Heat/cool fan speed switch loose

[Jonathan]

Question on the fan speed switch:

How is the switch supposed to be secured in place exactly? Mine has become loose for some reason and I'm not sure why.

It all works fine, but it has a lot of extra movement possible going in and out of the plane of the face plate. Same switch I have always had as well as the white square spacer thing that clips in with it against the surface of the radio bracket. The problem does not appear to be internal to the switch or stem coming out of it or the dial knob stuck on the end, as the whole assembly can move in and out of the radio bracket for some reason way too easily.

I don't know if this is exactly when it started to be loose, but I replaced my Craig radio with a DIN one and at that time put in the Houston DIN bracket. I don't see any extra trim or padding I forgot to swap over to the new one but it's just not near as snug as it was.

There seems to be a metal clip on the top side of the switch which looks like it would be something that has almost like a "V" slot in it which once you get it pushed in past the lip of the metal bracket edge, it would sit nicely in this recess. That doesn't happen though so I'm wondering if I am missing something or whether it's an item that just stopped "springing back" if you know what I mean.

Did the bottom of the switch have another clip of some kind or perhaps a piece of plastic that snapped off without me knowing it?

[DMCMW Dave]

Question on the fan speed switch:

How is the switch supposed to be secured in place exactly? Mine has become loose for some reason and I'm not sure why.

It all works fine, but it has a lot of extra movement possible going in and out of the plane of the face plate. Same switch I have always had as well as the white square spacer thing that clips in with it against the surface of the radio bracket. The problem does not appear to be internal to the switch or stem coming out of it or the dial knob stuck on the end, as the whole assembly can move in and out of the radio bracket for some reason way too easily.

I don't know if this is exactly when it started to be loose, but I replaced my Craig radio with a DIN one and at that time put in the Houston DIN bracket. I don't see any extra trim or padding I forgot to swap over to the new one but it's just not near as snug as it was.

There seems to be a metal clip on the top side of the switch which looks like it would be something that has almost like a "V" slot in it which once you get it pushed in past the lip of the metal bracket edge, it would sit nicely in this recess. That doesn't happen though so I'm wondering if I am missing something or whether it's an item that just stopped "springing back" if you know what I mean.

Did the bottom of the switch have another clip of some kind or perhaps a piece of plastic that snapped off without me knowing it?

Factory had the same problem. There is typically a tiny piece of rubber hose (like for the wiper arm) under the metal clip to make it spring back tighter.

[Bitsyncmaster]

Must be a common problem. My car it was epoxy glued in the bracket by a PO. I removed the spacer (required with my LED board) and used RTV to "glue" it back in. The spacer makes the knob stick out to far.

[Jonathan]

Ok, got it. Good to know about the little rubber hose idea. I'd imagine that could easily have been one of the things that got cleaned out when I had everything apart. Like with the dead bugs, crumbs, 1981 pennies and other odd items. Sounds pretty straight forward to try and get one pressed back into it. Or also the RTV idea might not be all that bad either. Or some 3M double sided tape.

[Bitsyncmaster]

RTV makes a good removable glue but it takes a long time to set up. It sets best with 50% humidity in the air.

[Jonathan]

Good point Dave. Getting the climate conditions in the right range is important for a lot of this stuff.

It's not exactly tropical in my garage at the moment and there are a number of jobs I'm waiting on until the temperature comes up to at least 60 or more. The main one is the resealing of the top section of my windshield and underneath that top piece of metal trim. Not to mention when that trim comes off it is getting a paint job and that needs a warmer place to work too.