In about 1985 or 86, I retrieved my Healey after10 years of storage in my father-in-law’s North East Pennsylvania unheated garage and brought it home to the Jersey Shore. When evaluating the condition of the car, I found that many of the electrical connections and switch contacts had corroded to the point of inoperability and became a major reason motivating a total dismantling of every component in the car.
One of the many electrical components disassembled, cleaned, and lubricated, was the battery shut-off switch. When disassembled, this original switch was found to be strong and complete but, over the 10 years of car storage in North East Penn, had corroded substantially. After cleaning contacts, I inserted a substantial amount of Di-electric grease, and resealed (closed) the unit. Since then, no issues or problems have been experienced with this, or for that matter, any switch or connector serviced in this manor.
The non-conductive di-electric grease was chosen to address a number of electrical connector issues. First, this grease lubricates the switch for smooth operation. Second, the non-conductive grease separates from contacting surfaces to allow good connectivity but eliminates detrimental flash-over often resulting in contact burn. Some have suggested a conductive grease would be better, however, unless the conductive grease is well sealed from mounting hardware or leakage, short circuiting is potential and, in my opinion, probable.
I have packed almost every original switch (that I can dismantle i.e. headlight switch etc) in this manor and have also serviced bullet connectors after soldering the wires to the bullet. To date, I have experienced no electrical issues on any of my serviced components and, although suggest others evaluate every suggestion for themselves, am quite happy with my results in this approach.
Ray (64BJ8P1)