need a soldering lesson

I, in my years, have never soldered anything but some wire in a car. I did a 2000 Caravan today. Went to the relays in the fuse panal. (cool trick....never knew)  I "attempted to solder on to the relay legs....with ZERO luck. Will someone teach my how to do it? All I managed to do was burn up some solder, and get a relay REAL hot.  I could not get the solder to "stick" to the relay. Even scratched it up a bit.

I'm ready for anything anyone has to say about my lack of skill.... so fire away. But in rippin me a new one, please give me the pointers I need for next time.

Thank you gentlemen.

I had NO trouble with the strands of wire......but gettin that to stay put on the leg of the relay. It was all nice and hot, I even had my clips holding the wire secure to the relays. It would cool, and pop right off?

Another thing.....when doing this, how much solder can a guy apply? That relay can't get built up too much, it's got to fit back into the socket.

Maybe I'll just fire one up tomorrow (since I'll have some free time on my hands now (see my sig.) and practice.

KarTunMan get a small file and scuff up the area you are to solder too.  This will remove the oxidation from the contact and make it much easier for the solder to adhere to the contact.

https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=23856&PN=1

solder flux  (electrical flux ... NOT THE CRAP FOR COPPER TUBING!!!) .... take a small screwdriver and apply a small portion of this paste to the terminal and to the wire where you plan to join the two pieces.  take your "prefered" iron and pre-solder the tip to remove any old solder then knock the solder off (wear safety glasses!!), rub the tip on a wet sponge to clean off burned up resin.  reapply solder to the iron and just touch the terminal and your wire where you applied the flux.  the flux will help keep out impurities and make for a better and quicker weld. now attach your wire to the presoldered terminal in the same manner that you did before with knocking the tip, cleaning it on a wet sponge and solder the tip of the iron.  the flux will give you professional looking solder points and keep the contact times down so you don't cook any parts .. ie, circuit boards, relays, wire sheathing.

make sure u tinn your solder tip. it just prevents solder buildup and it heats the wires more quickly. I use a weller solder iron as well, and its good. even a crappy 20dollar one will do. I dont use torch because its 1) dangerous, 2) can burn a hole in the floor carpet if i accidently drop it.

my tip is rough up the area u are soldering. People usaully use 60/40 solder. i like using kester 66/44. it melts at low heat, and easy to work with. when soldering wires, place a small dap of solder on the tip (heats it up quickly) apply a little to the wire tip to allow it to heat up, place solder iron underneath of whatever you are soldering. Heat rises, so that will heat up the wires in a short ammount of time. Apply solder to the wire or wherever. DO NOT try to put solder next to the tip, it will just ball up and not SEEP into the wires.