In the original Putco/BD headlight harness,the section between white connector and(original)ring terminals that attached to battery were fuselinks-the entire section.It looks like ring terminals have been cut off. If that section of harness is as it came new,the section from where it attaches to battery to the white connector is a pair of fuselinks.. I never use that section,cut it behind white connector-harness side and solder in a pair of weatherproof fuseholders.

 

 

I finally gave in and bought the new switch. Turns out if you file off the gold plating on the leaf switches, it basically turns your switch to garbage. To clean them use a "crisp dollar bill" instead of sand paper. Still no relay but with the new switch [$130] the headlights work great now.

 

Interesting. I just did the same thing and may have thought twice had I read your post beforehand.

I did some reading on restoring old arcade joysticks etc which use leaf switches and they do say not to use abrasive paper to clean gold plated contacts. However, these are switches that are very precise and require low voltage and low current. Conversely, the RX-7 headlight switch contacts are probably carrying as much as 10-20A through a small contact.

Your opening post said you used "high grit sandpaper". I used 1200 grit very lightly and then tested for continuity and resistance after the rebuild and it tested much better than beforehand.

Visually the original contacts looked like toast and had actually melted in spots so the contact surface area was very small. This was from a working switch as well. I fail to see how removing a small amount of material could make it worse than what it was.

I can however see how removing too much material or reassembling incorrectly could result in there being insufficient contact between the leaf switch contacts. I also guess that over time the contacts might corrode but I figured that process was already well underway on my switch at least. I will consider putting in some kind of appropriate grease to prevent corrosion. Implementing relays would also assist in this regard.

I know from window switches that the very fine emery paper works to restore them and they stay in great service for years (especially when doing so with the relay mod).

I'd be keen to know whether anyone else restoring the headlight switch contacts has experienced the same issue?

 

Yeah, we have ALL tried to clean the contacts on the factory switches, and that's why this thread is about replacing the stock system with the pre-wired relay harness. At this point in these cars ages, those of us still driving them have moved to long-term fixes with minimal routine maintenance, because the more often you have to clean those contacts, the more likely you are to break something else that is NLA from Mazda (column plastics, etc.).

 

Thanks very much. Yes I was always intending to include relays for the low and high beam headlight circuits anyway (although I will be creating something custom wired rather than one of the pre-fabricated harnesses since all my wiring is going through a Bussman power distribution block).

I guess the question is really about the extent to which the switch contacts require further regular servicing once the relays are installed if you ever already polished the contacts past the plated coating. As you correctly point out, constantly removing and installing the switch only increases the chances of breaking something else!