Early Z Parts Design

I was working on the comboi light switch from VIN #1818, 02/70, and noted a couple of weak design issues that were later eliminated. The first is the method of indexing the main plastic barrel to the frame with a small tab on the barrel that fits into a small recess on the frame.

The plastic tab was long gone on this car and the PO had substituted a tiny piece of wire and a cut off straight pin, both jammed into the plastic to provide the index.

I located suitable donor material in the form of a long dead BIC lighter, cut a piece from the body and notched the barrel to receive the transplant.

The transplant was glued into place and then trimmed to fit the frame recess.

All later model switches I have worked on reversed this design to provide a raised boss on the frame to fit into a notch on the plastic barrel.

The second design item I found is the use of a jumper wire to route power from the light switch over to the wiper switch, later replaced with a dedicated power wire in the wiring harness.