Edge connector repair / improvement

[freeelectron]

Hey, my first post here.

I'm troubleshooting an issue that I have with the autopilot of my airplane. I think I have narrowed it down to the edge connector where the autopilot interfaces with the rest of the avionics. These are two edge connectors in the back of the autopilot that connects to the female counterparts in the chassis.

The male connector on the autopilot itself looks ok. The female connector in the chassis is a bit out of reach so I cannot tell for sure, but it looks dirty. I've tried spraying it with contact cleaner, but the situation didn´t improve.

My question is, with the border condition I cannot remove the female connector, but I can reach it with a brush or similar, what's my best bet to improve the electrical connection? If there is nothing other than removing the female connector and replace it I'm going to do it, but want to avoid that as much as possible, as it is a real PITA.

[Swake]

If your diagnostic is right then as it is now it is broken, the risk you take is that it works again.
Glue a piece of sanding paper on a fine stick. 800 grid or higher. Be gentle, those things are fragile...
Compressed air to remove debris.

Talk to a local service engineer. He might have a tip.

How will you know this thing will not fail on you during flight?

[BrokenYugo]

Sandpaper will rapidly remove the gold (or other thin protective layer) you need to polish, less is more here, strip the plating and you'll have to clean it constantly to keep it working. I should mention that in bad/weak light I've noticed edge connectors tend to always look dirty. I like to use plain, dry, white index cards for this, they'll take a lot of crap off a good looking board edge and polish the plating nicely without removing any. Connector side I wouldn't mess too much with if you can't get at it easily, too easy to get something stuck in there and bend a finger, but the same plain index card doubled up does get results if you're careful.