Meteor
Stern Electronics, 1979I've done the power wire upgrade on the various inline lamps I have on Meteor, but some of the lamps still won't light. Is there any techniques for fixing the spring-loaded ground portion of these sockets?
I've tried pushing and twisting the bit but no go. I can't just replace them with single lamps because there's no space for them.
Those inline lamp strips are junk. Are you sure you can't replace them with individual sockets? I replaced the majority of the inline lamp strips on mine with individual sockets. I remember it being pretty tight around the memory coils, otherwise it wasn't too bad.
Quoted from jwilson:Well, there's three lines in the middle where I can't use single lamps for sure.
Actually, you can
If you PM your email address, I can send you a picture.
On my meteor I took a dremel and wire wheel, buffed off a spot of corrosion on the outside of all the lamp sockets, then soldered a long continuous piece of pre-tinned uncoated wire to all the sockets and ran that wire back to the ground screw of the lamp bracket.
Worked 100%, was dirt cheap compared to replacing all the sockets, required a bit of time but very little effort, and looked not half bad once done.
Quoted from Purpledrilmonkey:On my meteor I took a dremel and wire wheel, buffed off a spot of corrosion on the outside of all the lamp sockets, then soldered a long continuous piece of pre-tinned uncoated wire to all the sockets and ran that wire back to the ground screw of the lamp bracket.
Quoted from ForceFlow:Jumpers and solder tabs instead of ground braid?
That's the "power" mod, not ground. Positive is the socket, ground is the single wire. I've done that mod to all the inline sockets, but the grounding tab - the wire that goes back to the lamp board - that's my problem with a couple of the remaining sockets. There's something in the spring preventing a connection, and I was wondering if anyone had a solution to THAT problem.
ohhh ya sorry, I misread what you needed. 
If you have an actual break in the spring/tab connection I don't know what to tell you, but 100% of mine were corrosion related.
All I did to remedy that part was dremel the inside of the sockets with something that has an abrasive tip to clean the spring. It wasn't consistent but eventually worked on all sockets.
I started off with sanding drums to clean the inside of the sockets, and the screw in the tip managed to clean most of the springs with pressure applied. The ones that still refused to work got another pass, possibly with some other polishing/abrasive bit that escapes my mind at this point... its in the polishing/cleaning mini kit.
If not that, I just kept grinding the screw of the sanding drum tip into the spring till it worked 
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