The Whole Garage Catalogue: An Ancient Ark-Les Automotive Switch

Saturday, February 23, 2019

An Ancient Ark-Les Automotive Switch

It's a four-position rotary switch with wire-wound resistors built into the rear of it.

Stamped on the metal shell is "ARK-LES"^[1]. The Ark-Les brand is still with us, though their website is a disaster right now. Every link just brings up a bit of gibberish.

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I suspect that this switch must have been meant to be the heater-blower speed control switch for the cabin of a car or truck.

I'm a bit baffled by the knob. The knob surely has to be removable in order for the switch's shank to be installed in a panel, but the knob is stuck fast. I'll try warming it with a heat gun and see if it pulls straight off.

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Hmmm. That didn't work. There's no pulling the knob straight off, and it doesn't want to unscrew in either direction. This makes no sense. The knob has to come off in order for the switch to be installable.

So ok; let's try this. I'll clamp the knob in my mechanic's vise in such a way that I can pry up on the metal shell with the knob held in place.

Here goes.

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And that worked. I managed to get the knob free.

Now the question arises, should I go further and separate the metal shell from the ceramic base? That risks fatiguing and breaking the fastening tabs, but what the hey, let's have a look inside.

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And here we are with the components separated and lined up.

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Uh-Oh

This switch has a defect. The centre resistors-connection crimp terminal at the rear is flaky. Someone has attempted to solder it in the past.

The solder didn't take to the resistance wire. I tried solder again after thoroughly scraping clean the area, but it was no go. Solder simply will not take to the resistance wire.

So, I centre-punched the connection all around to try and establish a renewed crimp effect.

That may work, though I'm not confident that it's a truly sound repair. I'll reassemble the switch and try it out with a small DC motor. If nothing else, I'll keep the switch as a curiosity.

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It works. Here's an annotated schematic of the thing.

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Note:

[1] A little play on words there, I imagine; ARC-LES = arcless. My schematic doesn't show it, but the switch is a make-before-break type, which I suppose would inhibit arcing as switch position is changed.

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Introduction

This blog is in honour of my deceased father, Nick Gaspick.

It sprang from what had started out as merely a post on my workshop blog, Rouge River Workshop. Here's my introduction to that post:

"My son has been clearing out my deceased father's garage, so he'll have a place to restore an old car, and he's been finding all manner of stuff. I've begun one post about an old woodworking vise that I mean to restore. This weekend, my son brought me four toolboxes full of items. As a small honour to my father, I'll 'catalogue' them in this post, in no particular order, little-by-little as I go through the boxes."

The nature of the post was for it to grow ever longer, and that can be dangerous. Blogger has some quirks that I've experienced in the past, and I was getting tired of always backing up the entire post so I wouldn't lose it should Blogger vapourize an editing session. I finally decided to make a full-blown blog with an index out of the post. Here it is.

I'll leave the original post as it is, where it is, but I'll bring over all the items in it so far as individual, indexed posts here as well. Needless to say, new material will only appear here.

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A Little About My Father:

My father emigrated to Canada with his family from Croatia at about the age of seven. His family took on a homestead up Sudbury, Ontario way, and made a living there through the great depression.

My father loved school, and yearned to continue his schooling past grade eight, but that was not on. He had to leave school to make a living -- trapping, mining, whatever. Eventually, he and his made their way to Toronto -- the big smoke in Canada.

My father was built like a brick shit-house; he was a sturdy guy, unlike scrawny me. My father was a guy who could clear an acre of Canadian bush before breakfast, have it tilled and planted before lunchtime, with the plants sprouting before dinnertime.

Jesus H. Christ!-- a guy like my father ought to have lived forever!