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Is there an easy way to clean the dash light control on my '53 GMC (OE)?

GMC53,

I am not familiar with this light switch. A conventional wire wound rheostat has the wire embedded in a ceramic housing and a shaft of some sort with a wiper attached. The surface between wiper and wound wire becomes scaled and cruddy. Sometimes the heat generated by the wire itself will destroy the tension in the spring that holds the wiper against the wire.

Cleaning the mating surfaces with some fine sandpaper can often restore the connection. Put a little piece of 320 grit paper under the wiper and run it through the range a few times. Make sure the wiper pushes against the wire.

If this isn't how your switch is constructed, disregard this blurb.

Stuart

Thanks Stuart, that was just the info I was looking for.
Craig

Maybe a spray electrical cleaner would work better??

I've used a pencil eraser to clean the wire part of the rheostat. Just rub it a few time until the wire shines, the eraser usually turns black from all the oxidation it removed.

I've been to a vintage audio site, and the resto guys there use a metal contact deoxidizer called DEOXIT or DeOxIt or Deoxit. I believe Radio Shack carries it. I've never used it, but the posts say that to remove the oxidation from the contact surfaces you spray a very little cleaner on the reostat and wiper then rub them against each other as they would in normal operation for a few dozen or more times.
It seems like it would be better than harsh mechanical removal.

Retread,

I agree with you. My only thought would be that the pots in a radio would be very fine wire wound devices while the rheostat in a automotive dimmer switch or heater fan control switch would be big old coarse wound fatties that get red hot and crusty. The item you mentioned along with the contact cleaner Gazim spoke of would certainly be something worth trying though.

Stuart

This is gonna sound bogus, but I have used it and there are hundreds of oldtime radio restorers that use it to clean noisy wirewound pots. WD-40. There really isn't much lubrication in WD-40 just spray some on a surface and look at it the next day, it will have evaporated.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

I used electronic contact cleaner on mine. By the way the pots in the radio use a metal wiper on carbon.

4/0 steel wool and truckermix's idea elect. contact cleaner