Rover SD1 Window Switch Cleaning

My knee is healing reasonably quickly, thankfully, so I decided now would be a good time to ease myself back into working on the Rover.

Its been a long as two weeks, not being able to do anything other than sit with my leg in a brace. It’s also been a real shame having to neglect the cars for this long.

The good news is that I finally have the last piece to the puzzle to getting the Rover running again, the EFI hose clamps. I originally purchased 30 of them off eBay, but a month later they are still “in transit” and I’m sick of it. I’ll be applying for a refund when the delivery timeframe expires tomorrow. I ended up using my trade discount through work to get 30 clamps from a local parts supplier. Sure, it cost twice as much as the eBay ones, but I could have done the job a month ago if I had just done this in the first place. Live and learn.

The reason I was waiting on these clamps is that someone has used incorrect worm drive clamps on the hoses currently, and they are damaging the hose. EFI clamps are designed to spread the clamping force and not bite into the hose.

EFI clamp on the left, worm/jubilee clamp on the right

And this is how they clamp.

In the meantime, I decided since the door card for the rear right door is still off (I was waiting on new door handle gaskets which arrived the day after I maimed myself) that I would take the window switch out and give it a quick once-over. The switches are known to have some intermittent issues over time, as the switch ages and wears out. In my case it worked OK, but since i’m there, I might as well do it.

Removing the switch from the door card was easy enough, just squeeze the two tabs (one top and bottom) and it pushes out the front.

Popping the front cover off was also easy. I used a small flat head screwdriver to pop the tabs on each side and gently slide the front cover off. Be careful, if your switch isn’t holding together well there is a spring in there that might ping off into the black-hole that eats springs, screws and small ball bearings.

Mine was intact and actually in decent shape. I guess the rear windows got little use (as shown by the seized regulator). There was clear signs of corrosion and oxidisation in there though. The grease had also turned into a gritty, sticky goop.

A quick clean with Contact Cleaner, a small wire brush, and a scraper got all the contacts cleaned up and looking good. I then applied some dielectric grease on the contact points where I removed the old grease from, and popped it back together. Done.

All the window switches will get this treatment as I go around the car taking the door cards off (to lubricate the window runners, replace speakers and fit new handle gaskets).

My lovely better half helped clean the cars (or more like, I kinda pointed the hose at places and told her she was doing it wrong 🙃), and I gave the super bloody dirty wheels a quick spray with Dragons Breath. They came up a lot better, but still far from clean. Doesnt help I couldn’t crouch and give them a scrub.

The hydrophobic wash that we used works well, and although the car is in dire need of a wax, it still managed to get some beading on it after washing. beforehand it didn’t bead at all.

Before and after (Yes, the whole panel is wet in the first picture….)

It will get a full machine polish and wax when I can, and will hopefully make it look a bit tidier.