[Spridgets] Heater fresh air pull

[Rick Fisk]

Marked turned on the ability to post photos months ago.  Gotta keep up Lin.  :-)

Sent from my keyboard

> On Jun 16, 2015, at 10:19 AM, Linda Grunthaner via Spridgets <spridgets at autox.team.net> wrote:
> 
> Nice job Tim.
> BTW How did you post an image so all of us are able to see it?
> Lin
> 
>> On Sun, Jun 14, 2015 at 9:58 PM, Tim Collins via Spridgets <spridgets at autox.team.net> wrote:
>> Hi folks,
>> I needed to put the battery charger on my Sprite the other day. Later when removing the charger cable (that I had attached to the battery terminal of the solenoid) I noticed an orange glow (glowing like the metal on the edge of a knife) under the hood with me. I had touched the pull cable for the fresh air pull - (part of the heater fan switch) with the charger clamp. I quickly repositioned the charger clamp, but the damage was done. I couldn't activate the pull. I first though I might have welded it to the outer cable, but the problem was that when the wire cooled, it warped so wouldn't fit into the outer sheath. I figured I could straighten it enough for it to work - I was wrong. The heating and cooling made the wire so brittle that it just broke. So I began to plan a fix.
>> 
>> This looked like it should be a fairly easy repair. Just replace the wire with a longer one. However, the end of the wire in the switch has a ball on the end. I checked the Spridget archive and sure enough Frank C had written about such a repair. His method was to MIG weld a ball onto the replacement wire and also involved un-soldering the sheath from the switch. Welding a ball onto the end of a wire sorta seemed like trying to weld an angel's boot to the head of a pin. Frank's success rate was 50% for the two he worked on. 
>> 
>> I found I could remove the wire from the switch assembly thanks to an access hole that allowed me to push to ball out of the retaining hole. I just grabbed it then and pulled - short wire out! I began thinking of ways to put a ball on the end of the new wire. I considered a ball bearing, but rejected that as a being a weak butt joint especially if using solder. I figured I wasn't going to be able to drill a hole in a ball bearing either. I looked for a pull chain (from a light fixture or key chain) to use a ball from that chain, but my chains were too small. I spotted a brass braising rod that had a ball on the end. That looked promising. So I drilled a hole in the brass ball, cut it loose from rod and slipped it over the tinned wire. Then I soldered it all together and filed it into a rough ball shape. I reassembled everything and it works well now. Anyhow, that's how I made a fix to a Spridget part that isn't readily available anymore and wasn't really so bad that it needed replacing - just repair. Here's a pic:
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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> 
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> "Pay if forward" in honor of Frank Clarici III, Spritenut
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