The Webmaster Zone

Pulled the heater switch and the (bypassed) panel light dimmer rheostat last week and took them upstairs, disassembled, cleaned all the junk off the contacts with 600 grit sandpaper, applied dialetric grease and reassembled. Put them back in the dash carefully, the heater switch is very solid now, no more need to wiggle the switch around trying to avoid the "dead spot". The two red and one red/white wires to the panel dimmer were duct taped together so I removed the old sticky tape and sprayed the connectors with WD40 which is great for getting rid of the sticky residue left by stickers or tape. The DPO had pushed the female spade connectors together and then squished them with a pair of pliers to hold so I used a small screwdriver and a pair of pliers to reconstruct their shape. I connected up the rheostat and installed it back in the dash and replaced the 4 panel bulbs with the Radio Shack #50 bulbs. With the rheostat all the way down they are about as bright as the old bulbs, they make the gauges quite readable and the light seems to be whiter from them but that may simply be the result of the old bulbs being, well, old. See the tech tips collection under Interior for the part number of those bulbs. I am going to pull the other two switches and clean them as well, I see the headlamp switch has some duct tape on the back of it so no doubt it could use some attention. Onto other things, last weekend in Seattle my speedometer was acting up again, sticking in the cold weather. I didn't think much of it until I was driving somewhere and I heard this nasty grinding noise that I didn't recognize at first but then realized was coming from the speedometer area, but then abruptly stopped and my speedo hasn't risen off zero since then. I have been trying to get my speedo out for the last week, the nut holding the speedo cable on was very very tight and I couldn't get a good grip on it because of the angle working behind the dash. I finally used a pair of pliers to turn it a bit at a time while laying in the footwell and that got it off. It looks like the drive on the end of the cable isn't turning though, so more troubleshooting is in order. I hope the problem doesn't end up being too expensive to fix. I am going to hunt for a new speedo anyway, since the one I have is wrong for the late model (black label LH type) all-sync overdrive forked into my 66. I should have a speedo with 1280 turns per mile, but I have a 1060 (from a Midget I believe) so my odometer is running 20% fast which I have verified against mile markers on the Interstate. No idea why the 1060 is in there. I could really go for some nice sunny warm weather right about now! I'm flying off to Minnesota at the end of the week, I'll do an oil change, brake bleed and valve adjustment when I get back.