Repo light switch body questions

coupe1942

coupe1942

Senior Member
I purchased a repo light switch body a while back when i decided I needed to replace the wiring on my 1930 pickup. In looking the part over, I notice that the outside housing is actually two parts which interlock with each other. It is not 100% the same as my original light switch housing in how it is made, but the issue I have is that when separated to insert the new wiring loom, the two metal halves do not easily hook back together in order to lock into place correctly.

Is there a way to join the two metal covers together more easily? I don't want to bend anything by forcing them and I cant seem to get enough force applied to get them to hook up properly with each other. The were joined together when they arrived in the mail, so I assume they should be able to be put back much easier than I seem to have luck with. They are not being forced at an angle, so is there an easy trick to hooking the two metal covers back together and I am simply missing it?

Is this common with repo light switch bodies these days?

I was not sure of how to widen the one piece so that the other slides into it easier or if trying to widen it, I could actually do more damage. I don't have a lot of "oomph strength" in my hands these days, so maybe that is the main issue, but I don't think so.

Anu tips to share or photos?

Thanks
 
If I'm not mistaken there are tabs on one side so it can only go in one way. But I'm sure you would of noticed those if you were looking it over really good. Do yours have a tab?
 
Yes it had the tabs and there is only one way I can see for the two pieces to be put back together. One metal cup slides into the other, but only if the tab is correctly aligned as far as I can tell. Not sure if it is warpage or perhaps a dab of lubricant would allow it to slip back into place. I can always clean up and reuse the original one, but I just thought that swapping the new repo unit would be less a hassle and this truck is not going to be a show piece, but just a daily driver, anyway. If I can't get this part back together, then I'll look at cleaning and reusing the original light switch body.
 
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Yeah, but I didn't want to pull out the harness wires when I took out the original since I had already inserted the new harness back into the repo unit. Old one needs some clean up, for sure.

I'm sort of wondering it the two metal housing pieces, which came put together, may have gotten squeezed a bit during shipping and are somewhat warped because of that?

In looking closer at the original, the two pieces are pretty near the same in how they were formed, but the inside components are not.
 
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If it initially came apart easily maybe something is not setting right now that the harness is inside of it. I would take the harness back out of the housing and try to assemble it to see if it still binds. If it goes together then you know it's the internal harness area causing issues.
 
coupe1942 said:
...Is this common with repo light switch bodies these days? I was not sure of how to widen the one piece so that the other slides into it easier or if trying to widen it, I could actually do more damage. I don't have a lot of "oomph strength" in my hands these days, so maybe that is the main issue, but I don't think so.

Any tips to share or photos? Thanks
Click to expand...
I purchased one of those repro light switch bodies too. I worked it over for two days until I gave up. The two halves eventually went together, but then it wouldn't properly fit the bottom of the steering column. And that was bad. By all means, save the old switch and use it.
 
tbirdtbird said:
if it came apart it has to go back together

maybe some judicious use of a tailpipe expander......
Click to expand...

Actually that was my first thought of how to deal with it, but my Harbor Freight tailpipe expander had previously broken on my first use of it. Midas wanted $10 bucks to do any expansion of pipes when i lived in Arlington, Tx., so I am looking for other options. Closest Harbor Freight is a good hour away from Ada and probably the muffler expansion part is just not worth the drive there and back. Hey, but I did at least consider this as a method to deal with it.

I even thought of some judicious use of a rubber mallet, too. However, my luck is pretty bad at remaining in the judicious ball park when swatting something with a mallet, rubber or otherwise. :-)
 
HF stuff is trash. Get a Lisle from Amazon; reasonably priced there and good quality. Lisle makes 2 diff sizes.

The most expensive tool is a cheap one that breaks and becomes useless right away, forcing you to buy another.......
 
That may be really good advise for someone who uses such a part for more than just a boat anchor, but I would have very, very little use for it in the long run. I don't do much with a muffler expansion tool these days.

I may be able to borrow one at AutoZone though, but to purchase one would probably be a non-viable option for me, considering how often I'd actually use it. :-)
 
Also if you use junk tools and it breaks during use you risk damage to yourself.

At the threshing show swap meet on Friday I bought a box of tools for $10, and one of the tools was an older quality two step tail pipe expander.

Have you tried grease or oil on the mating halves of the switch body?
 

