G'day Peter
Well, I'm of a different school of thought. Why replace if you can repair? A good repair isn't a bodge. If you buy another board, how do you know it's any better than the one you have?
I've not actually seen the inside of a RGS instrument panel and the comments below assume the thing has large enough copper tracks to get at with a soldering iron. Sometimes PC boards are bloody microscopic and multi-layered (as in a mobile phone) but a dashboard from the 80's wouldn't be in that category.
The most usual type of failure of printed circuit boards is a poor solder joint, or dry solder joint as it is sometimes known. They can usually be identified by inspection. Look for a solder blob that hasn't "wetted" the component's wire tail properly, or a component that is a bit loose, or poke around with a multi-meter on the lowest Ohm scale checking resistance across solder joints. If you find one that has high resistance, there's your problem. It's a simple job to re-solder and it will be as good as new.
If one of the copper tracks that's broken, or a piece of track missing through some kind of mechanical damage, just bridge it with a bit of copper wire. If the board itself is cracked, you'll need to fix that with epoxy before you tackle the soldering. These types of repair are robust, and not what I would call bodges.
Some PC boards have a coat of insulating varnish over them, in that case you'll need to scrape it off before soldering.
Cheers,
Cam
