It's been too long...

Over all, a killer fuckin weekend. Aaron got his new 2012 FLHX Saturday (it's pretty gaddamned slick especially with the 103 and the six speed) and wanted to hit the swap meet to put a for sale sign on the softail, so he rode the new one, and I rode the old one.

After a three year hiatus from having a bike I could ride it felt amazing. A solid hundred mile ride put some much needed wind back in my sails...or between my knees, whatever.

Today was more electrical stuff. Jerry liked the original Delco-Remy under floor dimmer switch as opposed to the replacement unit supplied with the wiring kit. As with most things mounted under a floor board for almost sixty years it had seen better days, but nothing I couldn't clean up.




The next item was whether or not the power antenna worked. Answer...no. It's just some no name el cheapo power antenna but it wasn't doing anything so I figured it wasn't the gear but probably the motor. So I blasted it apart, cleaned the armature and the brushes, re-greased the jack screw, and good as new.





After that, I de-soldered the old wire from the blower motor and soldered in a new primary lead and cleaned all the undercoat from the top half of the case.




Next on the agenda will be a new hamster cage. I don't want to clean this one...

"Why don't you just go buy a new one?"

I'll tell you why...

So as my previous post mentioned, one of my heroes Dan Miller made me a bushing to mount the new style switch in the stock location on the Olds without heavy dashboard modification that cannot be reverted to stock. He and I were talking and the one point he brought up was that it would be a lot easier to install and un-install if there was a slot cut in the top to screw it into the switch.

That means grab a beer and a hacksaw boys and girls, it's cutting time!


Now here we have a side by side comparison on the new and old switch.


The biggest issue with the old one was corrosion. The contact spring for the rheostat. For those of you who don't know, that controls the brightness of your interior lighting. If it's gone, so are your dash lights.

So the new one should handle that issue nicely.

And then...

External threads go in smooth as butter.

As for the internal threads...

Almost smoother. Which is good since it's fucking impossible to see the alignment of the hole in the switch with the hole in the front of the dash.

Here's the backside of the dash where you can see that bracket that the switch buts up against.

A perfect fit.

So now we have a modern switch with stock appearance.

Another electrical issue at hand was the heater motor.

Judging by the external state, I figured the reason it had a flat spot and sounded like a rock tumbler had to be some serious corrosion issues like everything else...and it's covered in some kind of rubberized undercoat shit.

So apart it went. I cleaned the rust off the armature and field coils and checked the brushes and bushings for excessive wear.

The only thing it really needed was a new primary lead...

...and to clean all the shit out.

So now everything is cleaned up and ready for reassembly.



To answer the first question...

Because you can't buy this shit.