" of solder? I am pretty novice at this and want to do as good a job as I can...

Well, you can. I must admit though that I'm sucker when it comes to toys Ford just needs to work with their vendors to correct some of these things. The history suggests that Ford doesn't have very high quality control standards. I haven't seen "Quality is Job 1" in their commmercials for a long time. We don't buy Ford at work anymore because of the extemely high rate of failures we've had.

You should be able to get most of it with desoldering braid. There are a few things you need to be cautious about. First, prolonged heat on the PCB can cause the trace to lift off the board. This will cause you grief and require another (more difficult) type of repair altogether. Second, clean as much of the pad as you can with braid. Sometimes, you won't be able to draw all the old solder into the wick. If this happens you can add a little new solder and then try desoldering again. Sometimes the "fresh" solder will help draw the remainder of the old stuff away. You can gently use the tip of the soldering iron to move the braid around the pad to carefully clean any small amount of residual solder. Just be very careful to limit the heat (as I mentioned before). Don't use a soldering GUN, use a 35 watt iron for those connections. You should end up with a clean, flat silver pad that you can re-solder. You shouldn't need to do anything with the copper traces beyond this. There may be a coating on the surface of the board to help prevent corrosion. You shouldn't disturb any more of this than necessary to work with the pad around the lead itself.

would you suggest a gator clip on the lead to the resistor on the other side of the board to act as a heat sink?

That certainly isn't a bad idea. I thought is was a connector on the other side so I wasn't too concerned. Whether you choose to use one or not, just be very conscious of how long you apply heat. Making sure your soldering iron has had time to fully heat up will also help here. The physically smaller the compnent, the less the ability there is for it to dissipate heat. If you always keep this in the back of your mind, you'll do okay. Also make sure you use the right tool for the job. If you ever work on SMT components, a 35 watt iron will be too hot in most cases.

ok i will post pics of the job when its done..i think i will call around to my local U-Pull-It lots and see if i can get a spare to practice on..

The process is much the same on most through-hole circuit boards. You can grab any similar type of board and just keep desoldering and re-soldering until you're comfortable.

One more point to mention, some boards contain static sensitive components. Many people fail to use proper precautions but it never hurts to wear a grounding wrist strap anyway. ESD damage is cumulative, meaning you can cause damage without necessarily know it. Eventually, a component may fail.

Another tip. Heat the connection, then apply the solder...don't heat the solder first. If you can, make as good of physical connection as you can, first. This will help hold things together while soldering, and will also help it stand up better to vibration. With a circuit board, this can be as simple as bending the lead over.

One of the problems with that board appears to be too large of hole for the lead. With that large of a hole, just the solder bridging the gap between the lead and PCB is holding things together. Solder isn't strong enough to bridge that kind of gap for very long when vibration is added to the equation.

They put crap in all cars these days even do I dare say it........my BMW 745i