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Date:         Tue, 28 Sep 2004 05:10:51 -0400
Reply-To:     David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Beierl <dbeierl@ATTGLOBAL.NET>
Subject:      Re: Reverse Lights not working - 88 GL
Comments: To: Mike Collum <collum@VERIZON.NET>
In-Reply-To:  <013b01c4a512$c92eac10$6401a8c0@DaDell>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

At 00:22 9/28/2004, Mike Collum wrote: >the old switch and cleaned it really well by squirting Ronsonol lighter >fluid (Naphtha) alongside the plunger and working it repeatedly ... soaking >up the black stuff that washed out of it with a paper towel until it showed >clean. After it dried, I lubed it and reinstalled. It worked (and still

I just took a couple of those apart -- one aluminum one with two skinny terminals in an enclosure, and one brass with regular quarter-inch fast-on male terminals. It was pretty frightening. On the aluminum one everything was very nice inside but one of the contacts had developed high resistance anyway and done the famous VW melt-through-the-back trick until all that nasty electricity went away. On the brass one the weather had gotten inside, corrosion products all over, contacts destroyed and the rubber diaphragm had apparently perished and had a big hole in it. They both looked great from outside, though you could spot the melted terminal if you knew what to look for. And they both worked pretty well until they failed, or so I had thought. But I've got a beeper on one of the bulbs for years now and it was always a little moody about exactly how it would sound. I put it down to being oversensitive about the system voltage or something, I dunno. Didn't change when the second (used) switch went in. But gee, now that I'm driving the whole thing off a relay from a dash switch that beeper is rock-steady. Makes me feel a bit foolish.

I also had occasion to look inside a couple of the throttle-position microswitches, one from the old double-switch setup and one from the newer type. The old switch was amazing, the most elaborate and bulletproof and adjustable thing I'd ever seen. I feel privileged to have driven it around. The newer one was much smaller, more like I'd expect. It was also broken...looked fine from outside, clicked nicely, no contact. It's a bit hazy now, but it was a fatigue failure of some kind in a spring anchor.

david

-- David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/ '84 Westy "Dutiful Passage," '85 GL "Poor Relation"


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