Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:48:53 -0400
Reply-To: John Meeks <vanagon@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: John Meeks <vanagon@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Need Instrument Cluster Foil: '84 Wolfsburg Westy
In-Reply-To: <201108161953.p7GJraN47266@sbw.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Steve,
Would an application of hot wax give you the structure you need to secure
the connections? It flows into small spaces pretty well. I wouldn't expect
the currents to be high enough to cause any cross wire interference or heat.
John Meeks
'91 Vanagon MV
Northern Michigan
Vanagon Rescue Squad
www.vanagonauts.com
On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 3:53 PM, Steve Williams <sbw@sbw.org> wrote:
> I still need that foil. A lister emailed me he might be able to find
> one. If you can, I'm still in the market, thanks!
>
> Here's the rest of the story:
>
> Van Cafe replaced my leaking master brake cylinder. When I arrived
> to pick up the Westy, they apologized: Bringing the van around for
> me, they noticed the tach wasn't working.
>
> There was an old, badly-done repair to the foil at the tach
> plug. They had disturbed that repair in removing the cluster for the
> brake cylinder R&R. (They offered to give me some consideration for
> the trouble, but I declined. It's not their fault the old repair was
> so crappy.)
>
> They hunted around for a serviceable foil, but no luck.
>
> They showed me the problem and said they have a guy that can repair
> the foils, but he's only around on Fridays. I was hoping to be in
> L.A. by today.
>
> I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron, so I asked if I could camp in
> a shady spot behind their shop and try to fix it myself. I always
> travel with my butane soldering iron, lots of electrical tools,
> several kinds of wire, and so on.
>
> Why not just leave it until I can find a foil? A friend is taking my
> Westy to Burning Man in ten days or so. She hasn't driven a Vanagon
> before, so I think it's important to have the tack working for her, if I
> can.
>
> I spent four hours yesterday afternoon trying one thing after another
> to tack the foil traces to the plug, without luck. The foils just
> kept breaking, or the mylar melted and the traces shorted.
>
> I stayed with family overnight, and this morning returned to Van Cafe
> to try again. In the end, I was able to strip the mylar back,
> freeing half an inch of each trace, and tack-solder some thin wire to
> the traces. I secured the wires to the tach case as best I could
> with strips of gaffer tape. It doesn't take much flexing to break
> those traces.
>
> Then I took the pins out of the connector, trimmed the remaining
> mylar, scraped them up good so they'd take solder, and tack-soldered
> the other ends of the wires to the pins. Put the pins back into the
> plug, plugged it in, then secured the wires with more gaffer tape.
>
> We stuck the cluster in the dash, and it worked. Amazing. But it
> was six hours of painstaking work. Now that I've done it, it'd
> probably take three hours, especially using much finer wire than I had with
> me.
>
> But there's no way it'll work for long. Gaffer tape isn't
> structural. As hard as I tried, I couldn't completely immobilize the
> wires. Anyway, vibration can easily break the traces, I think.
>
> So I really need that foil. But for now, it's working.
>
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