Meet Mo . . . Mo Ron
Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2010 7:37 pm
That would be me.
Today's quicky little high noon road stop was on a dirt/fine gravel ranch road outside of Tucson. I thought it was time to remove the steering wheel and clean/lubricate the horn brush and ring, and why not re-grease the wiper and turn signal switches? It is, after all, my plan to completely refresh this car while still "new" by removing, cleaning, and lubricating every single wear item on the entire car.
Removed the steering wheel, cleaned the horn brush ring, re-bent the copper brush to have a new contact spot, and greased with DeOx. Polished the metal horn button rim so it will be tad shinier and plastic-protectant-ed the plastic isolator ring:
Cleaned and lubricated the turn signal/dimmer switch, no problem. Cleaned and lubricated the wiper switch on the outside, then thought to disassemble the switch itself to get to those high amperage contacts. Oh man. Sitting on the quartz gravel sandy ground, taking in the low noon sun, I pried the little plastic tab to release the cover of the switch. Persploonk, we got three springs, a plastic gizmo, and a problem. Went ahead and cleaned and lubricated everything, then tried to stick that that that devil back together again. Two tough little springs have to be seated in the plastic gizmo upside, one light spring has to be held in the gizmo on the underside while holding the contact up against the spring, then the sandwich has to be negotiated at an angle to slip under the stalk's business end and into the switch housing whilst seating the other end of those tough little springs into their upside down divots on the stalk. A nightmare of sproinking springs and jamming gizmos. And the rivet that holds the cover onto the stalk's axis is getting loose and unhappy.
But wait, it gets worse.
After an hour of futzing, I have it all in place, a special contact holder (a 2.5mm allen wrench) to hold the upside contact and spring in place while getting those stupid tough little springs located was the trick.
But . . . but . . . but why does the switch have absolutely no detent action?? Hijo de p%#!@*!
Take it all apart. Look at it like a monkey trying to open a coconut.
This is not making sense. I see that the inside surface of the switch housing has bevelled "teeth" and clearly something has to detent against them, but what?
With dawning horror, it becomes obvious that some sort of something has to press against the bevel "teeth", something that had its own spring.
"You asshat, the switch was FINE before you monkeyed with it, you monkey." I am sure that it had to be a white plastic "button" that looks like all of the 16 trillion grains of white quartz gravel underfoot.
Being me, I thought it would be cool to actually find the damn thing, so I started a search party with quadrants and radiating gravel removal. After 30 minutes, I said, "let the kid die, I'm cold."
Now I have to figure out what to do. I am NOT having a detentless wiper switch in the BobD. As a matter of fact, I told myself I can sit out here and starve to death for all I care, I ain't leaving without a perfectly functional wiper switch LIKE I HAD WHEN I STOPPED HERE.
Went for a scavenger walk. Not three paces from the car, I spy a black plastic license plate frame fragment blown down from the interstate from some horrible crash in a windstorm, I reckon. Cut a reinforcement projection away from the fragment, and whittled a black plastic button with a spring seat even. Filed it down until it slipped into the end of the gizmo. Stole one of the tough little springs ("you only need one for the washer switch return, they over-engineered that thing" I tell my customer)
and stuck it down the hole at the end of the gizmo and crammed the license plate fragment black button-with-whittled-spring-seat in after it:
Diagrammed, if the words are legible:
So now I have to get:
a) upside down little spring + contact held with a 2.5mm allen wrench
b) remaining washer return tough little spring under stalk in divot
c) license plate button under tough spring tension compressed to fit
d) all in the gizmo, then
e) into the white plastic switch housing without pissing off the rivet.
. . . and press the side of the switch housing in so the cover plate can snap into the slot on the housing.
Only took seven tries. Wiper detent action is actually pretty much indistinguishable from the OEM button lost to the Arizona desert for eternity. And that is why I am not lost to the Arizona desert for eternity, a little bleached skeleton leaning up against an abandoned VW Bus.
