Packard Forum Index » Post-War (1946-54)

Quote:

Corroded switch contacts or connections would cause less current draw not more. The resistance would go up and the current would go down. A good example of this is when you turn off your lights. The resistance in the circuit goes to infinity and the current goes to zero.

Logically, you are absolutely correct. I brought up the current draw possibly increasing from poor connection because of an experience I had with a switch on a piece of equipment (DC circuit but not car) blowing a fuse. Stuck with me all these years and still look for stupid unexpected stuff like that when on calls today.

Looking back after the fact, switch appeared to make/break properly, no shorts, external contacts & connection good but after some use, got warm-- but not enough to smell or smoke as customer didn't notice anything other than it was inoperative.

Don't know why fuse would blow instead of just component quitting other than the contacts arcing & heating caused too much draw. By the time I got there on service call, all cool, replace fuse and seemingly OK for another period. Took a while to find the real culprit but changed the switch and all was well.

In one of the posts in this thread I said I would advise the outcome. Five years later... here it is.

My '50 Custom was invited to attend a private car show this weekend. The show was to end well after dark so I figured that working headlights would be a good idea. Originally I thought the problem might be related to the high beam circuit but further testing in the garage showed that the lights cycled on and off regardless of whether high or low beam was used. I checked all connections and they seemed good and tight, no flaky grounds that I could find so... for less than $4.00 at NAPA it seemed logical to go ahead and replace the 30amp circuit breaker. It only took 15 minutes to replace and it definitely fixed the problem.

Good to hear. I am now beginning to replace those breakers as a matter of course whenever I am near a headlight switch. Seems like 60 years is about the upper limit for those things. Go figure.