I bought a NOS headlight switch for my Maverick and when I took it out of the box, the rheostat contact has some green corrosion on it. Just wondering if I should leave it alone or try to clean it up a little?? I read in the cluster repair theads about pickle juice....wondering about this
Pickle juice is a new one for me but dont see why not. Vinegar is an acid so I guess pickle juice would work on copper as well. Try a cotton swab and see if it works. If not you can just eat the pickles.
Contact cleaner (Radio Shack) will be better for this job. When I cleaned my printed circuit board I had to rub kinda hard. The rheostat will eat the pickle like a cheese grater
It is never a good idea to use acid on an electric device. Pickle juice is an acid so get yourself some contact cleaner and some corrosion inhibitor at the local electronics store and use that instead.
Well since you guys are getting so serious on us. Make sure you use that contact cleaner in a well ventilated area. Contains all kinds of nasty's even chlorine if you break it down. We dont allow it in the shop anymore.
When I was at the power company re-winding the main electric generators in the steam, Hydro and even the Nuclear units we used Tabasco sauce a lot. We had to solder or braze the coils together on the end to make up all of the circuits. Then tape them all up using gallons of epoxy between the layers to be electrically sound. In order to make the connections the copper had to be as clean as possible. The Tabasco sauce would help with that. I hate to think of how many 100's of gallons of the stuff we used. If I never smell it again I will be happy. It will clean copper shiny new. I bet that rheostat is copper. clint
Oh and I do have to get my cluster lights working too..I suspect some cleaning will be required there also.
If anyone has doubts about Tabasco sauce...put a drop on a dirty penny and wipe it off with a paper towel. It will shine like new money.
And what do you use to get the acids in the tobasco sauce off? If you reaaly want to see something then put a penny in some tobasco sauce and then set it on some zinc or lead and see what happens over the next two weeks. acid is never good for electrical connections - that is why you use rosen core solder on electrical connections instead of acid core.