ColinInTucson
Today's quicky little high noon road stop was on a dirt/fine gravel ranch road outside of Tucson. I thought it was time to remove the steering wheel and clean/lubricate the horn brush and ring, and why not re-grease the wiper and turn signal switches? It is, after all, my plan to completely refresh this car while still "new" by removing, cleaning, and lubricating every single wear item on the entire car.
Removed the steering wheel, cleaned the horn brush ring, re-bent the copper brush to have a new contact spot, and greased with DeOx. Polished the metal horn button rim so it will be tad shinier and plastic-protectant-ed the plastic isolator ring:
Cleaned and lubricated the turn signal/dimmer switch, no problem. Cleaned and lubricated the wiper switch on the outside, then thought to disassemble the switch itself to get to those high amperage contacts. Oh man. Sitting on the quartz gravel sandy ground, taking in the low noon sun, I pried the little plastic tab to release the cover of the switch. Persploonk, we got three springs, a plastic gizmo, and a problem. Went ahead and cleaned and lubricated everything, then tried to stick that that that devil back together again. Two tough little springs have to be seated in the plastic gizmo upside, one light spring has to be held in the gizmo on the underside while holding the contact up against the spring, then the sandwich has to be negotiated at an angle to slip under the stalk's business end and into the switch housing whilst seating the other end of those tough little springs into their upside down divots on the stalk. A nightmare of sproinking springs and jamming gizmos. And the rivet that holds the cover onto the stalk's axis is getting loose and unhappy.
But wait, it gets worse.
After an hour of futzing, I have it all in place, a special contact holder (a 2.5mm allen wrench) to hold the upside contact and spring in place while getting those stupid tough little springs located was the trick.
But . . . but . . . but why does the switch have absolutely no detent action?? Hijo de p%#!@*!
Take it all apart. Look at it like a monkey trying to open a coconut.
This is not making sense. I see that the inside surface of the switch housing has bevelled "teeth" and clearly something has to detent against them, but what?
With dawning horror, it becomes obvious that some sort of something has to press against the bevel "teeth", something that had its own spring.
"You asshat, the switch was FINE before you monkeyed with it, you monkey." I am sure that it had to be a white plastic "button" that looks like all of the 16 trillion grains of white quartz gravel underfoot.
Being me, I thought it would be cool to actually find the damn thing, so I started a search party with quadrants and radiating gravel removal. After 30 minutes, I said, "let the kid die, I'm cold."
Now I have to figure out what to do. I am NOT having a detentless wiper switch in the BobD. As a matter of fact, I told myself I can sit out here and starve to death for all I care, I ain't leaving without a perfectly functional wiper switch LIKE I HAD WHEN I STOPPED HERE.
Went for a scavenger walk. Not three paces from the car, I spy a black plastic license plate frame fragment blown down from the interstate from some horrible crash in a windstorm, I reckon. Cut a reinforcement projection away from the fragment, and whittled a black plastic button with a spring seat even. Filed it down until it slipped into the end of the gizmo. Stole one of the tough little springs ("you only need one for the washer switch return, they over-engineered that thing" I tell my customer)
and stuck it down the hole at the end of the gizmo and crammed the license plate fragment black button-with-whittled-spring-seat in after it:
Diagrammed, if the words are legible:
So now I have to get:
a) upside down little spring + contact held with a 2.5mm allen wrench
b) remaining washer return tough little spring under stalk in divot
c) license plate button under tough spring tension compressed to fit
d) all in the gizmo, then
e) into the white plastic switch housing without pissing off the rivet.
. . . and press the side of the switch housing in so the cover plate can snap into the slot on the housing.
Only took seven tries. Wiper detent action is actually pretty much indistinguishable from the OEM button lost to the Arizona desert for eternity. And that is why I am not lost to the Arizona desert for eternity, a little bleached skeleton leaning up against an abandoned VW Bus.
ColinInTucson