Drivers door switchpack overhaul

[RollingThunder]

One thing that has bugged me since I picked up the V70R, is the state of the switchpack. Its badly degraded and unpleasantly sticky. Yak!!! I bought a replacement one off eblag which was described as 'working perfectly, nice n clean'. Yeah right. It was nearly as bad as the one I already had so with an hour to spare today I decided to give the replacement pack a quick overhaul...

The bottom section is easy to separate - just unclip the visible snap clips around the edges and it comes apart. No need for pics of that! If all you need to do is replace LEDS, then this is as far as you need to go -



You can also clean up the metal contacts at this point. Once apart, you get access to four more clips which are hidden inside, one on each side -



Its nigh on impossible to open all four clips at once - you're forever chasing a clip that snaps shut! I used some old credit card strips placed in between the clips to prevent this, worked a charm. Once you've separated the upper cover and eased it over the switches, you can see what kind of a state the pack was really in...



Now the switches can be gently eased off the rocker brackets - they pop off but be very careful as they're fragile.



Now you can clean the switches thoroughly along with that top cover. Reassembly is the opposite of reverse as they say, just be careful to ensure that you line up the contacts in the switches with the holes in the sliders on the main unit - don't force anything, if its all lined up ok it'll snap together nicely. The metal pin contacts in the switches should insert into the plastic sliders as shown -



And the end result -



OK, it doesn't look that much better in the pic, but if you compare it to the existing switchpack you can see the small improvement made...



So well worth doing, and a straightforward job at that. Just take your time and don't force anything.

I better add a footnote here, just to be honest If you take a look at the metal contacts that sit in the underside of the switches...(excuse the use of the previous pic)



--- you'll see that they're actually spring loaded. When you remove the switches the general crap that has built up inside the switches stops the springs from ejecting the contact. BUT, its just biding its time. Once you have your hands full cleaning something else, one or more of those springs will seize their moment and shoot that pin contact into outer space. You know why I mention this now... best stick them in a bag or take the spring & contact out of each switch as you go along.

[V70 Graham]

Nice 'how to' even though my switchpack isn't in too bad a condition one of the led's have gone, hopefully M-R-P will now be able to source the led and fix it for me

[T5frankie]

bloody hate those shooting pins

[M-R-P]

anybody know what voltage/wattage these leds are?

[stribo]

They'll be 12V lol, not sure on wattage though, probably quite low.

Great write up BTW.

[Dangerous Dave]

anybody know what voltage/wattage these leds are?

They'll just be standard green 3mm leds, possibly 12V as Stribo says, or there might be a few resistors built into the switch pack somewhere (my 850 switch pack was like that, but is quite different to the x70 switches).

I'll have to get mine apart and check.

[abdul]

great how to