Yesterday I was able to get the switch changed out, but it took me most of the day. I ended up adding on to one 10ga wire, which was the shortest and came about 4" out of the loom of wires up in the corner. This allowed me to hook it up down in the open. Then I worked my way around clockwise. Not sure what that one goes to, but it went to the hot bar that the ammeter connects to. I also cut the ring off the ammeter that I thought was such a great idea when I replaced that wire years ago. I say to anyone who has to work on replacing or re-wiring your light switch, use fork fittings instead of rings! Those tiny little screws and the plates with the tabs make it a major pita to deal with, especially when laying on your back and trying to get your right arm up over the pedals and then up through the mess of wires, steering column and brackets. What fun!
And to make things a little more interesting, or a method that will stop confusion, I marked the new switches terminals 1-10 with a sharpie and then used blue painters tape and marked the wires of the old one before I removed them. Then, as I was hooking up the wires to the new switch, I couldn't find wire #3 anywhere. ??? I checked and re-checked, but it wasn't around. There were two sets of terminals that had two wires each, but they were marked correctly. Come to find out, and this is pretty sad, I for some reason skipped (3) on the new switch. There were no #3 wires, so that took up about 15 minutes. The biggest concern I had was when I was shoving it back up through the mess of wires and then twisiting it a quarter turn to get the notch in the hole lined up, fearing the old dry-rotted cloth wires would break. But when I got it back in everything is working well and there was no smoke or sparks anywhere, so it seems the job is finished. I will say that for being in the 20's and 30's all day, I wasn't as cold as I expected to be. Plus, my wife made me a tall glass of hot chocolate with some brandy in it, so that was like a warm blanket when I'd get out of the cab for something.
One last thing. As my neck got sorer and sorer (is that a word?), I utilized one of the grandkids rubber Spiderman balls, about 8"d, for a head and neck rest. It had enough air in it to be a good pillow, but it was deflated enough to not be hard. Worked out pretty good, and my neck ache was immediately gone. I'm sorry to say that this is the best advice I've got as a help from this job. That and, per this task, anyway, If it works, don't fix it! Up in that corner under the dash is a place you don't want to be. Thanks everybody for your advice and help. Sometimes just the moral support is enough to keep me from throwing down my tools and walking away from the old bomb.
