Unobtainium 348 light switch work - very happy !

The light switch on my 348 busted recently. Essentially the multi-lobe cam inside that drives the lights up/down mechanism degraded so badly that the light stalk just spun in the hole and didn't operate the lights. The cam had basically fallen apart.

Daniel at Ricambi gave me the bad news that the 348 switch is NLA and that I really had two options, the 1st being get a Mondial T switch and make modifications to get it to work on the 348 or I could try Verell at Unobtainium to see if he could get it working again.

I got in touch with Verell and ended up shipping my switch to him to look at.
After many molds and experiments Verell was able to create a new multi-cam lobe and get it fixed to the stalk.
At the same time he did a full recondition of the switch.
It's back installed in my 348 now and it feels great !
Very positive firm operation.

I just wanted to let other 348 owners know that Verell has molds for the 348 now and may well be able to recondition other folks switches.

Verell has certainly done a fabulous job for me, I'm over the moon !

Simon.

 

SWEEEEET!!!

That's good news, and thanks for the info!

 

Nice!

 

Simon,
Thanks for the praise!!!

Also, even more thanks for bearing with me for so many weeks while I developed a molds & a way to get the cam to go onto the shaft w/o breaking. I lost a lot of hair scratching my head on the way to a solution!


In case you're wondering, here's a picture of the key parts I had to make.

The light colored 5-lobe cam sits inside the black 'yoke' with the headlight stalk's shaft's metal core going thru both parts. The metal headlight stalk core is swaged to form raised ridges that keep the cam from turning. The yoke has several complex shape holes in it that take odd shaped mating pieces, and the yoke's holes for the shaft are elleptical to let the headlight stalk be pulled back for 'flashing'...
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Mad skills Verell, MAAAD skills!!!!!

 

Wow, awesome work man.

Mine is ****ed also, but I picked up a good used one that I am yet to fit.

When you start selling that little part, let me know mate so I can buy one to fix my original one.

 

Excellent work, Verell, way to go!

 

I'm pretty sure mine is on the way out, so I'm glad to see this!

 

Send me your stalk & yoke & old cam i'll return it assembled with a new cam. The cam has to be mated to the stalk when it's cast so it's not something your can install yourself afterwards. That mating proces is one of the things that I gained a lot of experience[1] with.

Or send me the entire switch & I'll do the tear-down, clean all the old lube off, clean the contacts, & make any necessary repairs.

BTW, you have to drill the swaged ends off of rivits to disassemble the switch, then use screws specially made for plastic to reassemble it.


[1]experience: What you get when things don't work the way you expected. ;^)

 

Hi mate,

Not a problem. When I get around to it I will let you know and send it over to you.

Thanks again my friend.