In alt.home.repair on Sun, 22 May 2005 10:40:55 GMT "Joseph Meehan"
posted:

quietguy wrote:
This advice does not seem appropriate to me - grease on the switch
contacts is NOT a good thing - a little grease on the rocker is OK,
but only there.



I would suggest cleaning the contacts with CRC, apply a little high
melting point grease (silicon?) to the rocker bearing surface, and
reassembling.

The CRC would be good, You want to get all that WD-40 or whatever out
of there, followed with some real contact grease. Most auto shops carry it
today in small tubes for "lamps and connections"

Didn't know that. Good idea. That's another place I've seen grease,
you remind me. Inside lamp sockets, those that face tghe outside,
like turn signals.

Since that is not the usual case with these sockets, maybe the grease
is added to lamp sockets when there is water present that the mechanic
can't stop. ????



As to the heater switch, I did note during testing today that between
speeds 1, 2, 3, and 4, it makes the connection with the next speed
setting before it breaks the connection with the current one. Seems
to me this should cut down arcing to zero or near zero. Except
between off and speed one, which is the lowest speed using the least
current. Of course the design must not be as good as I'm making it
sound, or these things wouldn't be breaking all the time. (The model
from my friend's van may be the more recent one, and maybe it doesn't
fail like the old one did. Still, cars have had heater fans speed
switches since 1950 and earlier, and one would think they'd have the
bugs out by now. My car only has 76,000 miles.


I apologize but I may not have to regrease after all, and I won't if I
don't have to because I don't want to open the switch more times than
necessary, and break the metal tabs that hold the switch together.

I tested it today with the heaviest 12 volt load I had handy today,
and that was a diaphragm-style air compressor suitable for refilling
flat tires. Nowhere near, I think, as big a load as the fan, but it
worked fine, and I couldn't even hear a difference in speed from the
other switch positions. (I wasn't using any resistors.) If I had had
10 more minutes, I could have installed the fan (if I didn't connect
the hot/cold lever) but something came up.



David

"George E. Cawthon" wrote:

. Now
that you've got the switch apart, I suggest you
just stir up the grease as you did. If you want
to clean it, spray it with WD-40, then regrease
with a silicone grease-- bicycle grease would be
great.


Meirman
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