RE: Perfecting a '71 Sunroof

[Know One <knowonelse@sbcglobal.net>]

> I am now thinking of carefully labeling every wire
> on the fuse box, and
> clean it up.  But how do I go about it since
> sandpaper is verboten?  It had
> something spilled on it; parts of it are covered in
> a thick layer of
> greenish-white crud.

This sounds like corrosion of some sort. Just about
anything will result in corrosion. To get my
electricals working again, I had to disconnect every
connection and clean both sides up.

Spade connections: brass wire brush on the male side,
not much you can do on the female side except check
that it is pinching the male side enough. Slide them
together a few times to clean up the male side. I had
to **carefully** close the opening of a couple of
female connectors. Too much and it will break, and as
they age, they get more brittle.

Some connections can be cleaned up a bit with a pencil
eraser. Slight rubbing to break the oxide layer,
rather than sanding which is too aggressive.

If you can test continuity as you go, you can check to
see which connections work and which need attention.

In my case, I had to clean up even the intermediate
connections (Y-connections and such), all of which is
tedious and time consuming.

For the fuse box, spinning the fuses didn't work, so I
remove them, used a pencil eraser and installed new
ones.

For switches in particular (and everywhere else), I
used a spray contact cleaner while actuating the
switch. This brought my light switch back to life.

Jeff  '67  Sqbk

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