I have 1951 Buick Defrost/Blower switch that appears to be broken. While chasing electrical gremlins I found this! Can anyone confirm that there should be a second terminal on this switch? looking at the manual I think it should. Can it be repaired? Does anyone know where I can find a replacement? If I provide alternate power to the motor it works great. Heater switch and motor works as well. Thanks!
I have a wiring diagram for a 1951 Buick series 40. It shows heater and defroster as having separate blowers with separate switches. Each switch has 2 terminals, power in and power out to the blower motor. The blowers ground through the body. As to whether it can be repaired is the broken off part still there, possibly hanging by a loose wire under the dash? It might be possible to fix it with JB Weld.
Piece is not there. I figured it had a second terminal. Thanks for confirming what I feared. What I am not sure of though is whether or not the terminal should be located where the cracked part of the switch occurs. If you look closely at the one picture that has my entire (actual thumbnail) you will see a small perfect hole. It is actually threaded. Could this be where the terminal goes instead? Or is the missing terminal identical to the one that is still on the switch and should be where the crack occurs? I'd love to see an intact defroster switch.
The heater switch has three steps. Off, low, and high speed. The defrost switch has one speed. I am not sure how to tell for certain if they are rheostat or not. I have not looked closely at the heater switch but the defrost blower switch does not look like my headlight switch which I know is rheostat type.
Off, low and high speed usually meant 3 wires (2 to the motor) but my diagram shows only one. How many wires on the switch? I'm not sure what the problem is. Have you tried getting a replacement switch?
My diagram shows a 14BW wire from the fuse block to the blower switch and another 16 BW wire from the switch to the motor. There is also a wire that comes off the same terminal as the 14BW to the heater switch. What I am trying to figure out is whether or not the terminal is actually missing or not. If the tiny hole near my thumb nail that is threaded is actually where the missing terminal goes then thats easy to repair. If it goes where the cracked part resides then I'm not sure I can repair it. Johnny Gee may have the answer though. How'd you find that so fast? Looks a bit different though.
I entered make year model and part, the search engine did the rest. I can't really say why it looks different other than 66 years makes for a lot of history. Maybe your's has been replaced before ? By the way. Your 14BW wire doesn't sound like it's wrong per Rusty O' Toole post #2.
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