actually showing you how to tear this apart and clean the contacts
inside and put it back together so you don't have to buy a new one. I am just going to say light switch from now to save a little time. I'm gonna assume that you have verified that
the switch is bad and it isn't something else like a bad fuse or a bad wire.
Most courtesy switches
are designed in a similar way This switch is out of a 97 4runner. Yours may be slightly different but it should be a similar concept. The cheapest replacement switch I found for this truck is about seventeen dollars with the shipping, which isn't bad. But, this truck is old and I don't want to spend a whole lot money on it and I don't have to wait a few days for the parts to come in.
I just want to get the job done. You have probably already figured out how to get this out of the Toyota door. Just lift this flap up and that exposes the bolt. Take that out.
Then you have to pull the inner panel back so you can get to this connector and disconnect it from the main wiring system. Then there is a little piece of rubber right here so you have to peel the top part back. And set that aside now cut each one of these little
pieces of plastic that they've melted in here They are just little pegs sticking
through that they melt to hold it together I am going to cut these three out so that I
can separate this part. Take a razor knife, cut away from yourself of course.
A little pressure here... Be sure to cut away from the plunger. Now most of that is off. You can also push the button in to get it out of the way if you need to.
You may not be able to see while I am doing that. Get it started. Use a small screwdriver to give it a pry. There it went.
Pull this part off. This is the part that give you the ground connection. You can see this little tab is one of the contacts. I don't know if you can see this good enough, but there is a lot of corrosion on there.
Hopefully, you can see the corrosion on this piece. This file is a little big for the job, but I couldn't find my small file. I am just going to file this corrosion off of here. Get it down to shinny metal again.
Now for the next piece. This is the center part of the switch. This piece is just a
continuous piece of metal. It goes from one side through here to the other.
It is kinda springy so to clean it you have
to put something up behind it to allow you to get a little pressure So, I am going to put a flat head screwdriver under here Hopefully I can get around the camera
and do this. Clean it good with a wire brush or scrape it with a knife or whatever you feel like is appropriate. Now clean the other side. That should be good enough.
The other contact on this is kinda hard
to get to. It is inside here. This is really the top but I have it upside down. Right up in here is the other contact.
Since I can't find my small file, I will have to scrape it with a razor knife. I will have to clean this better off camera. Over the post in the center and put a tad of dielectric grease on here I'm cheating here. This is just Valvoline.
I don't feel like digging out my true dielectric
grease. I am just going to put a thin coat on here dielectric grease is probably the best thing to use. So, once you have it snapped back together, just put it but back in the car. There is the metal behind this surface, so you really don't need to glue it together.
Just put it like it is and the bolt will
hold it together for you. You may have a little trouble
keeping it all together if you could too much of these post off it may not hold together real good for
you until you get the bolt in there in the car but there is really no need to have it
glued together. Once it is in there, it's fine. So, I wouldn't
even worry about gluing it back together.
Be sure to test your switch before you totally glue it together or wire it together or do
anything that's going to be hard to undo because this switch had a bad corroded spot right in the middle this
contact and what it was doing is as the plunger would come out it would
make contact initially and then when it was all the way out it
would lose contact because that bad spot so I had to file this quite a bit to get it smooth so that I got a good connection. So be sure to hook you up an ohm meter or something
like that and test it several times to make sure that as it
goes in and out it doesn't get an intermittent connection especially when
it's all the way out. Make sure it's got a good connection even when you wiggle the plunger just a little bit
it should have a good connection still Depending on your design may need
to put a little bit a glue and maybe clamp it together with some vice grips or
something and let it dry overnight. It just depends on your design.
In this case I
don't need any glue. In other cars you may need to drill some small holes up here. Likely, this one already had holes in the
metal so I only had to drill holes in the plastic Then you can wrap a wire thru it
or something like that to hold it together. I'm gonna go ahead and
show you how to put a wire through here just in case
that is what you end up needing to do.
Be sure to drill out towards the outside of this more, not to
the inside because it does get into the casing of the inner part if you drill too close to the inner part. Be careful not to press too hard. When it gives you don't want to beet the button up too bad with the drill. Kind of like I did just then.
Now the holes are drilled. Now I have somewhere I can put my small pieces of wire through. I'm gonig to use
stainless steel wire I get it from one of the hardware stores here
in town. I guess if you don't have stainless
steel wire you can you something else but it'll probably corrode.
Depending on where you live. I'm in
Florida so I am going to use stainless steel wire. This might be hard to show on camera, but I am taking a small piece of wire coming in one hole. Around behind it I am having a hard time doing this on camera out of the other hole.
I keep getting off camera here. But I will keep
trying... Pull some slack out Cut the excess wire off Kep working it to I get kind of snug Needle nose work pretty good Pull it both directions. Trying to watch the
camera and watch what I'm doing at the same time Then you can bend
this around the front.
You don't wanna get it up against the
plunger were it interferes with anything. You need
it kind of snug so that it out of the way the rubber boot goes on. This side, the same thing. Just keep
it kinda tight That is probably snug enough.
Sorry, get off
camera there from a minute. So that is probably snug enough to keep it all
together. Give it a test push and make sure that it doesn't come apart. Looks good Slip the boot back on If your wires too thick you will have a hard time with the part.
Of course you want to test it with an ohm meter or test light or something before you go
too crazy with this to make sure the your inner parts are working right And then bolted it back in the car, and you are good to go This switch was on an older truck the I have access to all the time.
I'm
not that concern about it if it doesn't work just right. It is no big deal for me to pop it back out and work on it again. If it's a truck that you only get one
shot at or it's difficult to get this switch in and out, definitely use the dielectric grease instead of the Valvoline, and be sure to test it with your ohm meter
to make sure has a nice consistant reading as you are pushing the plunger in and out Even when you just touch it
a little bit or wiggle it like that. It shouldn't change its reading until you push it in quite a bit.
You don't want to have to pull it right back out. If it doesn't
give you good reading, then you probably have some corrosion on the switch or some pitting on some part of the switch or you need some dielectric grease to keep it clean and operating smoothly If you liked this video, please click on the
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