Looking for some help. I have recently purchased a 1958 Chevy Biscayne and the blower motor switch was missing. I have been looking for a replacement switch and am finding them but, there appears to be a caviot to them in 58. There is a regular switch and then a switch with an integrated blower resistor. The regular switch is pretty easy to find the other one not so much. So my question is does anyone know how to tell which switch I am in need of? Thank you in advance for your help on this!
My wild guess, without having the shop manual handy, is that you need to see if there is an external resistor somewhere in the system. My second wild guess is that it would be used only on cars with factory in dash AC. but these are wild guesses.... and this is what an external resistor looks like., it would be attached to a duct or housing somewhere, with wires connected to it. If you have an external resistor, you don't need a resistor on the switch. If you don't have an external resistor, you need one on the switch.
As installed, the actual resistor coils probably won't be visible to you. Look for the terminals, something like what's shown in the image Squirrel posted above. The "business side" of the resistor is usually tucked into the heater case and likely near the blower motor and fan. Could be in the top, bottom or side of the heater case and possibly under the hood or maybe under the dash. And it's always fun working under the dash on this kind of stuff.
Thank you gentlemen for the advise, I will crawl around here the next couple of days and see what I can find and report back.
Also, look at the wiring that connects to the switch, if it's still there. If there are 4 wires, it uses an external resistor. If there are only two wires, it uses an integrated resistor.
So I was able to crawl around and it looks like 2 wire and I dont see the resistor. Even worse I can't find a switch for it. Any ideas?