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It is interesting how many have issues with repairing their cars yet lack the proper equipment to do so...your mileage may vary

I prefer the proper equipment because my time is the most important thing I have......I can't be wasting it trying to assemble something
 
Some of the older light switch bodies are terrible quality and don't fit each other. It's almost as if two different manufacturers made each one and didn't bother checking with each other on the dimensions and fit. I have been fighting this with a repo 1928 body I bought about 10 years ago. No matter what I do, the bumps on one housing will not slip in and twist tight in the other. They don't even line up! If the OP bought his light switch body assembly 10 years ago or so, he may have one of these lousy repos. Poor quality was even warned in the better vendors' catalogs. I believe Snyder's in their catalog still recommends using an original switch body if possible. That tells me that the manufacturers of this junk part still haven't bothered to correct their error. Why should they as long as the vendors continue to buy the parts and re-sell them - and we buy them without complaining? This problem has been well-documented and well-known for a long enough time that it should have been cleared up by now. Once again I don't understand why someone went to all the trouble to tool up to make these parts, but didn't bother doing a quality job making the dies so that the parts fit EACH OTHER.
I agree with other posters - find an original switch body at a swap meet. And find an extra one for me, willya'? :)
Marshall
 
Since the repos are junk I would grind off one of the contacts.
Or try to modify it.
I used one by using some vice grips and expanding the female half to accept the male half.
Bob
 
This morning I took off the original light switch body from the truck to compare it to the repo unit. The body itself looks to have the proper placement of the two pins and indents and all the correct side grooves and even the same diameter for the two body halves.

I then took the original apart and put it right back together again to see if it slid in easily or not and if it locked tightly when cinched down correctly with a twist. It did and no issues at all with it being taken apart several times and put back together immediately afterwards.

Then I took the bottom half of the repo unit and replaced the bottom half of the original one with it to see if that worked okay, too. It simply does not easily slide into place. This is with the plastic contact plate inside the housing. Try as I might, the two parts simply do not slide together easily, so I started looking at the inside of the housing and playing about with that plastic contact part (nor sure of the correct name of it). and came across something else of interest.

Both of the two housing bodies are essentially spring loaded and the plastic connector wiring part presses against them to depress the spring inside of the housing. Well, the repo part does not allow the spring to be depressed by the plastic connector piece. I can remove that connector and push the spring loaded part up and down, okay, but once the plastic connector part is again properly inserted into the housing, there is absolutely no depressing on that spring piece happening.

This leads me to believe that either the repo part is total trash sold by the vendor or perhaps it was not the correct part for my 1930 pickup as I had ordered. I have no clue if there was changes to the housing parts from earlier model Fords or not and that a '30 light switch body won't work on an earlier model or vise versa.

In fact, I can only assume that the original part I had removed from my truck is an original to begin with and not itself a repo part. I'll chance that assumption though and satisfy myself in believing that it is an original part.

Looks like I'll be cleaning up the original piece and using it instead of mucking about any further with this repo part. That spring assembly inside of the top housing appears to have been the root cause of the two repo metal body parts not fitting together properly. It simply does not depress enough to allow the plastic contact piece to work inside the housing part as it should.

The attached photos are not great as my batteries were weak and in need of replacement in my camera. The focus is off a bit in some of them and the flash was not charged up well enough.

Thanks for the ideas, info and tips. I'll set the repo part aside and keep it just in case i ever need to work out some anger management issues in the future. :-) :-) :-)
 

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Since u can push up and down on the spring without the phenolic contact plate installed this leads me to believe that your housing Wall is distorted. Yes the repo is junk with some issues but this has never been one of them in the past...
 
When I compared the original to the repo one in pushing down on the spring, I found that the repo really depresses very, very little even without the plastic plate inside of the housing, but the original depresses more and you can easily tell the difference between them. Not sure what caused this, but you sure can note the difference between the two when doing the depression movement.

Oh, well, I suppose it is actually better that the two metal body halves were giving me such grief to assemble, as it allowed me to find this other issue and not put the new repo part into use first. I am not sure if it would have worked okay when forced and then installed onto the truck, but finding this ahead of doing that saved me some grief later on, I believe.

Snyder's did rate this repo piece as "fair," but recommended using the original one if possible. Since I didn't really know when I ordered it originally if the truck had an original one on it or not, I chanced this repo unit. Live and learn. :-)
 
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