I am tired of re do's. especially when it is due to crap parts. today it was the headlite switch on my 96 Dakota. they worked fine yesterday morning on way to work (at least the dims did) and I usually get home w/o needing them.
For about a week or so when I had my lights on high I'd get about halfway to work (I take alot of back roads, so I run my brights alot) and my lights would die. but if I went to dims for a few miles (and I assume, let that apart of the switch cool) I could switch back to brights and get the rest of the way there with brights, if I want to. and this truck's lights have not been all that great in the 4 years/60+K miles it has been mine, anyway. (brightness, etc-- topic for later) I have replaced that switch once previously.
I dont remember the brand I used the 1st time. but this time I went to NAPA and asked for their "best" brand option. I got an "echlin" and even so the box was marked "made in Taiwan" Not happy about that. and it had a plastic ring on it about half the diameter of the original ceramic rheostat ring. I partly blame that, for its not lasting as long as the original did. I've looked at "STANDARD" brand online and they look just like my new Echlin switch. Identical. Cheap plastic ring.
Id like to know which company is making electrical parts and selling to everyone else to rebox as their own.
What I am wanting is knowledge of an "new but old" parts warehouse where someone has brand new parts made 30+ years ago collecting dust. From a brand of the day, a Sorensen (before they became "GP" Sorensen) or Niehoff or original Blue Streak, Filko, something like that. Even "old" Wells, from back when even Kmart had a decent assortment of auto parts (I'm talking back in the 80s and before. Over the summer I went on an Ebay "buying spree" and bought up a bunch of such "old but new" Mopar regulators, 4 pin ECUs and such just to have. It aint just today's new version of the "orange box" ignition that aren't what they used to be. Wells used to be considered a "cheap" brand but "cheap" parts of the 80s and prior is still better than todays (so called) "best".
I do not want to have to replace that headlite switch on my Dakota, "again". But it will be with me til it rots out bad enough for the frame to fold up, overall it has been that good to me. I aint gettin rid of it. been a much better truck than my 99 has been.... as were the rest of my square body Dakotas. but with teh way things are in teh 2020s I am sure that I have not replaced that switch on this truck, for the last time. My son had a 92 W250 (3/4 ton 4wd) Cummins truck. I wish he still did. but on that truck too, he went thru IDK how many headlite switches. ("Too many") and he finally pirated one from a truck in the junkyard, never had issue with a headlite switch again.
Im finding that more + more I have no worse service life from junkyard sourced parts than from parts bought in today's auto parts stores. Something aint right about that. Do all the bean counters think that we dont keep vehicles very long? Do they think we like changing the same part multiple times over the years? (besides filters and tune up parts which is expected, but required more often these days because of the quality not being what it once was...... I have an 80 Volare, an 85 D150, and a 78 Fury 2 door. I drive the truck and the Fury when weather allows, and fully plan to drive the wheels off the volare too, once bodywork is done and it is back on the road.
For about a week or so when I had my lights on high I'd get about halfway to work (I take alot of back roads, so I run my brights alot) and my lights would die. but if I went to dims for a few miles (and I assume, let that apart of the switch cool) I could switch back to brights and get the rest of the way there with brights, if I want to. and this truck's lights have not been all that great in the 4 years/60+K miles it has been mine, anyway. (brightness, etc-- topic for later) I have replaced that switch once previously.
I dont remember the brand I used the 1st time. but this time I went to NAPA and asked for their "best" brand option. I got an "echlin" and even so the box was marked "made in Taiwan" Not happy about that. and it had a plastic ring on it about half the diameter of the original ceramic rheostat ring. I partly blame that, for its not lasting as long as the original did. I've looked at "STANDARD" brand online and they look just like my new Echlin switch. Identical. Cheap plastic ring.
Id like to know which company is making electrical parts and selling to everyone else to rebox as their own.
What I am wanting is knowledge of an "new but old" parts warehouse where someone has brand new parts made 30+ years ago collecting dust. From a brand of the day, a Sorensen (before they became "GP" Sorensen) or Niehoff or original Blue Streak, Filko, something like that. Even "old" Wells, from back when even Kmart had a decent assortment of auto parts (I'm talking back in the 80s and before. Over the summer I went on an Ebay "buying spree" and bought up a bunch of such "old but new" Mopar regulators, 4 pin ECUs and such just to have. It aint just today's new version of the "orange box" ignition that aren't what they used to be. Wells used to be considered a "cheap" brand but "cheap" parts of the 80s and prior is still better than todays (so called) "best".
I do not want to have to replace that headlite switch on my Dakota, "again". But it will be with me til it rots out bad enough for the frame to fold up, overall it has been that good to me. I aint gettin rid of it. been a much better truck than my 99 has been.... as were the rest of my square body Dakotas. but with teh way things are in teh 2020s I am sure that I have not replaced that switch on this truck, for the last time. My son had a 92 W250 (3/4 ton 4wd) Cummins truck. I wish he still did. but on that truck too, he went thru IDK how many headlite switches. ("Too many") and he finally pirated one from a truck in the junkyard, never had issue with a headlite switch again.
Im finding that more + more I have no worse service life from junkyard sourced parts than from parts bought in today's auto parts stores. Something aint right about that. Do all the bean counters think that we dont keep vehicles very long? Do they think we like changing the same part multiple times over the years? (besides filters and tune up parts which is expected, but required more often these days because of the quality not being what it once was...... I have an 80 Volare, an 85 D150, and a 78 Fury 2 door. I drive the truck and the Fury when weather allows, and fully plan to drive the wheels off the volare too, once bodywork is done and it is back on the road.