• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

General TR Steering Shaft/Column Short Circuit?--Electrical Issue with Light Switch

Share this page

KVH

KVH

Darth Vader
Silver
Country flag
Online
I just installed a new light switch in my steering column. I feel the switch is improperly manufactured. The blue/white wire protrudes into the shaft space and I can feel the signal "trip rib" on the shaft lightly brushing that wire as I rotate the shaft, right where the wire insulation ends. I've disassembled and reassembled four times and if I bend that wire and connector any further I'm concerned I'll ruin the light switch solder plate.

So, for the electrical experts here, would it make any difference if my steering shaft occasionally brushed past that wire as I was steering? I just don't understand "electrics" enough to know what it might mean to add any kind of intermittent or fleeting "negative current" to that circuit. Do I need to just get bold and bend that connection way back? Thanks guys!

PS I'm getting frustrated by the increasing number of defective parts I'm receiving. This one clearly should have been manufactured with the screw mounting holes forward an eighth of an inch. My shaft bushings were another story of bad parts. Anyway . . .
 
KVH said:
I just installed a new light switch in my steering column. I feel the switch is improperly manufactured. The blue/white wire protrudes into the shaft space and I can feel the signal "trip rib" on the shaft lightly brushing that wire as I rotate the shaft, right where the wire insulation ends. I've disassembled and reassembled four times and if I bend that wire and connector any further I'm concerned I'll ruin the light switch solder plate.

So, for the electrical experts here, would it make any difference if my steering shaft occasionally brushed past that wire as I was steering? I just don't understand "electrics" enough to know what it might mean to add any kind of intermittent or fleeting "negative current" to that circuit. Do I need to just get bold and bend that connection way back? Thanks guys!

PS I'm getting frustrated by the increasing number of defective parts I'm receiving. This one clearly should have been manufactured with the screw mounting holes forward an eighth of an inch. My shaft bushings were another story of bad parts. Anyway . . .
Click to expand...

You've described yet another reason why I seek out NOS or excellent used parts whenever possible. I personally would NOT want to see a powered wire ever contacting the steering column; that's pretty much how Lucas manufactures replacement smoke. :( It does, though, sound as if the location of the mounting screw holes is the fault here. Might there be a way to ever so slightly "slot" the holes in the column so that the switch might come away from the column just that wee bit? I personally hate to modify original parts in order to accommodate bad repro parts, but there's that whole spark / smoke / smell / possible fire thing, so....
 
OK, I’ll take your advice. Off it all comes again. I’ll see if I can expand those holes.
 
Back
Top