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"