[Spridgets] Heater fresh air pull

Linda Grunthaner grunthaner at gmail.com
Tue Jun 16 08:19:09 MDT 2015


Nice job Tim.
BTW How did you post an image so all of us are able to see it?
Lin

On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Tim Collins via Spridgets <
spridgets at autox.team.net> wrote:

>  Hi folks,
> I needed to put the battery charger on my Sprite the other day. Later when
> removing the charger cable (that I had attached to the battery terminal of
> the solenoid) I noticed an orange glow (glowing like the metal on the edge
> of a knife) under the hood with me. I had touched the pull cable for the
> fresh air pull - (part of the heater fan switch) with the charger clamp. I
> quickly repositioned the charger clamp, but the damage was done. I couldn't
> activate the pull. I first though I might have welded it to the outer
> cable, but the problem was that when the wire cooled, it warped so wouldn't
> fit into the outer sheath. I figured I could straighten it enough for it to
> work - I was wrong. The heating and cooling made the wire so brittle that
> it just broke. So I began to plan a fix.
>
> This looked like it should be a fairly easy repair. Just replace the wire
> with a longer one. However, the end of the wire in the switch has a ball on
> the end. I checked the Spridget archive and sure enough Frank C had written
> about such a repair. His method was to MIG weld a ball onto the replacement
> wire and also involved un-soldering the sheath from the switch. Welding a
> ball onto the end of a wire sorta seemed like trying to weld an angel's
> boot to the head of a pin. Frank's success rate was 50% for the two he
> worked on.
>
> I found I could remove the wire from the switch assembly thanks to an
> access hole that allowed me to push to ball out of the retaining hole. I
> just grabbed it then and pulled - short wire out! I began thinking of ways
> to put a ball on the end of the new wire. I considered a ball bearing, but
> rejected that as a being a weak butt joint especially if using solder. I
> figured I wasn't going to be able to drill a hole in a ball bearing either.
> I looked for a pull chain (from a light fixture or key chain) to use a ball
> from that chain, but my chains were too small. I spotted a brass braising
> rod that had a ball on the end. That looked promising. So I drilled a hole
> in the brass ball, cut it loose from rod and slipped it over the tinned
> wire. Then I soldered it all together and filed it into a rough ball shape.
> I reassembled everything and it works well now. Anyhow, that's how I made a
> fix to a Spridget part that isn't readily available anymore and wasn't
> really so bad that it needed replacing - just repair. Here's a pic:
>
> [image: []]
>
>
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-- 
"Pay if forward" in honor of Frank Clarici III, Spritenut
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