Quote:
HH56 wrote:
With it failing with 3 control switches, does the leveler move in both directions if you use a small jumper wire and manually ground the solenoid wires at the control box? Touching the ground to either double terminal at the outside end on each side will bypass the limit switches and directly command the solenoids. Since you are bypassing the limit switch make sure a bar is not close to or will be driven into the center of the compensator and only touch long enough to see if it moves. If that works then you can be reasonably sure the solenoids and wiring to them is OK and you can concentrate on the limit switch or control box.
If one direction does not move by grounding the double terminal check to see if there is voltage at that same point. The way the solenoids are internally connected, they need a ground supplied by the control switch to work. At the outside double terminals you should be able to measure 12v to ground which is the voltage coming thru the solenoid winding. A solenoid coil could have failed or some have mistakenly tried to use an ordinary starter solenoid in place of the type the TL needs. Some cars have also had solenoids where water has gotten inside and corroded things to the point the plunger could not move.
If all that is good, then back to the command circuits. Control box inner contacts -- even in NOS switches off the shelf -- can oxidize from sitting and not pass enough current to bring the solenoids in. The limit switch plunger can stick keeping the switch open and the wire where it fastens to the terminal on the back of the limit switch can break. This is fairly common on the switch near the driveshaft if the wires are bundled and pulled tight. You can test them by trying the ground again at the single terminal to either side of the center green power wire.
Alright Howard, I was able to complete your tests using box 1 & box 3. Both had the same results:
When touching either of the double terminals and taking them to ground I got movement from the motor. When touching either wires next to the green center wire I got movement from the motor.
On box 2 still just dropped the rear end. WHICH!! After rereading your tests I decided to do some checking. The yellow terminal on this box is always grounded. That is not the case on the other two boxes. The other two boxes only have the yellow terminal closed to ground once the relay closes. So I believe this tells me the this terminal on box two was installed wrong making it always closed to ground. Which is why it will lower the rear of the car regardless of the position of the dash switch since that is always giving that solenoid ground.
So. I cleaned all the contacts in all three boxes and was able to get movement at the relays on all of them. Only box two did the relays actually snapped closed with some force. I only got lazy movement on both relays on box one, and box three was able to snap one relay closed but the other one had lazy movement.
So with that information I installed box three and was able to get the rear to rise and lower by rotating the rotating arm!! That is awesome! However… rotating in one direction I get this jack hammering sound coming from the solenoids, and very slow movement of the motor. While the other direction moved the motor with the problem. So I believe this means that the relay with the lazy movement isn’t getting enough contact which means the solenoid isn’t getting a good ground and causing it to have this jack hammering sound. Now this was done after I tried to move the contacts closer under the relay and re soldered the wires to and from that relay.
So for what ever reason some of my relays are not moving like they should. Is there a way to fix that? It appears that box two would be my best bet if I can get the yellow terminal to only go to ground with movement of the relay. But I have two packards that utilize these boxes and would be nice to have working spares
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