1962 Starfire Heater Harness

[Guest dstaton]

Starfire Mafia,

Are these two connections merely extra? I've sussed all the other connections, including A/C, thanks to StarfireElvis' information.

Length-wise, they seem to fall inside the cockpit near the foramen of the firewall.

Thanks if anyone remembers what,

Doug

[Oldsfan]

Look at the box labelled "Heater Resistor." See the blue and black wires where it says "Defr. Sw."? THAT'S where your two wires go. The problem is, the defroster switch isn't in with the heater blower resistor. The defroster switch is on top of the heater box, behind the glove box. When you apply vacuum for the defroster, it closes the outlets on both sides of the heater box. Doing so also closes the defroster switch, bypassing the 2nd part of the resistor. This gives a stonger stream of air at the defroster outlets at the base of the windshield. This actually gives 4 blower speeds - low heater, low defrost, high heater and high defrost.

Paul

[Guest dstaton]

Thank you, Paul.

I drove her to work last week. Such fun!

[Guest dstaton]

Starfire Mafia,

Ok, so I replaced the HVAC and dash today, having rebuilt both the A/C switch and the heater switch, trusting that with good wiring and good switches the system would work.

Instead, the A/C switch seems to be working perfectly (although without a charge, I wouldn't know). The first two buttons, off, and open vent, work, and the next two drive air through the kick panel exchanger (evaporator) and blow detritus around on my new carpet.

But the heat switch disappointments. The low/high switch does nothing. The voltmeter shows 12.25 when the heater button switch is off. It reads 12.20 when any of the 3 other buttons are depressed. The Direct, Indirect, and Defrost each correctly (and delightfully) rotate the deflector bobbins as they should.

The harness is correct and has integrity. The connections are correct. I think I have a couple dashpot failures in the A/C module (popping, failure noises when vacuum is applied...), but I know the heater manifold ones are good. When I started pulling wires from the heater distributor, assuming a shorted component, nothing changed on the voltmeter. But the resistor connections (Black Blue Green, see photo) were noticeably hot to the touch, though not so much as to burn the fingers, when I pulled wires one by one to check for shorts.

Also, I heard a very slight tick from the blower motor when the heater was calling, but no blowing... Big blow when the A/C was calling.

How can the blower work for the A/C switch and not the heater switch? Could bad electrical components on the heater distributor short the entire system, stopping the blower? Why does the heater switch, which I know works vacuum-wise, not blow?

Cruisin anyway,

Doug

[rocketraider]

I think I'm right that 62 still used separate controls for AC-vent and heat-defrost.

Each control head has a master switch on it to start the blower. I suspect the one on the heat control is bad. If it's like 64-66 it's a weird-looking critter that looks like a a half-moon spring with a pair of contact points. It's on the back side of the head and if you still have it out, you should be able to push the buttons and observe what those linkages, latches and rotary switch are doing.

[Guest dstaton]

Thanks, Glenn,

I rebuilt the vacuum, noted the proper operation of the mechanical electrical, but neglected to freshen those points... I'll give that a try.

Doug

[Guest dstaton]

The switch is faulty.

There is one on eBay. I think I'll fix mine instead...

Thanks for the help folks!

Doug