Date:         Tue, 9 Jun 2009 22:26:22 -0700
Reply-To:     Danny <bruiserbabie@YAHOO.COM>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Danny <bruiserbabie@YAHOO.COM>
Subject:      Re: Correct use of Dielectric grease?
Comments: To: Roland <syncronicity1@GMAIL.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Sounds strange to me as well. I am a mechanical engineer and an old boy electrician showed it to me up in Kodiak Alaska. There is a lot of corrosion and rust up there. While I was chief engineer of a plant we used it on lots of conductive points and other electrical connections. It solved many problems for us. Who knows maybe we got lucky. But I do swear by it today. I had a 89 Toyota 4X4 truck that was giving me a lot of rough running and hard start issues, it felt like a bad ignition switch. But the plant electrician pop-ed the top off my air flow meter smeared on some dielectric silicon grease on the point where the needle runs and the truck ran better than ever from that day on. Every 2 months or so it would start to run rough again and I would pop off the top and re apply the grease and problem solved. I guess to each his own........


Danny 
'84 Westy (Vanny)
 

--- On Tue, 6/9/09, Roland <syncronicity1@GMAIL.COM> wrote:


From: Roland <syncronicity1@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Correct use of Dielectric grease?
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Date: Tuesday, June 9, 2009, 9:07 PM


Hello folks,

I was reading the discussion about high powered headlights overheating some
connectors, and again I saw mention that use of dielectric grease is good
practice.  .... to put it on the contacts.  Of course I've seen it
referenced many times.

But this confuses me.  Dielectric grease is an insulator, right?  It is
non-conductive.  Why would we put it on the contacts where we want a better
connection?  Why wouldn't we use conductive grease on contacts?  Or is the
proper application of dielectric grease to put it on the outside of the
connector, but never on the contact points themselves?  I keep a tube of
conductive grease around the garage, use it only very rarely.  If we use
dielectric grease only on the outside of a connection, why not just use heat
shrink tubing?

Thanks!
Roland