Reverse light switch wires?

[siteunseen]

Both mine have come loose and need to be soldered back on. Are they specific or just a ground break switch? Thanks for any help.

 

[Zed Head]

It's just a switch.  You might consider new, flexible, wires, I've found that the old wires are all stiff from years of heat and getting washed by dirty road water.  Probably why they break, any wire movement puts all of the stress on the connection point.

[zKars]

Carefull soldering new wires back on! I melted the innards of a couple trying too hard.

Super clean the tabs, bit of flux, hot iron for just as long as need to get a dot of solder to stick. Cool and do the other. Tin wires, then quickly melt the tinned wire to each terminal.

The original wires are squeezed into a slot in those tabs with no solder for this reason I think.

New ones are on rockauto pretty cheap anyway I think

[siteunseen]

Thank you both for the tips @Zed Head and @zKars but back to the polarity of the wires, does it matter which wire goes to a certain terminal? Thank you both again, Cliff.

[zKars]

No polarity. Either way is just fine. 

[Zed Head]

No polarity.  The ground is after the reverse light so the body of the switch is insulated, not grounded.

To zKars's point - use a heat sink on the base of the terminal,  to save the insulation.  Pretty sure I just crimped my new wires on, but soldering would work.

Page BE-16 shows the whole circuit but here's the short one.

[siteunseen]

Thank you Zed H!

When you say heat sink do you mean the rubbery stuff that sucks down around connections with heat? I call it heat shrink. Is that the same thing?

Thanks again, that's a good idea.

[Zed Head]

No, I meant the heat sinks used for soldering.  It's a metal clip placed between what you're soldering and heat sensitive parts.  It soaks up heat that would otherwise pass to the sensitive part.  You can use alligator clips but they do make specific clips for the job.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Save-your-components-with-a-heat-sink/

[siteunseen]

Okay, I know what you're talking about now.

I may slide some heat shrink over those connections too.

Another question, the A 4 spd I took out has an electrical switch above the speedo connection. It has flat spade connectors. What the hell is that? 5spd doesn't have it or even a hole for. Thanks for your help. 

Cliff

[Zed Head]

I used heat shrink also to spread the load at the junction.

I think that other switch is the top gear switch. It's for the vacuum advance solenoid switch that lets vacuum through to the distributor.  One of those odd emissions things they were doing back then.  Pretty sure it's shown in the FSM.

Edit - it looks like it's a neutral switch.  Not sure what cars had them.  Mine didn't.

Edited April 8, 2016 by Zed Head