ROVER OWNERS' CLUB Inc.

CLUB  MAGAZINE

I once read words from a wise sage who said that one of the pluses of owning a geriatric car was that it gave you the opportunity to solve lots of small technical problems.  Hmmmm!  I think I’ll have to dwell on that profound thought for some time before I make a comment.  My P6 continues to give me little technical mysteries to solve.  One surrounds the normal beam/high beam/headlight flasher switch on the left of the steering wheel. 

The first outing I had in the car was in 2002 when the ROC visited the airfield at Lustkintyre.  Gwen and I decided to go to the Hunter Valley a day early and stay overnight meeting the rest of the members at Luskintyre the next day.  Having checked in at a B&B, we drove into a nearby town for dinner.  A nice meal and we set off back to the B&B in the dark.  Cruising along an unlit country road in the dark and suddenly the headlights all went out. Now that kind-of-gets-your-attention.   I concluded that it must have been high beam and since normal beam seemed to be OK, we completed the rest of the trip on normal beam. 

The car is not often driven long distances at night but on odd occasions I had tried high beam.  Generally this was after I had been driving for about 1 hour on the way home from club meetings.  Sometimes it worked OK and other times there seemed to be a failure of the high beam.  In fact, I became afraid of using high beam. 

I had read stories of the terminals in fuse boxes getting oxidized, causing a high resistance, subsequent hot spots and an ultimate fire.  My car has a fuse box in front of the passenger glove box and I checked and cleaned all these terminals.  I even ran a second wire from the steering column switch to the fuse box as I felt there might have been a problem in this wire. 

The next significant incident occurred in early 2007 when Rob Turner organized a trip to the Mittagong area.  It really rained very heavily on that trip and so the Rover convoy all drove with their headlight on. I was following June and Graham Larmour.  They said my headlights were flashing on and off.  At home I still could not find a cause, principally because I could not reproduce the problem. 

The latest incident occurred on my way to Richard Dalziel’s home for a committee meeting.  From our home at Peakhurst South in the southern side of Sydney, to Richard’s home at Wahroonga on the northern outskirts it is about 65 minutes driving.   I travel up Pennant Hills Road which is one of the main roads leading north to the Newcastle Freeway.  It has 3 lanes of fast moving traffic in each direction.  Suddenly, NO LIGHTS!

My reaction is not suitable for inclusion in a family orientated publication such as Freewheeling.  Then I found if I jiggled the normal beam/high beam switch, I could get the lights back on.  I continued north bound trying to drive a manual car, keep an eye on all this high speed traffic, jiggle the light switch to keep the lights on and not have an accident. 

By my best count, 386 vehicles going the other way and seeing my head lights flashing on and off, suddenly slowed down.  They are probably still looking for the police radar about which they thought I was warning them. 

Never one to let a problem not have a solution, I conceived the bright idea of jamming something in the switch to keep the lights on.  At Richard’s I borrowed a clothes peg.   When I left I pulled the peg apart and tried to jam a bit in the switch. It would not fit.   But, surprise - surprise.  The lights now seemed to working OK.  Homeward bound I went.  After dropping Laurie McKay off at his home I continued on to my home.

Oh no!   The headlights started to flash on and off again. 

By now I had concluded that the normal beam/high beam switch must be the problem.  The box of spare parts that came with the car contained a spare normal beam/high beam switch.  I dismantled this switch and found, to my considerable surprise, that it contained a smear of grease in the contacts. Why would you put grease on the contacts?  If the grease was conductive, it would create a short in the switch.  If the grease was non-conductive it would stop a good flow of current.   It is very likely that this is the source of the problem.  Could it be that if the lights are on for some time, say about 1 hour, the current flow heats the grease covered contacts up to the point where the current flow is stopped?  I have never heard of grease being put on the contacts in a switch to improve operation. All my instinct tells me is that contacts should be clean, have plenty of surface area to contacts each other and be firmly held together.   I cleaned the contacts and reassembled the spare switch.  It certainly makes contacts as the wiring diagram says it should but since I cannot consistently produce the defect, I am not sure I have solved the problem.

Emboldened by all this I attached the switch in the car.  It has the same grease in it.  Look at Figure 1 and you will see the grease on the underside of the switch top plate.  I have cleaned that switch of all grease, polished the terminals and reassembled the switch.  The headlights work correctly but have I solved the problem?  At the time of writing this article I have only driven to the club meeting at Fivedock which is about 35 minutes each way. 

No problem so far, but I need a good 1 hour plus drive at night to see if the flashing problem has gone away. 

For the benefit of members who might also have a flashing head light problem, here is a step by step procedure of switch access and dismantling

Disassembly.

1.     Remove the plastic cover on the center of the steering wheel with the word ROVER on it.  This is held on by    two Phillips headed screws from the front side.  You need a very shallow right angle Phillips headed screw driver to reach these.   I have a very flat ratchet screw driver that is ideal.

2. Ensure the steering wheel is in the straight ahead position, so you can refit it in the correct position.  Undo the large nut securing the wheel. You may need a large socket and to give the socket handle a sharp thump to shock this nut loose.  Do not lose the serrated washer under the nut.

3. Remove the steering wheel.  You might find it does not simply slide off the spline towards you. If so, use the trick Denis Barr taught me.  Clench both your fists, and hammer alternately, quickly, and solidly on the wheel rim at the 3:00 o’clock and 9:00 O’clock positions.  This will “spring” the wheel and it will now slide off the spline towards you.

4. Use a Phillips screw driver to remove the four screws holding the black plastic cover onto the switch box in front of the wheel.  Figure 1 shows what you will see when this cover is removed.

5. Refer to Figure 1.  Use a small screw driver, or long nose pliers to bend back the tabs holding the top of the switch assembly in place. These tabs will probably break off and there is nothing you can do about that.

6.     Refer to Figure 2.

            Caution. Beneath the top cover is a moving contact which has a spring beneath it. As you re move the top cover,

                          ensure this moving contact or the spring beneath it does not pop out and be lost.

        Slide the switch top cover to the right and off the switch assembly.

7.    Refer to Figure 3.  Look on the underside of the switch top cover and see if there is grease or contamination under the cover,

       or on the three contacts.  If so, clean all contacts and remove the grease contamination.

8.     Refer to Figure 3.

            Caution. Do not allow the spring under the moving contact to pop out as you remove the moving contact.

            Note:     You do not need to remove this spring.  But should it come out of the switch ensure the small rubber packing

                           that is under it does not get lost.  This small rubber packing insulates the spring from the parts underneath and is 

                           essential for correct spring compression.

        Carefully remove the moving contact and clean it.  Note in Figure 3 the dirty appearance of the moving contact in my switch.

Reassembly

9.    Refit the moving contact, ensuring the spring and small rubber packing are correctly fitted beneath the moving contact.  

       Slide the top cover from right to left so part of it engages under the switch body.  Since the tabs which retain the top cover

       have probably been broken off, use a few drops of superglue to retain the top cover.

10.  Check all the head lights are working correctly on normal beam, high beam and flashing mode.

11.  Refit the black plastic cover removed in step 4 , using the four screws retained in that step.

12.  Refit the steering wheel and retain using the large nut and serrated washer that was removed in step 3 ensuring the wheel is in

       the same position that it was when you removed it.  Tighten the nut securely.

13.   Refit the black plastic cover on the steering wheel that was removed in step 1 using the two Phillips headed screws retained in that step. 

Click on photos for a larger view.