Roanoke, VA
Quoted from Pecos:If you can tear yourself long enough away from ogling your new toy, now is the perfect time to clean and gap ALL of the contacts on Swinger.
If you are careful, and you need to be both careful and thorough, when done you will have an EM that is 98% - 99% working.
A good cleaning of all contacts can be done in two or three evenings and well worth the time if you want that Swinger to Swing.
Very nice work, Ryan. It's the most fun I've had reading a restoration thread yet.
Like Pecos, Grand Finder Of The Pins, I am also in the "clean contacts" camp. Yes, it's totally OCD and takes a good bit of extra time. However, I sleep better at night knowing it is done. My process:
1. Remove switch stack from relay.
2. Clean relay ladder w/alcohol & qtips.
3. Test spring strength and check for residual magnetism by manually pushing relay ladder.
4. If weak and/or slightly magnetized, tighten spring by removing 3-4 loops.
5. Swab all switch blades and contacts with alcohol/qtip.
6. Polish contacts with Dremel 443 carbon steel brush.
7. Swab all contacts with alcohol/qtip again to remove residual dust after polishing.
8. Slightly bias long switches (the ones which go through the ladder) to tilt in the opposite direction of the solenoid. This should be a very slight adjustment which gives the ladder a tiny amount of additional lift (like strengthening the spring). It ensures each switch blade is resting against the same side of the ladder gap and thus provides the maximum amount of open/close gap travel possible. Totally unnecessary to do this... but as a micro-adjustment, it's there if you want to claim it.
9. Install switch stack, ensuring vertical alignment down the stack and that all switch blades rest dead-center in the ladder (no twisting).
10. Align switch blades so all contacts meet evenly in the center when actuated.
11. Tighten switch stack screws.
12. Gap each switch identically and ensure the wiping/self-cleaning motion is taking place at every contact (most important).
Obviously, if I owned more than a couple dozen machines, this would be totally impractical. But it is very satisfying to make everything work as well as it ever could without having to track down issues which might (?) arise later.
It's also good for revealing hard to find issues like damaged switch contacts (wiggling around making intermittent contact but otherwise looks normal from the sides).
